The Tipping Point

"You can push that car just a little too far any Sunday afternoon. And if you break your neck in some damnfool wreck, they forget about you soon." --Charlie Daniels, "Stroker Ace"

I generally prefer to work at small to midsize companies. The reasoning is fairly simple, too. I like flexibility. Not a complete lack of defined policies, mind you. Policies are important. They give companies a road map for, if not efficiency, then at least predictable inefficiency. But smaller companies tend to have the flexibility to know when you need to stray off the beaten path. Large companies do not. And there's a certain logic behind that. The more you do, the more you rely on that predictability. Policies have saved my neck a time or two. Being able to say "I can't start this effort because our policies have not been followed" has forced projects to refine requirements and has gone a long way to prevent train wrecks. But there's a flip side, too.

At larger companies, it's harder to change policies that either no longer fit, or need refinement from the original draft in order to produce the intended result. There's also more risk in proposing new policies, I think. There generally tend to be more people that need convincing, which tends to mean more people that don't want to "Change what has been working for us". It often comes to a point where it's easier to just live with the inefficiency than try to change it. Or worse, at least in some ways, ignore policy and try not to get caught.

Okay. So far, I haven't told anyone something they don't know. This is one of the factors that need to be weighed when deciding whether or not to accept an offer or to leave a company. It's, hopefully, one of the factors you investigate when interviewing a company. As an aside, please note that I didn't say "interviewing with a company." You're as much deciding whether or not to offer them your services as they are offering you a position. Never forget, you're a contractor.

The point is, while working for smaller companies, I've noticed a reoccurring phenomenon, which I've started calling The Tipping Point. As smaller companies grow, they start to take on more work and start to do more. At this point, I have observed two results.

If the company does not at least have some policies guiding their work, the company tends to collapse. There comes a time when it's simply too late to gain control of source code, whether because nothing is in source control or there's no structure. When it's simply too late to implement good project policies because stakeholders aren't interested in becoming properly involved in projects and that disinterest is too entrenched to change. When projects are dangerous to deploy because no one knows what anyone else is doing. At this point, while the company may struggle on, it's no longer possible to fix the problems, and the only smart move is to leave.

The second result I've observed usually happens when there are a modicum of policies in place, and is usually hastened by bringing in An Expert. Perhaps a new CIO, perhaps a contractor. The buildup, again in my observations, tends to start slowly. No deploying projects without communicating with other groups. Nothing terrible there. Common sense, in fact. Issues, bugs, and defects need to be logged. Again- why would you not? And we need to get a sense of how much we're spending on projects, so we need people to log time spend on projects. Not my favorite activity, but I can't deny the importance.

But then things grow. Communicating deployments becomes getting signoff from other groups before deploying. The bug tracking system becomes a full-on change management system designed to integrate with every step of any process. Except yours, inevitably. Rather than turning in time tracking spreadsheets, either a web app gets build, or you're to use a built-in feature of the change management system.

Finally, comes the tipping point. I wish I could say this is an exaggeration, but in one case, I was entering time into an application that had a database lookup for projects, yet my projects never seemed to show up. I also had to email the same to my manager. The time tracker was in half hour increments, but my manager wanted 15-minute increments. Every change, even to dev environments, needed to be entered into five different systems (again- not exaggerating) and cleared in a bi-weekly Change Control Board meeting.

And all this doesn't even take into account well-documented problems when you mix in an Expert Scrum Consultant. I think I've made my opinions on the subject pretty clear, but it's pointless to deny what often happens when Scrum policies get blindly applied. And that's the problem- policies getting blindly applied. The "Monkey See Monkey Do" style of "Best Practices".

It's a rare gem when you find an organization with the self-discipline to recognize a policy that needs refining or simply removed. Or temporarily ignored on a non-precedential basis. A good set of policies are a balancing act. Too many and you get buried under their weight. Too few and you get buried under your own weight. That's The Tipping Point.

Dear Recruiters

Start with what is right rather than what is acceptable." --Franz Kafka

An open letter to recruiters. Mainly recruiters for software developers, but I suspect much of these are reasonable requests for all sectors.

1. Please stop saying "Leading provider of". Sure- you want to give the idea that your client is A Major Player. Fine. All good. But using rehashed buzzwords doesn't convey that idea. The phrase is like the paintings in a hotel room. If you even notice them, they have no real meaning. Instead, tell me why your client leads their industry. What have they accomplished? How do they lead? Is it through use of new technology? New innovations? Say something meaningful. Something that will have an impact.
2. Please stop telling me how many years your client has been in business. This may be useful information for clients, but potential employees aren't looking to retain their services. They're looking for a culture that fits. Generally, the amount of time a company has been in existence is irrelevant. Instead, talk about the culture. Not everyone wants to wear a suit and tie and interact with a rigid corporate structure. But not everyone wants to work in shorts and sandals, sitting on a bean bag, and walking into a Director's office for casual conversation. Laying this out will help find candidates that are a good fit for the company.
3. Proofread your communications. Twice. When I see "I think you'd be a good fit for [Job Description]", I delete the email. Same with blatant misspellings. Anymore, any text entry application comes with an automatic spell checker.
4. Read the resume. The most recent position is where your candidate has moved in his career and it's reasonable to think that that the position on purpose. If your contact is in a leadership, planning, or strategy position, it's probably a waste of time to offer direct development work. Your contact has moved on to something else and it's fair to assume that, barring unemployment, moving back isn't likely to happen.
5. Be specific. "Maintaining large applications" or "Excellent communication skills" doesn't tell me anything. Again, these are hotel room paintings. What I want is a good snapshot of my day-to-day activities. Does "Sr. Application Developer" mean "Application Developer with a lot of experience"? Does it mean "Responsible for the work of a development team"? If I don't know, I'm less likely to take a chance. And that's exactly what you're looking for. Someone who will take a chance on your job offering being better than the current one.
6. This is likely somewhat out of your control, but stop with the "X years of experience". While I realize that your client is telling you that, under the misapprehension that years of experience is an accurate measure of anything, you shouldn't have to tell that to candidates. If you can't tell from the resume how many years of experience the candidate has in the necessary technologies, then the resume has been badly written.
7. Same with this "Degree needed" or "Degree or relevant experience needed" silliness. Aside from this not being any measure of anything important, it's pointless to include in a communication to a specific candidate. If your candidate doesn't have the necessary degree, don't bother. Likewise with "Degree or relevant experience". If your candidate doesn't have either, they clearly aren't a good fit.

