Black news for the boss

1. From the author

1.1. These are the answers of the IT manager to his boss on his time-keeping monologue in the style - “When I need your opinion, I will tell you!”

1.2. These answers will allow the IT boss or one who is just about to become one to discover many new things.

1.3. The news will be black. Bad, very bad and worse. They can even cause cognitive dissonance (deformation of the brain). So, if you (we have already switched to you?) Have a gentle psychic organization, then maybe you don’t need it, and you shouldn’t read further.
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1.4. These answers also do not pretend to truth, correctness, or any other absolute truth. This is just another look at the same software development, which, I humbly hope, will allow you to see the problems of the IT industry with binocular vision. It will make them more voluminous and, therefore, will open them to you from the other and, most likely, unexpected for you, side.

1.5. The author, however, claims to have some experience in IT, since he has been plowing in this business for 35 years, with 25 of them being an IT manager.

1.6. Therefore, I will not talk about what I have seen and heard, but about what left scars on the skin and on the tongue, as old Adizes has rightly said.

2. Do you remember how it all began?

2.1. Well, what, talked out? Have you eaten? Did you scrub? Spilled out your emotions? Everything?

2.2. Now turn off the emotions and turn on the brain. Forgot where to turn on? Or include nothing?

2.3. Turned on? Go!

2.4. Do not forget how you got into the IT business? - Remember. You cut your first loot on sales. I bought it cheaper here and I sold it more expensive. Income! Profit! Margin! Hired guest workers. Income is even greater! Profit more! Only here the first million had to earn five years. Long…

2.5. But then to your misfortune, Forbes magazine fell into your hands. Well, who did you see there at the very top of the billionaires rating? Billy the dropout! And he chopped up (only a year!) As much as 13 billion! Dollars! American! And he made them on some progr, geeks unshaven and unkempt. And each such unshaven profit for the year of 150,000 green brought him.

2.6. And here it dawned on you - here it is a crowd! Here it is a real profit! That's where the money rowing shovels!

2.7. Well, how much can it cost so unkempt with a computer and a chair a year? - Penny! Green Thousands - 50-70. This is the margin! 200 percent! And even 300 percent !!!

2.8 ... And then you decided to kill two birds with one stone. Earn for the year as many as three (I never even dreamed of it!) Million, hired 20 unshaven people to earn your first earned money, and increase your social prestige by becoming the owner of the- oh-oh-gh-oh-oh business, and not, some there, buy-sell.

3. And now the news

3.1. About work

3.1.1. First bad. I do not know when we can do that crap that you and the salesman for sale. Moreover, we signed a contract with a customer for fix-price and fixed-time. And now very bad. NO ONE knows when this crap can be done and how many man-hours it will take.

3.1.2. Surprised? Yes, your customer himself does not know what kind of crap he wants! And you with the sales manager do not know. And no one knows. This is called UNCERTAINTY.

3.1.3. Welcome to the quantum world of software development! Here, the cozy laws of deterministic classical mechanics do not work! Where uncertainty is, there are always risks! No, not so - RISKS! What did you think? 300 percent profit and no risk? - Dreaming!

3.1.4. And when I gave you estimates on this project on this project, did you listen to me? Did you hear? I told you what?
3.1.4.1. There are two ratings. The first, most likely - 10,000 people * hour. And what does it mean? This means that if we sell this estimate to the customer, then our chances are only 50/50. Or we will pack, or not.
3.1.4.2. And I also told you (remember!) That there is a second assessment, more or less guaranteed, with a reserve for unknown risks (and there are still known risks that I know and already took into account in the plan) - 20,000 people * hour.
3.1.4.3. And that och good grades! The spread is only 100%. And there are 500% and 1 000%.

3.1.5. And what did you hear? You have heard, for some reason, only what you wanted, about 10,000 people * hour!

3.1.6. Yes, even. You applied your awesome experience with guest workers and found that 10,000 people * hour. - this is 60 people. * Months. and, therefore, 20 of your unshaven will make your project in three months. And signed up for this term in front of the customer.

3.1.7. And then you, so pretentious, came to the office, gathered all the unkempt and enthusiastically read the audience a speech that you simply heroic efforts to snatch a project from the customer with a profitability of 50 percent (well, yes, yes, not 300 percent, before Billy grow need to). But in order for you to get it, they, geeks, will have to sweat and work on weekends, and even overtime, and maybe even learn at their own expense, but they have to do this crap in exactly three months! And you "absolutely like, how and by what they will do this thing!"

3.1.8. Remember? Do you remember that unshaven responded to this? - Do not wrinkle your forehead! Nothing answered! Have kept silent. And you did not hear this. And, so pleased, drove with the salesman to wash the deal. And he was sure that all the unkempt had already run to sweat.
3.1.8.1. Schaz! Nobody even moved.
3.1.8.2. Progrer's silence is, never, a sign of consent. Did not know? Here they are geeks. Include this fact in your picture of the world!
3.1.8.3. ONLY AGREEMENT OF THE PROGER IS A SIGN OF AGREEMENT. Well, sorry, they are geeks.
3.1.8.4. Moreover, no one did not sweat, did not even strain! What is the point for them to run as much as they like, if you raised the bar to a height twice as high as the official world record?

3.1.9. So, now another news! And it is even worse than all the previous ones! YOU ARE IN TROUBLE!
3.1.9.1. During this period, we definitely will not do your project. We can all leave tomorrow, and you will find new progers. But no one will do your project anyway during this period! And this is never a risk. This is a real problem! And you will not solve this problem, even if tomorrow Nakhantish 20 more geeks.
3.1.9.2. Because the software development world is not only non-deterministic, but also (you will be surprised!) And NONLINEAR. In this world, “2 + 2 = 4” is the exception rather than the rule. Much more often, 2 + 2 is just 1, well, or 2, but sometimes it can be 10.
3.1.9.3. You are in trouble! You have fallen into a world in which nine pregnant women do not give birth to a child in one month, despite all your favorite workouts and overtime.

