Monday, February 28, 2005

Crunch Mode is the Programmer's Peacock Feathers Having been crunched many times, i found this an interesting take on why crunch mode is counter productive (http://www.igda.org/articles/erobinson_crunch.php). A crunch mode that extends into a death march is as bad as it is common. It uses up and spits out people while not providing a good product. It's lose lose lose. Crunch mode is not always bad, it can be the best experience ever for a group and a product. For me crunch mode is just another word for having a clear focus and a common fixed set of priorities. Crunch mode is a prism for project focus. You can use a prism to scatter focus or bring the scatter back into one coherent laser beam of energy. A group of people working with a strong focus and the same priorities is an incredible force. Great things can happen in crunch mode. Most of the time we work with splattered focus and we get very little done. A good example is adding a complex feature across different groups. In normal mode each group will have to schedule their part of the feature. The schedules will never match up so the feature is pushed out or pushed in so everyone knows it won't happen according to plan. And of course everyone is working on eleventy-seven other features at the same time plus a continual stream of critical bug fixes. Plus you have status meetings, meeting meetings, and a 1000 other distractions. Most of the time you just give up on the feature saying its too risky or you have to scale it back into nothingness. Focus has been split into a thousand different colours. Crunch mode is a completely different experience. Everyone can be working on the same product and the same features at exactly the same time with no distractions and no reservations. This is an amazingly powerful and freeing situation. All the issues that made a change too risky go away. You can get everyone together, figure out what to do, and then make it work. And because that's everyone's priority it stands a good chance of actually getting done. You can say I can't go to useless meeting number 23 because I am working on this important widget. You can let email go. You can ignore calls. You can ignore status reports. All the equipment you need to test will be provided. All the IT support you need will be ready for you and will jump on any problem you have and fix it. If you need software it will be provided. If you need access to the best minds to work on a problem you will have access. In crunch mode you bring all the different colours of the spectrum into a single coherent ray of white light that punches a way through the normal gloom. Why can't it always work this way? Human nature. Organizational nature. The triumph of the everyday over the exceptional. And another force I have come to think critically important: crunch mode is the programmer's peacock feathers. For the male peacock their elaborate and colourful tail feathers serve only to attract females. The tail feathers are a way to distinguish themselves from other males. This is something humans want to do as well. How do you distinguish yourself in an organizational structure? It is very difficult. We don't have tail feathers. You would hope good code, productivity, and a helpful personality would distinguish you, but we all know that doesn't work because nobody sees it and very few people can appreciate good work. So what it is obvious and doesn't take skill to recognize? Staying late. That's what crunch mode provides: a no-brainer way for people to look good by staying late and appearing to work hard. Staying late is the programmer's version of tail feathers. It's really perfect. The highest manager who has no idea at all what you do or if you are any good at it can notice if you are staying late. They feel like people are working hard so stuff must be getting done. It works on your peers as well. You wouldn't think it would because your peers should know if you are actually accomplishing anything, but staying late still works. Well, it's not perfect, because staying late doesn't really have anything to do with success. Success is about focussing skilled people on a clear job with clear priorities and putting them in the best position to succeed. A healthy crunch mode can do exactly that. It's not about showing off your tail feathers. comment[] 9:49:52 AM

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