We collect a full deck
Kolodoy, according to the writers, used to be called the “team” that a thief was recruiting for himself. Each person in the team had their own “suit” - specialization and purpose. Here is what Boris Akunin writes about this in the book “Death Lover”:
“The boys told that real businessmen, who, according to the laws, live, have a gang called a“ deck ”, and each deck has its own bundle. The kumplect is eight lucky ones, each with its own position. The main one is “the king”; with him, a maruha, a business-friendly “lady”; then “the jack” is sort of like the main assistant; well, other fighters, from ten to six. And more than eight people are not held in a gang . "
It makes no sense to take less than eight people, there will be gaps in the “competencies”. More - it is impossible, there will be duplication and loss of controllability.
Oddly enough, the same Jeff Sutherland, one of the authors of the scram, called similar numbers - from 5 to 9 people. Although not specified specialization.
Anyway. And we continue the theme of building teams by roles, based on Belbin's tests. Descriptions of roles, as I saw them in my practice, are here . The lead on the question "why is this needed?" - here .
I'll tell you a few more features and chips, both for understanding roles and for their introduction in our profession.
A clearly expressed role a person performs easily and with pleasure. This is usually one, maximum two roles. The key difference is a pronounced, “its” role: for its performance, a person does not need to be motivated, customized, forced or taught.
He will acquire knowledge himself, in the course of work, because he will want it. It will be moved forward by intuition and intrinsic motivation. Work on the main role is easy .
A less pronounced role is, as it were, a spare. A person is not so willing to perform work related to this role, but, in general, he does not experience difficulties either. How to brush your teeth is not much pleasure, but it doesn’t cause any problems.
Trouble is the fulfillment of duties associated with non-expressed roles. Particular attention in the construction, or rather the rebuilding of the team should be given precisely the use of unexpressed roles.
If a person is sickly “go to negotiate with users”, i.e. he has never been a Diplomat, but he is kicked out with his kicks, then he is under severe stress. Very serious. Not even because he is afraid to communicate with users - his soul, it seems, is resisting, as if it is being broken. Sometimes a person cannot even explain himself to himself - “I don’t want everything”.
Or, if a person who does not have the role of Coordinator is asked to manage the work of several colleagues, he falls into a stupor. Of course, he will do something as a result, he will distribute some instructions, but, again, at the cost of high stress.
There is an opinion, and I have long shared it, that if a person is forced to do what he doesn’t want with his gut, he will get used, learn and enjoy it. Several years of observation persuaded me. Learning to learn something, but the main thing will remain - the stress of doing something unpleasant for yourself.
There are exits from such a situation, they will be lower.
Personally, my opinion - damn, hellishly important thing. This is almost the same activation that I recently wrote about - when a person suddenly realizes that he has everything he needs and starts to act.
Roles have the same story when reformatting a command.
Here were the programmers themselves, and did not know about any roles. They had a stupid chief, like me, who sculpted someone from them — experienced programmers, fighters, automatics — it doesn't matter.
I didn’t use the features of the characters, although I did. Sometimes even forbidden to use, because this approach did not fit into the pattern. For example, I did not listen to the Diplomat, who in the smoking room agreed with the head of the automated department to reduce the requirements for the project - he said “let him come to me and tell him himself”, fearing to lose credibility.
And then suddenly something changed, and people learned about their features. Not the most appropriate word - we learned, rather - confirmed, because intuitively, most people can somehow compare themselves with this scale. But a certain percentage of novelty after the test still appeared.
At such a moment, activation occurs - a person understands that he has , even if unconfirmed, inclinations and innate abilities for some kind of activity. If he does not believe, like most people, then everything will remain as before. And if you believe, well, or at least decide to check, the result can be amazing.
I was convinced of it personally on myself - you learn, you start to try, you are convinced, you believe, you develop and you receive pleasure. Because I was sitting, roughly speaking, in the barracks of the construction battalion, among identical bald heads, in the same form, and then they came and said: dude, your calling is to be a fighter pilot, let's pack and drive, the plane is waiting.
