Traffic School for Software Projects

Ever wonder if there's a correlation between the way some folks develop software and the way they drive their cars?

The Tailgaters

These are the ones who are constantly on your ass, going 90 MPH, and flipping you the bird because you are holding them up. You might even be going faster than the guy to your right, but that's apparently not fast enough for the maniac behind you. If you get out of this guy's way, he will inevitably zoom past you, race right up on the next guy, and do the same thing to him. These guys are an accident waiting to happen. They aren't thinking about the safety of others, or about the possible parking lot ahead of them on the road. All they care about is getting where they're going as fast as possible. If some poor slob gets angry enough, he's going to slam on his brakes, and there's going to be a loud screeching sound followed by a crash, car parts flying everywhere, sirens, flashing lights, and lawsuits.

In the software world, these are the folks who are constantly hounding you, demanding, "Is it done yet? Is it done yet? Come on! Hurry up!" The quality of the project takes a back seat to the speed of its delivery. They will likely sacrifice people, resources, process, features, and quality and not worry about the risks that await them down the road. It's all about meeting the deadline, and God help those who get in their way.

Advice to you Tailgaters: SLOW THE HELL DOWN! It's better to get there alive than in a body bag. You aren't saving that much time by going so fast you make Mario Andretti look like an old man with a walker. You're risking lives, and you will eventually crash and burn. I'll wager that alot of you think you've never been in and accident. Well, that might be true. But I bet you've caused a lot of them.

Same goes for you software tailgaters. Slow it down. You want the project to get there in one piece, with as much of its promised feature set and team in-tact as possible. Your constant pressure isn't helping anyone. A healthy dose of encouragement is one thing. Unhealthy pressure (tailgating) is quite another; it kills morale, and results in high turnover, which leads to increased costs and loss of employee buy-in. So knock it off; let your foot off the accelerator!

The Weavers

Weavers like to move in and out of traffic, zipping from one lane to another, often unexpectedly, and rarely using their turn signals. Their lane changes are unpredictable, haphazard, unannounced, and a source of frustration and terror to those around them. They are the reason that defensive drivers exist. You can't predict where they're going, when they're going to change directions, or what direction they're going to move in. The best you can do is hope you have power steering, anti-lock brakes, and really good peripheral vision.

Weavers drive like they're the only ones on the road; changing lanes doesn't require a turn signal because, well, they don't care if anyone's in harm's way. All that's important is that they get into the lane they want to be in. They just yank that wheel to the left or right and fwoop! there they are where they want to be, while your brakes squeal, your car lurches, and heart hammers in your chest. We won't talk about the string of expletives that explodes from your mouth.

In the software world, these are the guys on the project who like to suddenly shift direction midstream. It might be a change in the process, in the coding standard, in the project's vision. It could be a change in how the teams are set up, in the reporting structures, in the UI's design, in the tool selection, in anything. Anything. But they thrive on change, and they don't really care about the impact that those changes have on the people around them. They're oblivious to the others around them. Change is exciting! It's good! It's cutting...no, it's bleeeeeeeeding edge!

Weavers work like they're the only ones on the project, with complete freedom to do whatever they like. No warning is necessary; asking for someone's advice or opinion about it's suitability is pointless because it doesn't matter to them. They want to do it, so they're going to do it. Who care's if anyone else likes it?

Advice to the Weavers: Learn to use your mirrors and turn signals! That means you actually have to become aware of the other drivers on the road. Yes, I know. That means you sadly have to realize that you are not the center of the universe, and that there are others who share the road with you.

And for those of you who think you can just change anything about a project midstream, learn to think differently. Change introduces risk into a project. Unannounced risk is unmanaged risk. Unmanaged risk increases the chances of project failure. (Crash and burn, Mav. Crash and burn.)

The Gawkers

Gawkers are a special breed of road hazard. These folks will be traveling down the road and spot something they find of interest, and slow down to a crawl to scrutinize it. In the process, the people behind them must slow down as well. This creates a nifty domino effect in traffic. Interestingly enough, what these folks find of interest is usually nothing of interest at all. But the ensuing traffic jam becomes a subject of much heated debate.

Software projects are commonly plagued by Gawkers: individuals who have no real business being involved in the project, but who nonetheless feel compelled to attend every meeting and inject their two cents, suggest things, and add "filler material" to waste everyone's time. They want to be CC'd on every email, take part in every hallway conversation, and stop by the developers desks to "check-in" and provide "moral support." They pepper us with questions and phone calls, spot-checks and emails, instant messages, and reminders, additions to meeting agendas, and interjections about meaningless and completely unrelated minutia in the middle of our meetings when we'd rather be back at our desks doing real work that matters.

Advice to the Gawkers: For God's sake people, stop gawking and drive! Pay attention to the road ahead of you, ignore that pigeon crapping on the rail, or that car parked on the side of the road, and just drive! You're holding up traffic for miles and leaving a string of accidents behind you.

