Friday, May 29, 2009

Katie Reads: Peopleware and Bringing Back the Chaos

This is an occasional series in which I cover a small aspect of a book that currently has my attention. It's not intended as a review, but perhaps a morsel that might get people to read some of the great books out there right now.

Yesterday, I mentioned the corners of projects that collected poor code and lost docs like the underside of skirted couches gather dust bunnies and petrified Pop Tarts (also, baby bottles, one of which I once found when my son was four. Ewww...).

I had always thought that more control was the answer. We just had to read our tickets more. We needed checklists. We needed all sorts of tag-ups. We needed more managers and leads to poke us with sticks when we didn't read up, show up, and get up and go.

It was when i was considering how to get shock collars past our OSHA guy that I realized I may be approaching a line.

Peopleware, by Tom DeMarco, happily, had a solution that didn't require purchases that might be embarrassing should they end up on USA Today. The author recommends bringing back the chaos.

Chaos is not a bad thing. You just have to understand what Chaos is buying you.

Ooh, shiny!

Doing something new and novel excites the mind. When the brain sees something new, it really lights up. All sorts of centers talk to all sorts of other centers trying to figure out what is going on. If you have a bunch of developers who like this kind of stimulation, giving them a novel way to interact or organize can get them fired up a bit.

Tabula Rasa

We get crusty when we get used to a process. What a group needs sometimes is something new and fresh: a blank slate. There's nothing more depressing than using the same stained and tarnished wiki full of ideas half written down and efforts only partially started.

Cobwebs

Every project organization system has a different focus. Some focus on having, come hell or high water, a full test suite. Some focus on completeness of fulfilling the objectives. Some focus on organic growth of what the product is intended to do. Some focus on the user experience.

Look at where you keep slipping up, and switch to a system that works for your group.

The Dark Corners of the Soul

Sometimes, we don't just forget something. We ignore it. We call our users stupid for not being able to learn a simple admin interface, or eschew tests as a waste of time.

We are sometimes bad people.

Switching up allows us to take those dark corners of our souls where we have stored up all our snark and distaste and brighten them up. Maybe we'll learn that tests don't take up all that much time, or that maybe our users aren't so stupid (we're just terrible designers).

So how can you introduce Chaos?

Switch up the system

Test driven development. Scrum. Agile. Interface driven development. Hell, even Waterfall (useful if you hate your developers!). Switch it up a bit. Which system is going to help your group the most? Which have you never tried, but been curious about?

Start somewhere new

Do requests always get filtered through development first? Why not start with design? Or your interface expert? Give another group a chance to take the lead, and another group the chance to see what it's like to get requirements not hand-tailored for them.

Communication shifts

For one release, switch out face to face meetings with IrC. Or meet somewhere new. Try a new ticketing system. It's more than just getting a new wiki: it's about having something shiny and cool to play with when it comes time to work.

Chaos isn't something to be afraid of. Most of the world is made of chaos, and we seem to get along okay. As long as your group can harness it's power, rather than letting it run you, you can go a lot further than riding the back of entropy and 'proven methods.'

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