I am somewhat emotionally describing, because I do not know how to explain this rationally. For me, this is akin to some unexpected discovery, which is approached by the anecdote “so what, could it be?”. Or, one more thing - a traffic cop once stopped me on the road, I wanted to write out a fine for a pedestrian, I say: maybe let me go home? He says - okay, go. Here, about these feelings can be experienced from the activation of the role.
In order for people to experience such sensations, an appropriate atmosphere is needed, and a leader must create it. If the team is self-managed, which happens not so often, the atmosphere will be created by itself.
Activation can help people find themselves, including in a global sense. If your subordinates happen to activate the main role, which they did not suspect, and you will be the reason for this, then people will not forget this. I have not forgotten the person who activated me.
I will touch on the topic of combination of roles. The main thing: the combination of roles is good if it is bright or medium-expressed roles. Concrete combinations are good for different types of activities, there are also suitable for our specificity.
Generator + Analyst is one of the best combinations for developers and factory programmers, because such a person will come up with an idea, and he will check it for adequacy. A clean generator tends to soar in the clouds sometimes, and the analyst, on the contrary, crawls along the ground in search of obstacles. If these roles are sitting in different people, then the process will interfere with the usual problems of interpersonal communication. Inside one person, such roles get along quite well.
Coordinator + Motivator - the perfect combination for a clean leader. The main feature - such a person can not only give an indication, but also explain why it is needed. Moreover, explain so that the subordinate himself wanted to perform the task. The coordinator is the steering wheel, it shows the direction, and the motivator is the engine. If they are different people, then, again, they have to agree, and if the roles are within one, then it becomes a locomotive.
Coordinator + Finisher is a good combination for project activities, especially for working for a client, where it is important to finish a project without delaying money to flow in a stable way. In the tasks that such a manager sets, the focus on completing a release, phase or project will dominate. He is also well suited to the role of the owner of the product in flexible methodologies: there periodically it is necessary to solve just such a task - “what should be done first of all in order to quickly complete the project or roll out the release?” If the finisher does not participate in this choice, then the project can go aside from completion - for example, in the implementation of useless, but “cool” functionality (generator) or in the global tests of the correctness of the SLAE solution with standard modules - what if there is an error? (analyst).
Generator + Diplomat is a good solution for implementation projects and factory programmers - where there is a client. The beauty is that the ideas of the generator will be offered not to the team, but outside it to the clients. These can be ideas that will save the team from unnecessary work if the diplomat agrees with the customers. For example, it will offer the client an alternative among ready-made solutions, instead of developing “according to my TK”, which the customer wanted so much.
Motivator + Soul Team - a combination for a development department or a sluggish team of factory programmers. This is nothing more than a paternal Goleman management style, when a manager establishes a relationship of trust with his subordinates, and they open up to the maximum, because they trust him. True, such a model can turn into a manipulation, since the leader has access to souls, knows features and weaknesses, and can take advantage of it. Personally, as I mentioned in the first article, I don’t like these team souls. Although, maybe I just do not know how to cook them?
Generator + Artist - a combination for a loner, in the development department or at the factory, with special rights. This is a person who makes breakthroughs, because he himself comes up with ideas, and he himself implements them. He has no obstacles in the form of approvals, discussions and analysis. Invented, made, issued. In life it is not very common, due to the dominance of managers who love KPI.
Analyst + Coordinator is a good combination for building control systems, at least in development, even at the factory. Usually the coordinator is content with manual control - distributes tasks, checks the result, controls the process. If inside there is also an analyst, then it will be annoyed by the inefficiency of the process of its own management, and it will begin to contribute
changes. If he is a good analyst, then an intelligent control system may turn out.
Enough, probably combinations. The principle is clear, and your personal practice will show much more and more interesting.
As I wrote above, using a person in an uncharacteristic role is stressful for him. But there is an exception rule in this rule - generator, analyst and performer. Perhaps someone else, but personally I watched these very ones.
These guys, in view of the nature of their character and worldview, can sometimes be happy to take on duties not intended for them and spoil the whole thing.
