On Jan 28, 2009, at 10:50 PM, Vitaliy wrote:

>> I worked on on project where very good motivated competent  
>> programmers
>> in a well organized environment did a phenomenal amount of work in  
>> a short
>> time. It was unfortunately a rare experience.
>
> I'm intrigued! Can you tell us more?

Me too, I like positive stories about software development.  I've seen  
so little of it that was good in my long career as a tech support guy...

I truly believe that improper motivations and incentives are the root- 
cause of a whole lot of corporate evil, from the top down, too.  If  
someone's paid because "X" is supposed to happen...

Examples:

1. The stock price goes up (at the expense of the long-term health of  
the company)
2. The software is released by X date (even if it's got more holes in  
it than swiss cheese)
3. The tickets are closed (even if the customer wasn't satisfied or  
the problem wasn't truly fixed)

Bad things happen.  Every single time.

My employer has apparently motivated the Director level staff to  
"close all tickets older than 50 days".  Note, it doesn't say SOLVE  
AND REPAIR all tickets within 50 days, just close them...

Guess what e-mail I got Monday, along with a spreadsheet of six  
tickets all clearly labeled "Pending -> Engineering Release"?

Yep... been here, done this before.  It won't work this time,  
either... and it'll tick off customers... like it always does.

But I bet those tickets are mysteriously closed before quarter-end...  
even if I'm told to move my "project tickets" to a spreadsheet outside  
the tracking system...

We'll see who has integrity and who doesn't, just like the last four  
or five times I've been through this in my career...

Or as my wise old father puts it... "Inconsistency breeds contempt."

Nate 
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