Re:Catfish Programmers
by ToJans on Friday June 16, 2017 @04:16AM
(#14567388)
When I was freelancing, I was specialized in fixing businesses/projects that got stuck due to tech debt and non-communicating teams, using a bottom-up approach.
The hardest part is changing the mentality of the team, but within a month or 3 you usually ignite the spark that gets everything back on track. Getting to the first tiny win that changes the status quo requires a lot of hard work, but once that's rolling, it's only a matter of making yourself redundant.
One caveat: the bottom-up approach works best when people introduce you as the helping-hand dev. Some people had a hard time understanding the exorbitant paycheck, when all you do is sit with the developers, not even being a PM? (TBH I've been an ad-interim PM in most of these projects for a few weeks, and it usually helps - lead by example etc).
TL;DR: businesses/teams do get stuck, and a consultant who knows what he's doing and doesn't care for titles can turn around things.
EDIT: The one thing that's lacking in this article, is the social aspect. If you are only fixing code, you are just fixing the symptoms, not the causes.
The hardest part is changing the mentality of the team, but within a month or 3 you usually ignite the spark that gets everything back on track. Getting to the first tiny win that changes the status quo requires a lot of hard work, but once that's rolling, it's only a matter of making yourself redundant.
One caveat: the bottom-up approach works best when people introduce you as the helping-hand dev. Some people had a hard time understanding the exorbitant paycheck, when all you do is sit with the developers, not even being a PM? (TBH I've been an ad-interim PM in most of these projects for a few weeks, and it usually helps - lead by example etc).
TL;DR: businesses/teams do get stuck, and a consultant who knows what he's doing and doesn't care for titles can turn around things.
EDIT: The one thing that's lacking in this article, is the social aspect. If you are only fixing code, you are just fixing the symptoms, not the causes.