Agile Otter Blog

The Whole Idea Is A Little Insulting Scholtes' /The Leader's Handbook/ says that motivation through reward is insulting -- it assumes that you have been withholding effort all this time, waiting for someone to offer you an incentive to actually do your work. Hadn't really thought much about it before. But yes, it does assume you have effort on tap that you're not applying to your work. And yes, it is a little insulting. And yes, you could intentionally hold back until offered another bribe (but just enough not to be punished). Everyone wants a little more money, but P. Scholtes notes that it's out of alignment with the idea of humanitarian management who realize that the employees are their greatest asset. Not Only That, But It Doesn't Work Likewise, Daniel Pink reports that rewards for knowledge workers tend to have the opposite effect of that intended. It might not be a good idea for programmers and managers in non-manual-labor fields. Pink...

My friend and colleague Curtis Cooley recently blogged " You Might Have Too Many Developers ." Overall, I agree that smaller teams move more quickly and swarm more effectively on task than large ones seem to, and that there is definite overhead with large groups. You already know some developers are more effective than others.   What if you could find 1000 within the 2000 that collectively are twice as effective as the other 1000? Joel Spolsky has claimed the best programmers can be as much as 10 times more effective than the worst programmers. The argument continues describing how many developers are much better than others, and are better in a smaller group than they can be when they are encumbered by less competent programmers. I also agree that smaller teams of more expert programmers make sense on many levels and represent a savings in frustration, cost, and time.   As Red Adair would say : "If you think it's expensive to hire a professional ...

I managed to set off a small avalanche of retweets, agreement, and absolute angst in the past few weeks, when something I'd said sometime last year appeared as a quote in a lovely frame (thank you so much Agile Fortune!). Here is the image for your enjoyment: It seems that maybe I've touched on something that people are thinking about, and possibly on a point of contention in many organizations.  Most traditional management has a focus on resource loading and utilization. What we are learning about people who do knowledge work (for instance, software development) is that utilization of resources is exactly the wrong idea.  Let's explore what I had in mind when I wrote the tweet: What is a Team, Anyway? For now, let's put the whole "agile" thing aside entirely. It doesn't matter if you're agile or not. I can pick that back up in a few paragraphs. For now, concentrate on the concept of a team. To team (the verb) is "come to...