Insurgence of Quality

I have just read an interesting blog today, about the dichotomy between engineering types and business types, and how it causes problems within an organisation. It was an interesting read and it brought to mind the issue of an engineering shortage in industrial nations. Although the examples given in the blog were mainly programmers vs managers, it is something that equally applies to engineers.

http://www.brightcove.tv/playerswf

I had particularly liked a couple of points raised:

• Programmers are craftsmen. As craftsmen, they work to a quality line, NOT a deadline. Programmers do not respect authority, only ability. There is programmer calculus: “We have two different opinions. You have one vote. I, being smarter and more well-informed, have two votes.”
• The industrial world lowered production costs to make money. The post-industrial world raises quality to make money. Managers are trained to focus on efficiency, product goals, and deadlines: these are byproducts of the industrial era. Senior executives are essentially in denial about the fact that software can’t be mapped to industrial benchmarks.
• Business types have an artificial sense of urgency, which leads to wastefulness. Executives are focused on putting out new features quickly, because “tech moves fast.” However, user goals change very slowly. There’s not really a need to “move fast.”
• It’s genuinely impossible to answer a lot of simple business questions when it comes to software. For example, with estimating deadlines: “Writing software is like walking through a minefield. It’s really fast to get through…as long as you don’t step on any mines.”

Sometimes, I wonder how things will turn out in the end. An “insurgence” of quality is truly needed indeed.