Comment by at-fates-hands | Hacker News Reader

Comment by at-fates-hands | Hacker News Reader

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>>> and hoping that "good people" just somehow summon good software into being is comically naive

You have no idea how true this statement is. I was on a small project about a year ago, using Agile. Both mangers and a director quit within weeks. Our team basically became self sustaining. No PM's, no managers. Our team had no oversight and no captain to steer the ship. We were left to finish the project ourselves.

We had a team of 5 developers. We sat at lunch one day, bound and determined to show management we could do this without all the daily standups, agile tracking, burn down rates and stupid PM oversight.

I wanted to quit inside of two weeks. 3 developers were advocating a total rewrite and a pivot to a different stack. Myself and another developer just wanted to finish the app and get it shipped. Egos, a tight timeline and several rash decisions doomed us. Instead of showing management we could do this ourselves, it became blatantly obvious this project would not get completed without a ton of oversight and guidance from an experienced project manager.

It's all rainbows and unicorns when you think about it. "Just get some good developers together and they can get it done!" sounds so romantic, but in reality, it always ends up in a total shit show, as I experienced first hand. It was a tough lesson to learn that management actually do have a job to do and they understand a lot of stuff developers never have to worry about.

3 developers were advocating a total rewrite and a pivot to a different stack.

Those were not good developers; ie, there are some skills they were clearly lacking.

I've lived through the opposite situation as you: management left the company, and we continued to release for the next few months without any management at all.

The key, I think, was that the managers had pushed the decision making down. Everyone took turns being scrum master......so when the next sprint came, we elected a new scrum master and carried on.

Fred Brooks pointed out that with a group of competent programmers, any development methodology can work. The best development methodologies help programmers become self-sufficient (teaching them the skills if they don't have them), instead of trying to micro-manage.

> Those were not good developers

Nailed it.

> Those were not good developers; ie, there are some skills they were clearly lacking.

Ok, fine... I'll be that guy: No True Scotsman. If you define "good developers" as developers that can successfully create software without management, then yes a group of "good developers" can successfully create software without management.

When developers are trying to do Things You Should Never Do Part 1 ( http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html ), then it's fair to say that they are lacking some skills. I don't think you should call that a 'no true Scotswoman'

That's fair. I think the vague approach of "they were clearly lacking skills" was what triggered my response. In this case, there's a justifiable position there. But a lot of details could have changed, and that vague statement could still be blanket applied.

That's fair. I think the vague approach of "they were clearly lacking skills" was what triggered my response.

Understandable. My comment was already getting to long, and I didn't have space to explain every detail.

BTW, if you feel members on your development team aren't capable of self-managing, this book is really good to help you develop those skills: http://www.amazon.com/Clean-Coder-Conduct-Professional-Progr...

Self-management is something every programmer should have in their skill-set.

Surprisingly, never heard of that book. I'll definitely be taking a look, thanks.

Here's another good book I recommend while we're at it: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0996193308

(disclaimer: I wrote it :)

A "no true scotsman" argument would define good developers as developers who "don’t need velocity, daily stand ups, points estimations, spikes, scrum masters to deliver high quality software".

A different standard, such as not engaging in rash rewrites that disqualifies someone from the "good developer" category, would keep this from becoming a "no true scotsman" argument.

You didn't go through the opposite situation - the parent talks about shedding the Agile process and going for new ad-hoc methodology. You talk about simply electing a new scrum master, continuing business-as-usual.

You're actually supporting the GP's point, in that you had a good result due to maintaining good practices; 'good people' do not automatically make good software regardless of practice.

>You're actually supporting the GP's point,

Part of the GGP's point was that management has a role to play, and that they know things developers don't. That is the conclusion I was responding to.

You are right too, of course, we still had a process.

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