Making Good Software

Crusades are long past events in history, or are they? When was the last time you were involved in a software development crusade? Think about it, it could have been a discussion regarding calling a requirement functional or non functional or deciding what is the best text editor… The truth is that as developers we praise ourselves for our high rational capacities and for our ability to make objective and non emotional decisions/statements. Well let me just say: Ha!

Religious wars are one of many cancers from software development. Whoever wins feels like Richard the Lionheart trying to conquer Jerusalem, invincible and the unique holder of the real truth. On the contrary the losers feel outraged and waiting for revenge. It is obvious then that whenever you can, try to avoid them in your work environment.

Is it worth the discussion?

This is the key question to be asked, if you are about to start a new crusade evaluate if what you are going to fight for is worth more than 1 minute of discussion, if it doesn’t, then simply don’t take more than one minute discussing it. There are many techniques you can apply.

• Take a vote
• Ask the person with more experience in the subject matter to make a decision.
• Ask those involved in the discussion to make a joint proposal.
• Ask the formal leader of the meeting to make a decision.
• …

But this is an important issue, and it is becoming a crusade. What can I do??!!

Sometimes it happens that the crusades are called over big issues that can’t be just short circuited. For these situations:

• Despite the egos, try to focus the conversation on the subject matter not on the persons.
• Remind what the goals are. I’ve seen crusades where the different sides will hold the flag of different technologies, swearing that their approach is the best remedy to all the bad things in the world, but, who cares if they are not the best tool for the goal you want to achieve?
• Have a clear prioritization.
• If you are stuck in a meeting, call it off and ask the crusaders to write a document explaining their proposal, and then revaluate the next day.

What you should never do in case of a crusade is to let the battle continue, or arrange to for new battles to come. You have to stop organizing brainstorming meetings involving all parties just to keep discussing over the same principles. That’s like motivating the crusaders to keep up their fight to the last man. Whatever it is, just make sure that you do something to stop it when a religious war starts in your office.

Related posts:

1. Forget about Hope Driven Development (HDD), the cancer of software development.
2. 3 non technical tips to be a better software developer
3. The next software development revolution is here… Are you ready?
4. 7 best practices for taking decisions in the development team
5. The future of software development. Are you ready?