| There should be a single vision for how the software works. This does not mean that vision should come from a single person. Ideally, it comes from the people who are able to contribute and critique that vision (other senior developers), with the acknowledgment of the people who don't have the information to contribute or critique (the junior coder). This harkens back to the MMM and Mills's proposal. > The surgeon. Mills calls him a chief programmer. He personally defines the functional and performance specifications, designs the program, codes it, tests it, and writes its documentation. > The copilot. He is the alter ego of the surgeon, able to do any part of the job, but is less experienced. His main function is to share in the design as a thinker, discussant, and evaluator. The surgeon tries ideas on him, but is not bound by his advice. > The success of the scaling-up process depends upon the fact that the conceptual integrity of each piece has been radically improved—that the number of minds determining the design has been divided by seven. So it is possible to put 200 people on a problem and face the problem of coordinating only 20 minds, those of the surgeons. Chapter 4 is all about conceptual integrity of a project. > Conceptual integrity in turn dictates that the design must proceed from one mind, or from a very small number of agreeing resonant minds. |