10,000 Foot Developer

When I had first started hearing about Agile practices, although they weren’t named that (usually XP) over 10 years ago there were some things that were scary, and some things that were cool.  Pairing seemed scary and I wondered how long it would be until misapplication of that occurred.  But the planning for a reasonable within limits set of features to deliver to maintain life balance and productivity made me say: FINALLY!!!  It was an XP valued attribute.

For instance, we know that if a football player had to participate in 3 games a week pretty soon there would be no football players.  Development is mentally tiring — it has its limits.  Creativity has no bounds in engineering — time off can equal a solution.  Its just how we work and no amount of  forcing the issue will change that.

For a while it seemed that this would be the case — work hard for 40 hours, have time off — plan it all and you are golden.  After doing RUP and etc. and just being in tech we knew there was a rollercoaster of hours, but maybe Agile could help make those hour mountains (like 16  hour days) turn into manageable hills.

Something changed though.   This idea of craftmanship; which in addition to a good developer also entails that the said developer is completely dedicated and working, of their own volition, tons and tons of hours because they LOVE to do it.  Companies are looking for people who not only put in a work week, they put in a work weekend, nights (those people who email at 2 am CHECKED IT IN!!!) and walk on water with their blogs and projects etc.    Like the cow in Hitch hiker’s guide: it wanted to be eaten.

I can’t remember the guy who first said it in an IT context, but he quoted an advertisement for the pony express that went something like “Young men, preferably orphans, wanted.”  Wow.  I am hearing that all over now.  And I am calling out this misuse of the word “craftsman.”  The arts and crafts movement was a movement against this very thing.  Just read Morris and Ruskin, the founders of the movement almost 150 years ago.   One of the big pieces of the movement was to allow a worker to create the entire piece . . .  as modern Agile addressed this or used this?

No, not really.  Just take a simple application in an Agile management tool.  The parts are broken down over and over — a developer may never see a single outcome of their work.   So the satisfaction goes away.  So, the so-called craftsman will never really like to do what they are doing having lost autonomy over what they are doing to the higher ups.  And, of course, life balance is lost.

So here is my statement:  everyone is different, and people are craftsman at different levels.  If a company requires this modern Agile assembly line environment they very simply should not try to hire the people that are fanatical craftsman; its a lose-lose for both sides.  The company won’t let the craftsman work in the manner the person wants, ensuing in the unhappiness and less productivity of that person.

All places can still benefit from the ideas of modern building methodologies but they have to be kept in perspective.  Life balance is just another way of saying that people get tired, and need time off to work well.   Let’s not ignore the realities of physiology to accommodate some sort of strange twist on a good idea.