Gary Allison's Leadership Blog

The Third Sin of Software Projects is failing to understand its all about the people – attracting, retaining, and helping the best software development professionals available to succeed. The people on the project are the key determining factor of success. Let’s look at a few of the key factors in what we need in our people.

Productivity – you’ve probably read that top notch software developers are 2x – 5x more productive that the average developer. I’ve lived it and can attest. It’s not that the best will write 2 – 5 times as much code; it’s that they either can achieve the goal 2x – 5x more quickly, or just simply solve problems that others find unassailable. When I was early in my career I had the good fortune of working with just such a superstar: Brian. While I could hold my own in some of the most difficult projects, I could also see that Brian was simply a brilliant developer. He was simply world class, solving the most challenging issues and making it seem almost effortless. What if you could build a team mostly of this type of person? You could do anything! (FWIW: this also opened my eyes that I needed to focus my career on an area where I felt I could truly excel – leadership.)

Motivation – Software professionals are different than many other professionals in what motivates them. They are motivated by working with other smart people, working on challenging problems and cool technology, and by achieving a level of success personally and technically. (This last one is a complex subject as there are as many meanings of success as there are different types of people in software development). As leaders, we must understand that software professionals are motivated differently, and try to understand what success means to each person in our team.

Teams – In addition to having the most productive and motivated professionals, we need to be able to have them work effectively in a team. Dysfunctional personalities, poor attitudes, or weak contributors will torpedo a team very quickly. Any of these attributes in a team member negates all the positives above. Take a developer who is tremendously productive and knowledgeable, but just has a very negative attitude and they can drag everyone else down, kill cooperation and communication, and single handedly cause a project to fail. Conversely, a team that is made up of top-notch people that are motivated, focused, and check egos at the door can turn out the most innovative solutions imaginable.

Trust – finally, the key essential ingredient in the organization that makes it all work is trust. People within the team must trust each other to deliver, development must trust product mangers, teams must trust their leaders, and all the way through the organization. Very recently, I’ve heard about a situation where a new leader came into a development team and half the team left the company. It’s safe to say that more emphasis on building trust was needed! A subtle implication of trust is that integrity is required for trust to exist. The best companies I’ve worked with have a deep appreciation for all these ingredients, starting with the CEO. Those that don’t will fail.