So, what's the bottom line here? Much like the fact that a good candidate needs to stand out in order to be seen as a good candidate, recruiters need to stand out in order to be seen as a good recruiter. You can't afford to be a carbon copy of everyone else. You can't just be hotel room art, and you can't hand over a vague description with ubiquitous buzzwords and expect to spark any interest. Instead, you need to capture the candidate's attention. You do this through clear and concise communication of what your client is looking for. You do this by standing out.

A thought to keep in mind. All the advice recruiters give to job seekers about how they present themselves through resumes and interviews? That should apply to your communications with candidates. Especially your first contact.

Agile Isn't Dead

"Best practices are useful reference points, but they must come with a warning label : The more you rely on external intelligence, the less you will value an internal idea." ― Gyan Nagpal, Talent Economics: The Fine Line Between Winning and Losing the Global War for Talent

Agile isn't dead. It's not even on life support. However, to extend an analogy that everyone in the world should stop using, it does have a couple of CAT scan anomalies it should get checked out.. I've read a few tech opinion pieces to the contrary lately, so I thought I'd throw my hat in the ring.

+Hayim Makabee wrote an excellent piece on the subject, but one that I feel missed the mark somewhat. Jim Bird wrote on a finer grained level on the subject, and if you take them together an interesting picture starts to emerge. Starting with Jim Bird's piece, he lists several "Agile" practices that aren't needed. Skipping by a few points on which I disagree, his overall point is sound. Not all common practices are necessary. Hayim Makabee takes this a step further, rightly pointing out how "Agile" or "Scrum" consultants "over-simplify the software development process and underestimate the real complexity of building software systems". And I'm not really arguing that this "one size fits all" approach is a problem. I believe that the problem's source hasn't quite come out yet.

In short, the problem is IT decision makers. Not Agile, which is just a set of principles. Not Agile consultants, who are just selling a service people have asked for. And while we can discuss the moral culpability of someone "just selling a service", the fact of the matter is that people are buying the service. And those people are IT decision makers in pursuit of a concept that has made me cringe for some time now. Best Practices. "Best practices" are like the Dark Side of the Force. Quick, simple, seductive, and once you walk down it's path, forever will it dominate your destiny. "Best Practice" is shorthand for "What everyone else is doing", and while it's the sort of thing one ought to take into account, I've seen enterprise after enterprise implement iron-clad procedures based solely on "Best Practices", or rather "Just do what the neighbors across the street are doing". And before too long, you have Citogenesis, that curious phenomena where people think something is correct because people think something is correct.

Agile is a set of principles, and as far as principles go, they're pretty darn good. Agile isn't dead because these principles are still the best way to create software. But it really needs that dark spot checked out.

Life is Agile

"It's not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters" --Epictetus

I'd like to pose a question to any parents reading this. When your child was born did you plan out every detail of your child's life? Did you attempt to account for every problem and develop a contingency plan before even leaving the hospital?  Do you parent in a vacuum, having no contact with other parents?

Similar question to those of you with active careers, be it in the job market or at home. Yes- being an at-home parent is a career. Did you plan out every step of your career before you began working? Do you work without interaction with others in your career? Did you plan for every problem to the most minute detail?

Of course not. To approach such a major endeavor in life is more like planning to fail. And this is why Agile is the only way to successfully complete a software development project of any consequential size. Because it mimics human behavior and human capabilities. At it's core, the Agile methodology is an admission that you can only do so much to plan for the future. It's a system built on the foundation of communication with others. It does not merely recommend regular and effective communication, it states that failing to do so will cause overall failure. It is built around doing what you need to now, while keeping an eye on the future. Similar to how you eat an elephant (one bite at a time), so do we manage our lives. Why should we assume that managing a development project should run so completely contrary to our fundamental behavior?

The converse is also true. It's been a very long time since I've had to defend Agile vs. Waterfall/BDUF. The reason appears very straightforward- the proof is in the doing. Agile has proven itself. It's not theoretically better, it simply is.

How, then, can we extrapolate this to our lives? Should you find yourself working at a company where you have no future, what do you do? Do you scrap the idea of working at your best capacity while you look for another job? Agile says differently in that a development team has the discipline to finish a development sprint, i.e. the work in front of them.

If you want something in your career, do you just keep working and hoping it happens? One of the foundations of Agile is communication. Do we keep grinding and hope, or do we approach others for advice? And then do we approach management and clearly communicate what we want?

Life is Agile is life. The lessons we learn from each can be applied to the other.