Hi, Russell! Interesting question.
Others are discussing strategy, so I'l just throw in a little tactical
suggestion.
On Mon, 2004-10-25 at 06:52, Russell Gold wrote:
> I was mistaken. A recent comment
> from one of the more vocal members:
>
> > I don't think you get the performance/modularity/decrease in config that we
> > need by incrementally changing something. Refactoring without a clear
> > architectural goal is just polishing a turd.
> >
> > Remember, GIGO - polished, naturally.
There are two answers here. One is that he's wrong, and the other is
that he's right.
He's wrong in that he's making the same mistake the creationists make.
As long as the changes you're making happen to average slightly
positive, then no matter how small the increments, they eventually add
up to something amazing. He's right in that it's better if you're all
pulling in the same direction; you'll get there faster.
When trying to get somebody to stop resisting change, I generally lead
with the "you're right" part, and try to leave him to discover the
"you're wrong" part on his own, or with hints later on. For example,
with this guy, I might respond with something like,
Well, you're absolutely right that if we're playing tug-of-war
while refactoring, we'll never get anywhere. We should certainly
have a shared vision of where we want to take the system, our
notion of what we would do if we could start over from scratch.
You mentioned performance, modularity, and decrease in config;
what are the top architectural changes that you'd want to get
there?
At this point, if he actually cares about the architecture, you'll be
able to get some specific suggestions, probably big ones. Take the one
the team jointly likes best and say, "Ok, let's get started on this! Of
course, we can't fix it all right now, but let's spend the afternoon
moving in that direction by doing tasks X, Y, and Z." That'll give us
some data on which to estimate the rest of this.
If it's his very own suggestion as a top priority, it will be hard for
him to argue that you shouldn't work on it. At worst, I'd expect him to
say that occasional afternoons here and there aren't enough, that what
you should really do is burn the thing down and start over. If so, you
can let him go make his case to the execs for the necessary time; if he
fails, he'll probably be in a better mood to listen to an incrementalist
approach.
Either way, once he's had the experience of making some incremental
improvements, it'll be easier for him to see that it can work.
I hope that helps! Please keep us posted on how it turns out.
William
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