idea deployment.de

Sometimes I stumble upon situations where people try out different solutions for the problem they encounter. I give some examples:

• The project management of a company is a great failure. They’re hacking from “hand to mouth”, not knowing where the aim will be tomorrow. Hiring the 1k/day consultant who’s an experienced XP project manager won’t bring the team any close to agile method if the company structure is based on strict hierarchies and envy is destroying the communication.
• Social problems, general unhappiness with life, loneliness or poverty that some people experience can’t be solved by any external means. That’s why many people are stuck in the process of longing instead of finding a partner. That’s why the dole rather help people stay alive than make them earn their money themselves.

Just like the famous saying from Gerald Weinberg:

“no matter what they tell you, it’s always a people problem.” (from coderenaissance.com)

Adapted to my points, this means watching a problem always mirrors the people in that situation. It’s just not honest saying “The codebase is too complex, we can’t ship the product”, it’s rather: “We really fucked the situation up. But Why? Because we’re afraid to ship? Because our employees hate us and thus produce bad code?”.

So that’s the point where any solution from would come in handy. And even if those from outside look easy, cheap and fast, they never work. The stylish third-party framework, the new Middleware, the bought-in code guru or even the the handsome guy from the online dating page.

It’s like solving the problem directly from the top of the 5 Whys. Too easy, too fast. Won’t work because the main reason for the state they want to escape isn’t tackled.
If there are suggestions of getting help from outside, always double-check if it’s really a needed resource to being able to chance the internals or it’s rather a mean to cover something and ignore the real thing.