Why Do Leaders Treat Programmers Like Children?

Does it sometimes feel like the decisions made by leaders are almost trying to get programmers to hate their software development projects?

I would often take for granted the things that I knew as a developer and assume that leadership at my company understood them.

Because software development is so expensive, and the business schools many CEOs come from are still steeped in tradition, there can be lost trust and mistreatment.

If your CEO, Product Manager, or Project Manager doesn’t know these things, disastrous results can occur on your software project that causes people to get angry and eventually leave.

In this episode I share 9 truths of software development that if understood by leadership, will help them get along with programmers better at their company.

Skip To Points In The Video

1. Programmers Produce At Different Rates (1:23)
2. Frequent Status Doesn’t Get Things Done Faster (2:27)
3. One Task Doesn’t Control A Project Timeline (5:05)
4. Making Changes To Be Agile Has A Cost (7:08)
5. Programmers Deliver Faster Through Creativity (9:00)
6. Programmers Need Rest To Be Creative (10:04)
7. Programmers Can Identify Valuable Features (11:39)
8. Programmers Forced To Hit Deadlines Cut Corners (13:19)
9. Programmers Forced To Only Code Lose Focus (15:12)

Resources

• Daily Scrum Meeting: A Status Meeting In Disguise?
• The Secret of Scrum Nobody Talks About
• Is Your Software Company a Feature Factory or a Lean Startup?
• A Product Manager Is A Programmer’s Best Friend!
• Pull Your Software Project Out Of A Death Spiral!