begin quoting Andrew Lentvorski as of Mon, Mar 05, 2007 at 01:51:30PM -0800: > Bob La Quey wrote: > >While I too like working with "good" people and am > >sympathetic to what you and Gregory are saying there > >is still a voice inside that says, "Anbody can get the > >job done with 'good' peiople. No challenge there. The > >whol eproblem is how to get the job done with people > >who are 'not so good' ." (how the hell do you punctuate that?) > > Again, why is it that software design is the *only* discipline which > expects to produce non-garbage results with garbage inputs? > > You don't expect below-average artists to draw or play above average due > to a "process".
Although I'm bang behind you on the general point, I actually think there *is* a process that allows below-average artists to draw "above average"... IIRC, "Grid Drawing" (although there's probably a technical word for it). > You don't expect below-average athletes to suddenly > beat their opponents due to a "paradigm shift". Sure we do. We call that "cheating". :) > You don't expect a > below-average cook to suddenly produce good food because he decided to > be "agile". This is perhaps one of the better analogies. Software programming is like producing a new dish; the average taco bell employee isn't the one devising new dishes, and in a top-of-the-line kitchen, I suspect the Chef *will* kick out anyone remotely incompetent or otherwise not up to their standards. > The problem is that managers want this to be true and never get held > accountable for when it fails. If an *entire* team from the VP down got > fired every time an IT project failed, IT failure would go away. > Suddenly, it would be *politically* important that somebody figure out > how to do things right. "Plan on throwing the first one away. You will, anyway." > >If all of our processes and theories are unable to help us > >do better with less then what good are they? Have we > >actually learned nothing? > > Doing better with less can also mean accomplishing the same work with > fewer but better people. For some reason I'm thinking of the fable of the farmer who eventually trained his donkey to work hard on less and less hay, until when he *finally* trains his donkey to work hard on no hay, the damn beast up and dies on him. -- Pay attention to diminishing returns. Stewart Stremler -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-lpsg
