Yeah, we all work in cubicles, but everyone works in a cubicle up to and including the CEO!�

The CEO? Does the CEO really work in a cubicle?

Well, he has a cubicle, but actually now that you mention it there’s this one conference room that he goes to for all his important meetings.

I cound’t describe it better.

I’m not complaining, but with those bosses? Please, please stop talking about how great or how generous they are (because of) having the same small, crappy, noisy cubicles as we developers have. You just always ended finding that bosses always stay in the conference room or in the hallway (and probably the ultimate source of all the noise).

And if you dare to ask them about it, they probably would say it’s policy. Which is always some kind of bureaucracy anyway.

Recently I’ve been involved in many interviews in order to assemble a project team. It was really hard to find a match. Most of the time, I simply had to compromise since the demands were large. The supply simply is not enough.

It is my belief that only the best can produce quality software. However, that’s not what most people believe. Most managers seem to think all developers (or testers or project managers or whomever) are equivalent (or replaceable if you interpret it).

I feel sad about it as a developer.

The fundamental problem with this is that people (who produce software) don’t differentiate software with quality and software without quality. That’s simply not what they care about.

I still feel sad.

Joel Spolsky says:

The quality of the work and the amount of time spent are simply uncorrelated.

One of my professor once said:

As a computer scientist, it is our responsibility to build high quality software. Only in that way can we change the industry eventually.

I still believe that.

I found it rather interesting: Hawthorne Effect

An increase in worker productivity produced by the psychological stimulus of being singled out and made to feel important.

I have no way of verifying this effect, yet. However, personally I do believe that individuals are indeed affected by the group behavior. Hence it is manager’s responsibility to create his desired norm for the group. Well, how to create it is also a responsibility.

If a manager announce that performance evaluation is going to be carried out, will the performance of the team improve during the next few months? It would be really interesting to find out the answer. Will people act differently for better performance evaluation result? I don’t know, but I think the way we carry out the evaluation do have some effect on people’s reaction. If they feel positive, the performance will surely improved. But if they feel offensive, we might not get what we desire.

I’m interested in seeing what the result will be.

You can find a more elaborate paper here: The Hawthorne, Pygmalion, placebo and other effects of expectation: some notes

I have came across the following advise today, and would like to share it with you:

Spend more time on credit than on blame, and don’t spend very much time on either one.