3.1.10. What? Brings down the brain? Oops ... Yes, you did not read Brooks? Urgently run to teach materiel, if you have not yet decided to engage with the IT business.

3.2. About problems

3.2.1. Where did you get that I came to you to solve YOUR PROBLEMS? That I will run after you with a fire extinguisher, like a child with matches, and put out everything that you put on fire? Schaz!

3.2.2. I have come to you so that you DO NOT HAVE PROBLEMS with the development! And I know how to do it. Because the problem is materialized risk. And about the risks, I know everything. Well ... or almost everything.
3.2.3. And if you will not just listen to me, but try to hear what I am telling you, then there will be no problems. Neither you, nor me!

3.3. About people

3.3.1. Next news. Your IT business will be worth something if you have a team! More precisely, TEAM!

3.3.2. Do you know that in our industry over the past 20 years, the proportion of successful projects (those that are on budget and on time) is only a third? And this share does not change the last 10 years. And this is no longer an accident, but a manifestation of regularity. Let it be yet unknown (this is again a hint of unknown risks, if you do not understand).

3.3.3. So! The success or failure of your project, and, consequently, of your entire business, is 100% dependent on these unkempt and unshaven. And you thought the value of your business is an office with a parking lot and a stylish interior, computers and capital investments in level five CMMI? Forget! IN OUR INDUSTRY, CAPITAL IS PEOPLE!

3.3.4. Another news, exclusively for you, because you did not read Brooks. So, experience in our industry is nothing. The performance (this is the number of tested features per unit of time) of two unkempt ones with the same experience may differ 10 times. He wrote this in 1975. Yes, I know that you were not in the world then. But not knowing the laws does not negate these laws ... And recently, Glass also shared his observations - the difference in performance can be 30 times.

3.3.5. Another bad news. No one knows how to distinguish these people until they get stuck.

3.3.6. And there is news and even worse. The performance of the same unshaven, depending on the conditions in which it works, may also differ by 10 times. Surprise?

3.3.7. So here. In order for your business to be successful you need a team. A team is something like a sewing machine. You press the pedal, and she scribbles like a machine gun! A team is the case when 2 + 2 = 10! And only the team can ensure the competitiveness of your business and constantly put your projects in a third of success.

3.3.8. Do you want me to answer for the result before you? - Then I, and only I, will determine who will be in the Team, and who to dismiss nafig. And no matter how your friend is, who was not to be fired. Because one black sheep can ruin my whole basket of apples.

3.3.9. More news. Very bad or worse - it's up to you. Do you think that unshaven and unkempt ones are hired to work with you in order to achieve goals written in your company's mission? Or, at least, in order to chop up more dough for you? - Forget! Every unshaven person has his own personal goals. And I have my goals. And together with you, each of us exactly as long as we, rowing to you the loot, approach our goals. This is the theory of cooperative games. I'm not very clever?

3.4. About money

3.4.1. With a fright, you decided that I work for you for money? - For the sake of money, call girls work.

3.4.2. I don't work for money. But FOR MONEY. Felt the difference?

3.4.3. And if tomorrow I decide that you value my work not enough, then do not wait, I will not come to ask for anything. Simply you will receive a statement “on your own”, and I will go to help earn money for the boss of another IT company.

3.4.4. Nothing personal just business. Here he is with an employee. A sensible IT manager, he, like Petrykin, is required on every pillar!

3.4.5. Do you know why you pay me? - Because I know how to make a sewing machine. And you are not. I not only know, but also know how to do them, and have already done several dozen of them (reread my resume, huh?) And you pay me for me to make such a machine, and for it to scribble and not break, and you I would only press on the pedal.

3.4.6. About the sewing machine. Well, everything is simple. I tell. We must find all the necessary Circuits. Then every detail put in its place. To establish interactions between them. Well, there, so that all the drive belts are properly tensioned, there are no large backlash between the gears. And you can scribble! True, the creak and search for a little while Cirque will get used up, while extra cloves will break off. So she will not scribble at first not very quickly and not very smoothly. But after six months - scribe, I do not want! Well, there, lubricating with a motivator and replacing worn parts is also my concern.

3.4.7. So, you and a salesman came up with a new mega-product “Type CD-ejector AI”, Sidi-ejector with artificial intelligence. “Class! Blow up the market! Nobody has anything like that! ”And they set him off. On a typewriter. And he did not fly. Well, absolutely. Not a single sale. Even on the site www.cd-ejector-ai.com only bots go. Well, and who is to blame, that your business is not profitable? Sewing machine? What a fright?

4. Come on to negotiate?

4.1. I AM NOT A HOLIDAY, I AM A PARTNER. And we are with you IN ONE BOAT. Well, of course, while we are with you on the way.

4.1.1. You risk your money.

4.1.2. And I - my reputation.

4.1.3. New money can be earned.

4.1.4. And the new reputation?

4.2. Come on

4.2.1. You will determine WHAT AND WHY do. This is your business. Want a "CD-ejector AI 2.0"? - OK, let's do it!

4.2.2. And I - WHEN AND WHY. And this is my business. What? Scared? Cheating? - Well, we, like, have already agreed that, like, in the same boat. Meaning I set you up and sink the boat?

4.3. AND WILL NOT PROBLEMS

4.3.1. Because I can make everything out of software that does not contradict the laws of physics.

4.3.2. And even that contradicts. But it is already very expensive.

4.4. And further. YOU CAN'T HELP YOU GET PROGRAMS - GO DON'T HINDER. And this is the last!