RE: Re: Sticking point

Stefan,

> >  SS> I put the dynamics of a group versus the dynamics of
> > individuals.  What
> >  SS> individuals want (free will) may not serve the group.
> >
> > If the individuals associate themselves with the group, it will.
>
> Only if they want the same thing or things that converge.  Far too often
> they never converge, just watch discussion on 'the best O/S, the best
> language, the best DBMS, the best ... fill it in yourself.  Uniformity is
> the price for teamwork.  XP seems to be very strong on uniformity
> and makes
> the team work.  Haven't experienced it myself but I've discussed often and
> it emerges as one very strong point.

When a team gets involved in such discussions, I try to remind
them of two things:
1. The overall goal that we are all trying to meet.
2. That we do not have to decide what is the best XXXXX but
only what we will do next.

Stating it like that, it may seem as if this is a very weak
solution, but I see it work most of the time.

> >  SS> If we allow everyone to change anything any time, at
> > best we get chaos
> >  SS> (smile), I like directed change so people pull/push/row
> > in the same
> >  SS> direction.
> >
> > No.  I have different experience.
> >
> > People, when they find their source of power, regain the
> > sense of control
> > of their free will, tend (to my experience) to state not only personal
> > goals, but much more larger ones... Team goals, perhaps.
> > Company, city,
> > country ones...  And these goals _are_ passionate.  And people tend to
> > group around them.  They have no need for someone to pull,
> > push or row them
> > in any manner: they have common goal.
>
> That goal may to be far away.  E.g. engineers may think that the
> users need
> "one model" of their problem domain because it makes maintenance easier.
> But the engineers and the users are not going to agree because having only
> one model imposes abstraction on the user while the user rather have many
> concrete models.  Can go on for hours about this but I hope I
> don't have to.

Can they agree to agree... at least for a while? Can they find
a solution that is simple for now but which would allow them
to move toward a different solution in the process? Can they
agree to spend x amount of minutes not arguing but attempting
to understand the other view? What all of these suggestions
have in common is that the participants must be aware of the
nature of the process they are engaged in and take responsiblility
for that process. So... "We are faced with a disagreement which
will keep us from progressing. Let's decide what to do next."

> > Free person can state his direction by himself.  If he'd need
> > a coach, he'd ask for it.
>
> No, only extroverts do.  In 17 years of experience I've noticed that about
> half of the developer rather struggle with a solution that they
> can "invent"
> themselves rather than asking a coach/mentor/guru.  Why?  It's because of
> personal pride and sense of achievement.  I understand and I
> accept it, I do it myself sometimes.

I agree. And forcing them to take help generally has a negative
result. Acceptance combined with modeling the opposite behavior
sometimes can lead to change... but it takes time.

> > Stefan, it seems to me that you're trying to label people: top class,
> > bottom class, middle...
>
> No.  It's the opposite, I want a solution for everyone, not just
> for the top
> class.  Some of the discussions I see here seem to accept that there are
> many different people with many different qualities.  There are few top
> class but some of the discussions require top class abilities to reason
> along.

There are few top class in any definition of "top" but there are
many different definitions.

> > I _believe_ that each person is unique and is able to achive
> > his/her (not
> > mine) success.
>
> Sorry.  Some people cannot achieve success all that easily.  I
> don't believe
> in this fantastic American Dream or whatever I should call it by analogy.

American Dream? I understand Andrey to be saying just the opposite
of what is usually given that stereotype: that each person needs
to define what success means in order to acheive it rather than
accepting a definition that is imposed by the culture, by marketing,
by other people, etc. Perhaps I interpret you too much, Andrey?

Charlie Poole
[email protected]
www.pooleconsulting.com
www.charliepoole.org




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