| Reading this story makes me sad. There's also another story (google fails me) about a legendary IBM programmer around whom IBM built an entire team of testers, documenters, etc, all to keep this one guy's way above average productivity going. That story also makes me sad. These stories make me sad because I know how huge a difference the environment makes to everyone's job. The key points about the black team: 1. A few individuals that happen to be a bit above average at finding defects. 2. Bring them together, create a team. 3. Support them, but mostly just get out of their way and don't distract them with management B.S. Very little change and support results in a huge jump in their productivity! Same thing with the single legendary programmers, simply relive him of non-programming tedious tasks, give him enough support staff to keep up with his output and again HUGE productivity boost. What's so sad about this is that is so rarely happens.
I think most people are capable of having this productivity jump, if only they'd get the same support. OK, let me back of a bit from most and be more precise and say, you should be at least a bit above average. But why does this so rarely happen?
Sadly I think for most sizable companies minor process changes are a huge obstacle. The bright side of this? Startups.
Startups are like these kinds of teams within a behemoth like IBM, except without the behemoth. Or actually a startup up ought to be like that, because that is one of the key advantages a small business should have over the big ones. |