Comments on: How do we get business and IT to play on the same team? http://blog.ivarjacobson.com/how-do-we-get-business-and-it-to-play-on-the-same-team/ The Smart Blog Fri, 10 Feb 2012 13:21:01 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 By: Chris Gerrard http://blog.ivarjacobson.com/how-do-we-get-business-and-it-to-play-on-the-same-team/comment-page-1/#comment-340 Chris Gerrard Tue, 16 Mar 2010 20:23:39 +0000 http://blog.ivarjacobson.com/?p=209#comment-340 I quite like the analogy, and the extrapolations. Particularly the framing of software development as a commodity activity best undertaken by the lowest-cost factors of production. History clearly shows that saving money by using the lowest-cost developers simply lowers the cost of failure - an organization that has this view of development -will- fail, but it'll spend less money doing so. There's another facet that comes into play. The rewards and promotions tend to go to those who can promise shiny baubles and declare success in the face of failure. This character trait is fundamentally opposed to the nature of someone who is actually good at software development, which requires a dedicated pursuit of the good, useful, and valuable. Organizations that reward self-promoters over accomplished professionals, particularly those effective collaborators whose contributions magnify those of their colleagues, end up with team captains and coaches who drive the team towards the bottom. But, unlike real sports teams, there is no objective measure of success or failure - wins and losses - to assess the team's real effectiveness. I quite like the analogy, and the extrapolations. Particularly the framing of software development as a commodity activity best undertaken by the lowest-cost factors of production. History clearly shows that saving money by using the lowest-cost developers simply lowers the cost of failure – an organization that has this view of development -will- fail, but it’ll spend less money doing so.

There’s another facet that comes into play. The rewards and promotions tend to go to those who can promise shiny baubles and declare success in the face of failure. This character trait is fundamentally opposed to the nature of someone who is actually good at software development, which requires a dedicated pursuit of the good, useful, and valuable. Organizations that reward self-promoters over accomplished professionals, particularly those effective collaborators whose contributions magnify those of their colleagues, end up with team captains and coaches who drive the team towards the bottom. But, unlike real sports teams, there is no objective measure of success or failure – wins and losses – to assess the team’s real effectiveness.

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