Developers and project managers are different kind of people. Yet, they have to work together to achieve great results in great projects. We’d love to share some insight for both parties, based on our own experience as developers and team leaders.
In my not-so-long career, I’ve often been at odds with one of my directors about one topic: quality.
We’re both of the mind that it’s a necessary thing in our projects but, basically, our perception of what’s “good enough” is different.
Here are some thoughts.
There’s an image I like when I speak about software development: the construction of a house.
Like any metaphor, it has limits, but it helps non-technical people understand what their requests mean to us by comparing them with something they can understand.
As a developer, I’ve had my share of side projects but, being the lone wolf I am, I always worked alone on those.
This year, the creative community I’m part of decided on achieving something that would require some work.
I thought I had a quite clear vision and decided to manage this project.
The end of the year is a good time for assessments.
A good one is, “what have I learned this year?”
IT is a field that keeps moving, and we need to stay up to date if we don’t want to drown.
In our culture, most of our knowledge is stored and shared through writing, so a part of my question becomes, “what have I read that was enlightening this year?”
More than once in my—no-so-long—career, I’ve had to work on machines that were not appropriate to my development needs.
These were most often the result of company policies designed to reduce the cost of machines to a reasonable level, but that doesn’t take the specific case of developers into account.
In the (not-so-)long run, it’s actually often money sent down the drain nonetheless.