And all you busybodies who seem to think you have to be involved in projects that have nothing to do with you, "Move along people, nothing to see here." We have work to do, and you're holding us up. Just leave us alone so we can get it done.

The Gadgeteers

We've all seen them. Some of us have been them. Driving down the road, accelerator hammered to the floor, while trying to operate some electronic gadget, be it a cell phone, Blackberry, iPod, radio, or even something as innocuous as the car radio. These geeks are so distracted by what they're doing that they'll careen recklessly from side to side within their lane, as if they're using the Braille Method to stay within the lines. They'll speed up, slow down, and be so engrossed by the spectacular fabulousness of their toys that they have become a danger to everyone else around them.

With the Gadgeteer, it's all about the toys. These devices aren't required to operate their vehicle: they're distractions that make it unsafe to operate the vehicle, especially at high speed, because they make it impossible for the driver of the vehicle to focus on what he or she should be focusing on: the road, and the other vehicles on it.

Software professionals are often distracted by the shiny, flashy appeal of the latest tools. But the truth of the matter is, you can write software in Notepad or any simple text editor and compile it with a command-line compiler. You don't need the flashy, glitzy tools to get the job done. (For the difference between need and want see here.) They might make your job easier, more comfortable, and less of a nightmare, but you don't truly need them. So don't get all obsessed about them and put other people at risk over them. Certainly don't become obsessed about them.

And whatever you do, don't let them constrain you or the project.

Advice to the Gadgeteer: First off, shut up and drive. If you're so compulsive about yakking on a cellphone 24/7, get an implant with a neural interface. Oh wait, we don't have that technology yet. Probably because NO ONE NEEDS TO BE THAT CONNECTED! So disconnect, relax, and enjoy the drive. Stop fiddling with all those gadgets, put them down, and pay attention.

If you're a software Gadgeteer, learn to do without for a while. Learn what it is to use primitive tools. You might actually learn to appreciate the tools that you do have. All those big, flashy programs you use are likely overkill for what you do, anyway. How many of the features do you actually use? Does the system really make you more productive, or does it spend a lot of time distracting you with countless configuration options, window placement options, font and color options, and so on? Wouldn't it be nice if you could actually focus on the code for a change?

The Lost Navigators

There's not a lot of hope for a Lost Navigator. Drifting slowly through the highways, byways, and side-streets of the country, looking for their exit or side street, hopelessly lost, and without a clue, these poor folks present the rest of us with a horrible choice: to be patient, or to pass. Our frustration knows no bounds. They drive slowly, obviously looking for something; sometimes, you can see them, scanning a mapbook, or consulting a crumpled set of MapQuest directions. In the worst case, they have no directions whatsoever to go by. Inevitably, they never seem to stop and ask for directions. They are lost, they are slow, and they are frequently oblivious to the line of cars piling up behind them as they look desperately for the place that they should be going.

Sometimes, in a moment of relief, they see their exit, and swerve to enter it. But frighteningly, this is all too often done from the left lane of the highway, and they must cross two or three lanes of traffic at the last moment to reach their offramp. And so they do. Cars swerve to get out of their way, slamming on brakes, honking horns, and nearly going off the road themselves.

Their problem, usually, is that they simply lack a decent navigational system, a decent set of instructions that tell them how to get where they want to go. It's not always their fault. Sometimes, however, you get the pig-headed kind who decide they can find their way through anything and can't be bothered to stop and ask for directions.

Often, in software development, there are folks who are placed in roles for which they are not well equipped. They are assigned a task, given little to go on, and told to do it. They have the little bit of information they're given, and they set out. So they move slowly, trying to find their way, and they might stop occasionally to ask for help. But their progress is slow, and as a result, their piece of the project moves slow. That's not so bad, actually; it's the guys who refuse to ask for help that cause the problem. By refusing to seek help, they're making a bad situation worse.

Advice to the Lost Navigators: Get better instructions. MapQuest lies. Frequently. Improve your situation! And for you blockheads who won't ask for directions, get off your high horse. Although I'll guess that your problem's a genetic defect of some sort, so I won't push that issue any further.

If you're in a software project, and you're struggling due to a lack of information, get that information! You can't be expected to do your job without it. If you need information about process and such, seek out excellent sources of information from places like the Software Best Practices forums maintained by Construx software. Interact with other developers in the Google newsgroups (drop me a line and I'll point you to them). Check out The Code Project and the programming topics at reddit. Read MSDN. Ask other developers where they go for information online. There's no reason for you to suffer from a lack of information when there's a wealth of free information from experienced developers providing it online.

And there are Others...

We know there are more. Let's not forget the Makeup Artist, the Conversationalist, the Belligerent Road Hog, and so on. But I'm sure you all can figure those out for yourselves.

And I'm sure you all have ideas of your own.