Light passed from air to glass
Some was reflected
Not all of the light made it through
An electrical signal passed from one electronic component to another
Some was reflected.
Not all of the signal made it through
A "signal" will pass between a PRODUCT OWNER and a LEAD DEVELOPER
How much will be reflected?
How much will make it through?
Hi. This is Gary
Welcome to "Development That Pays"
And welcome back to the second part of our investigation into
step changes and boundaries.
All this talk of light passing through glass and signals passing through electronic components
was all about making two points:
The first is that... Step changes , boundaries, discontinuities
call them what you will -
are... everywhere.
They are everywhere in nature
so we shouldn't be surprised to find them alive and well in our teams.
The second point is that whenever there is a step change,
You can expect... reflections.
You can expect... that not all of the signal will get through
You can expect... issues.
Let's bring these guys back
Rather then talk in generalities, I'll talk specifics.
The specifics of the team I had in mind when I first drew this sketch.
Let's start with the developers.
These two got on reasonably well.
Not much of a step change between them.
These two had a tougher time getting along
I'll indicate that with s bigger version of the symbol.
And these two...
Not great... But not bad either.
(The rest of the relationships between the developers were much the same.)
On to the lead developer
This guy had many superpowers...
... but perhaps most impressive
was his ability to get on well with every member of his team.
Very little in the way of a step change between him and the members of his team.
The business owner and the lead developer
had their moments.
Nothing too terrible or dramatic.
But enough to merit a symbol of about this size.
The business and the product owner had worked with each other for a very long time,
so the had a very good working relationship.
What about the relationship between The Product Owner and the Lead Developer?
You'll be shocked to learn that it was not good.
Really not good.
This picture shocked me.
I'd gone looking for problems here...
... and found them ...here.
Not what I'd expected.
At this point I felt I'd discovered something profound.
But the cynical side of brain wouldn't let me celebrate.
It popped up with the "SO WHAT?" question.
Do the "discontinuities" between these people actually matter?
Are they a big deal?
My partial answer is that I think that some relationships matter more than others.
So let's talk about importance.
Starting with theses guys.
It's great if they get on...
And it's crucial that they get on if they are, for example, pair programming.
Let's say ...medium importance.
I'll indicate the importance with this smallish symbol
Next up, the relationship between the lead developer and the the individual developers.
These are relationships that are more important.
Which brings us to the relationships between these three players.
The relationship between the Product Owner and the Lead Developer is the
big one.
The communication must be of a high quality - with a minimum of... "reflection "
Not just from the the product owner to the lead developer,
But also from the lead developer to the product owner.
Last but by no means least are the relationships
between the Business Owner and the Product Owner and Lead Developer respectively.
These are tricker to pin down.
I've seen more than one team where the product owner and lead developer were trying to do
a better job of working together,
.... only to undermined by the business owner at every turn.
For this reason, I'm going to assign a fairly high importance.
I've run a little long...
So I'm gong to break there,
Next time we'll do a little more analysis
And then go on to talk about solutions.
Thank you very much for watching.
I hope you enjoyed this episode as much as I enjoyed making it
There's a new episode of Development That Pays each and every Wednesday
By far the easiest way to get it is to subscribe to this channel
Hit the big red button and I look forward to talking to you again very soon.