
Managing Creativity - luccastera
http://myphdblogged.blogspot.com/2007/09/managing-creativity.html
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timr
_For most software developers, it means mapping out the requirements and
development phases with hard dates at the outset._

Am I the only one who read this line and shuddered?

In my experience, the surest way to kill creativity is to micro-manage it.
Maybe I'm just difficult (and was never meant to be an employee), but my
motivation and interest in a project drops off of a cliff when someone comes
to me at the outset -- before any information is known -- and tells me not
only _how_ to do the project, but the _schedule_ in which I'm going to do it.
To me, that's the antithesis of creativity.

Am I wrong? Sometimes I don't know if I'm just a prima donna, but this blogger
sounds like every middle-manager who has ever driven me away from software. If
you're going to "manage" creative people, it seems that you have to find a way
to harness their creativity and go along for the ride. Keeping the horses in a
pen doesn't do you much good....

~~~
DanielBMarkham
I think I can try to answer your question.

No, you are not wrong, but I believe in software there is always a balance. If
I have a problem, and you've said you would fix it, it is reasonable for me to
expect some things out of our arrangement: dates, notifications, whatever. It
varies by how anal I am and how much I trust you or don't trust you to make my
problem go away.

Even if there is no customer-vendor relationship, let's say you are working on
your own for your own startup, or you are doing your own thing for Google or
somebody. Even then you still have to meet some dates. Once you promise a
beta, guess what? Code's gotta happen between now and then. If people ask you
what you're doing, it might help to have a powerpoint, email, song, or
something to be able to explain what your plan is.

I don't know if you're a prima donna or not, but I do know that early in my
programming experience, I thought code was an art form. Later on I realized
that they call it software engineering for a reason: you can make solutions
happen with some kind of repeatability. That doesn't mean there isn't
creativity involved, but it means that sometimes we flatter ourselves with
thinking we're being creative when really we're just reinventing the wheel and
putting our name on it.

Think of it like writing a piece of music. You can be as creative as you want,
but still there is a lot of pre-existing stuff that you must deal with:
measures, notation, instruments, schedules, patrons, etc. Yes -- you can throw
any and all of that away, but THAT only works if you understand what each part
contributes. So there's no free ride: you just can't declare yourself creative
and immune to the imposition of the rest of reality. So yes, you can expect
somebody to ask for dates, requirements, etc -- that's what outsiders always
do. I imagine some places are worse about it than others.

That's just my opinion, for what it's worth.

