From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 11232c,59ec73856b699922 X-Google-Attributes: gid11232c,public X-Google-Thread: f43e6,899fc98b2883af4a X-Google-Attributes: gidf43e6,public X-Google-Thread: 1108a1,59ec73856b699922 X-Google-Attributes: gid1108a1,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,583275b6950bf4e6 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Thread: fdb77,5f529c91be2ac930 X-Google-Attributes: gidfdb77,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2003-05-14 00:36:44 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news.tele.dk!news.tele.dk!small.news.tele.dk!newsfeed1.e.nsc.no!nsc.no!nextra.com!uio.no!newsfeed.kolumbus.fi!fi.sn.net!newsfeed1.fi.sn.net!nntp.inet.fi!central.inet.fi!inet.fi!read3.inet.fi.POSTED!53ab2750!not-for-mail From: "Anders Wirzenius" Newsgroups: comp.lang.java.advocacy,comp.object,comp.lang.ada,misc.misc,comp.software-eng References: <9fa75d42.0304230424.10612b1a@posting.google.com> <9fa75d42.0305011727.5eae0222@posting.google.com> <17cd177c.0305072114.24f04783@posting.google.com> <9fa75d42.0305090612.261d5a5c@posting.google.com> <9fa75d42.0305091549.48b9c5d9@posting.google.com> <7507f79d.0305121629.5b8b7369@posting.google.com> <9fa75d42.0305130543.60381450@posting.google.com> Subject: Re: Quality systems (Was: Using Ada for device drivers? (Was: the Ada mandate, and why it collapsed and died)) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4522.1200 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4522.1200 Message-ID: <5mmwa.65$dp4.60@read3.inet.fi> Date: Wed, 14 May 2003 07:36:33 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 194.251.142.2 X-Complaints-To: abuse@inet.fi X-Trace: read3.inet.fi 1052897793 194.251.142.2 (Wed, 14 May 2003 10:36:33 EEST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 14 May 2003 10:36:33 EEST Organization: Sonera corp Internet services Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.java.advocacy:63751 comp.object:63350 comp.lang.ada:37312 misc.misc:14151 comp.software-eng:19166 Date: 2003-05-14T07:36:33+00:00 List-Id: This is about people management, but since a process quality system is nothing but how to manage people and their work, I did not change the subject line. "soft-eng" wrote in message news:9fa75d42.0305130543.60381450@posting.google.com... > > Believe it or not, many people have thought very hard > about this issue! I believe it ;-) > > There are generally two major approaches people > come up with. > > 1) Hire good people, and give them the tools they > need. Many companies follow this approach, e.g. Microsoft. > (See http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000072.html ) > > 2) Since you are very smart, use your brains to > think up a quality solution. The staff you have, > of course, doesn't matter. You just need to > give them a quality solution, and quality will > follow. Just tell them what to do and make > sure they do it. (In the above URL, see the behavior > at Juno.) For instance, a militaristic language that > will catch all their errors and solve the problem > of human fallibility. Or a methodology that > will make quality flow out their ears. Typical > command-and-conquer stuff is "now everybody will > write a spec in this here format before starting > a new module. This will make our product quality > improve amazingly." > > You can usually tell the people who took approach (2), > because they are always bemoaning how things don't > work right, and why it is somebody's fault. E.g. > complaining about their vendor, or complaing about > how everybody is so stupid to use languages like C, > C++ or Java when it is obvious that better solutions > would have easily solved all world's problems. In a follow-up soft-eng gave another link: > PS: Another interesting link on how to get quality products > done: > > http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/TwoStories.html Good stories, thanks for the addresses. In the latter story Joel Spolsky writes: "The programmers were bugging me every day to get them more pages so that they could write more code" He had a lucky time since the programers were loyal to him. I wonder how Mr Spolsky had reacted if the programmers had ignored his pages and programmed the macro handling based on their own knowledge of macro language strategy? Had he intervened in their work or just trusted them and let them do their job? If you stretch the Microsoft story to its extreme, you may perhaps ask what the benefits of having levels in an organization are? Why not just come together, set up a company, and have all persons owning their area with no possibility for the co-workers to have an influence? If you get bad quality, just fire the person and hire another expert (and hope for the best:-). But who has then the mandate to fire? The Juno part was a good story of the opposite approach. Some people claim that the army gives a good education to leadership. To me the army is more of the Juno type while most companies nowadays belong to the Microsoft type where you have to convince and motivate people if you want to have an impact on their work (read: get them to do what you are in charge of). You cannot just rely on your position in the organizational hierarchy. The real world lies of course somewhere between these. You need "management" to some degree and therefore I stick to what I wrote in a previous post: "Error catching as early as possible is a good co-worker to both the programmer and his superior". Compilers that reveal programming errors or issue warnings are a good thing to both me and my superior. I have worked in both types of companies; I could write a similar two-story. Sad to say it, but my present employer is of the Juno type but that is another off-topic story. Anders