

Give developers autonomy - jon_black
http://jonblack.org/2013/05/25/give-developers-autonomy/

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ColinWright
Here's something else to consider ...

Most stuff people make for free and give away is unfinished, and largely
unusable. Yes, there are outstanding projects completed by outstanding people
to a very high standard, but that is truly exceptional.

Give developers responsibility, let them take control, and how many products
will actually get finished before they move on to the next shiny thing that
attracts their attention? How many developers are willing to do the 90% of
schlepping after the 10% of cool, fun stuff?

Genuine question. I have some outstanding programmers who work for me, and
they still need motivating to complete the transfer of information to the
documentation and training teams. They certainly don't write the documentation
and training manuals themselves, and they _still_ won't transfer the
information.

They don't need motivation to do this interesting bits, but there's more to a
successful product than gorgeous design and cool code.

~~~
jon_black
I think the point you're making is that autonomy alone won't produce a high-
quality product. You're right. There are dangers in giving too much autonomy,
which is probably why google-time is fixed at 20% and not 90%.

The point I was trying to make was that giving developers more control over
what they work on better suits the problems they are trying to solve and
allows the business to harness some of the passion developers have.

You're certainly right that there are aspects that never appeal. It's not a
black-and-white case of "more autonomy = more results", but in some areas can
be rewarding for both developer and business.