The generator in any position feels cool , but only deals with one thing - it comes up with something new to stir up. He forgets to fulfill the duties assigned to him, does not consider it important. It seems to him that the main thing is to invent something.
For the analyst, food for the mind is very important, and he also finds it in any position. Only he will not stir up something new, but dig in the old one - endlessly, for a long time, looking for new reasons for criticism and system analysis. The case will stand still, but the analyst does not care about that either. He will say that the main thing is “to understand everything”.
I have listed the performer with a reservation - he may feel well in some unusual positions when given instructions . He can, for example, manage people according to instructions. The quality is so-so, because there is no feedback loop - the performer is not interested in whether he does the right thing or not. The main thing is to follow the instructions .
Just keep in mind if you decide to rebuild the team - some guys may get up for inappropriate positions for self-assertion, but this will not benefit the rest.
Unfortunately, in relation to our profession, some unexpressed roles will have to be developed.
The usual approach, when a person is simply forced to do something to which the soul does not lie, generates internal protest and keeps under stress. Not good, proper stress, which happens on implementation projects when the ground burns under your feet, and bad - routine, tedious, inevitable and sluggish, eroding from the inside every day.
When everything is explicable, and the goal of overcoming oneself is clear, then life becomes easier. You just explain to a person that we have a profession, where you need to be able to do this and this, and he agrees - himself, without coercion, and maybe with pleasure.
Personally, the Contractor seems to me the most necessary role for a programmer. Anyway, but work is necessary. For a project manager, it's probably not so scary not to be able to work, but the programmer stupidly needs to write code and solve problems. Neither ideas, nor motivational speeches, nor the ability to negotiate with users will not get rid of coding.
The second most important role, in my opinion, is the Analyst. Here you will probably correct me, because I am not well versed in the modern division of labor of programmers — did any architects, methodologists, technical writers, coders, directors, etc. appear there? I, in the old fashioned way, I consider the programmer of a person who solves a problem from the beginning (conversation with the customer) to the end (conversation with the customer). The customer is either internal or external. Here, the role of an analyst is indispensable, since it solves problems that were previously heard in the question “how will this refinement affect the system as a whole?”.
If the work is divided - for example, the coder to whom everything is painted, up to the name of the metadata, may not be an analyst. Here you know better.
The third most important, in aggregate, the role of the Generator. Without it, just to live is boring - the routine will eat. It is necessary, at least sometimes, to try to think outside the box and look for new solutions.
Now about how to develop an unexpressed role. Nothing supernatural, everything is trite and simple - to master, in practice, the corresponding techniques and algorithms, of which there are countless.
The expressed role itself will find its own way, intuitively, on scraps of knowledge and insights. And the unexpressed requires an algorithm, a path, an instruction, and constant attention.
For example, there are a lot of practices in the development of the role of the Contractor - the same time management, or procrastinology, which is now popular. A bunch of motivational videos with the phrase “how to make yourself act” is about the development of the role of the Contractor.
The expressed Contractor does not usually have such a problem. He came to work, turned on the computer, sat down to program. Everything.
For the unexpressed, there are constant downtime, motivation, kicks, control system, etc. are needed.
If the team has a motivator, then you can entrust him with tracking the development of unexpressed competences. The main thing is that he will understand the nuances of “doing nothing”: the expressed Contractor does not work if he has been forgotten to set the task, the unexpressed - because he cannot force himself. A cool manager would just scream at both, and the right motivator will talk to the unexpressed, and set the coordinator on the expressed.
On the development of the ability to analyst literature, too much. You can start with systemic thinking, there are quite a lot of theory and practical techniques. It will also be good to study the methodological part of the software you work with, at least the main blocks. An understanding will appear in the head what is connected with what, where it arises and where it flows, what it influences and what it depends on. Let him not sincerely analyze, but he can avoid gross mistakes.
How to truly develop the ability of the generator - I do not know. It seems there are some books and methods, such as TRIZ, but I have not read them. I have the most pronounced role - the generator, so I just generate.
I only know the trick from practice, which will not make a human generator, but will help a little - expanding my horizons. This is the case when they are content with little - not with their own ideas, but with strangers. Although, it is not so little, and sometimes it is even better to take someone else’s idea or a ready-made solution than reinventing the wheel. It turns out, of course, not a generator, but rather a reference index, but in part it will cope with the “find several solutions to the problem” function.
The main problem of unexpressed competences is that they most likely will never become pronounced. It's like an incurable disease, such as age-related hypertension, when it is too late to fight the causes, and it only remains to find the right combination of pills to keep the pressure under control.
Need discipline and self-control, measurement of efficiency, consistency in the application of selected methods, otherwise everything will return to normal.
Such fortresses are taken a long siege, but without this, probably, in any way.
You have probably already answered the question “why is it necessary?”, But I will give my answer just in case.
Basically it consists of three words: efficiency, pleasure, development .
Efficiency manifests itself when people fall into place. They work without unnecessary stress, and solve problems to which their soul lies.
Labor costs to perform "their" work is lower than the "alien", sometimes at times. In some hyperbolic examples even tenfold.
For example, to the inveterate Contractor, whom we used to force to call the client, takes half an hour to prepare for the call. Tune in, get together, estimate the options for the development of the conversation, learn the first phrases. And the call itself lasts 1-2 minutes.
The same Diplomat will simply call and spend the same 1-2 minutes.
The analyst will answer the question “how it will affect the system” in 5 minutes, the coordinator will not answer at all - he will try to puzzle someone. The executor will respond, but only after a detailed study of the metadata and the call stack.
The generator will come up with 3 options for solving the problem while the cigarette is smoking, and the soul of the team will spend the whole Friday evening on it.
Trite, boring and inhuman, but efficiency increases - the team produces more results for the same period of time.
The pleasure is experienced by all team members, because Most of the time they are busy with their favorite things - each with their own . The deed, which comes from the soul, is carried out easily and naturally, and it turns out the best.
When it turns out the best, but no one competes with you, you just enjoy the process and the result.
But the main pleasure, of course, is that you are understood and accepted as it is . Your qualities have been used, you are appreciated for what you want and know how, and not what is right or proper for a corporate culture, staffing table or coordinate system of a steep manager.
Of course, every team member has to do an unloved job - just like brushing his teeth in the morning. It is necessary - it means it is necessary, if you decided to become a programmer.
Well, the development that arises instead of constantly breaking oneself. Understandable, healthy, disciplined development, as in the path of a samurai. You see your weak points, you work on strengthening them.
It is clear that the term "weak spot" is relative, since associated with the selected activity. I decided to become a programmer - I 'll have to write code. If you don’t want to write code, sorry, man, you won’t be able to be a programmer.
My team had a girl with long nails that prevented her from pressing the keys. Very sensible methodologist on accounting and tax accounting. But the keys are pressed with a pencil so as not to break the nails. I thought, and decided that the nails are more important, and became a pure methodologist.
When the decision was made by myself , then the desire to develop the missing qualities appears, and unexpressed roles cease to be a problem.
All of the above can be safely applied by one person - yourself, if you do not have a team. I did that.
There are just restrictions - there is no one else, no one to shift those roles that are not clearly expressed.
So you have to pull them yourself. The team would have to develop 1-2 unexpressed roles, without a team - 3-4, depending on the situation.
Everything else is exactly the same, only in one. He gave himself a task, he motivated himself, he invented a solution, analyzed it himself, talked to himself heart-to-heart, implemented it himself, communicated with clients or users, forced himself to stop increasing functionality and move to the finish line.
Knowing the roles in the team, having worked in this model, you can adjust the expansion plans to the required roles.
We did it right, at the HR level - all candidates wrote the Belbin test, among others. This, it seems, is now a common practice, so no one will refuse.
For example, we had 3 bright and 1 medium performer, but there was no motivator and finisher. Such we are looking for.
With all due respect to the guys who came to us, one more person who will wait for the task and just encode, we did not need. We had no problems with coding, but with a motivator - were.
The only thing is that the candidate must be told to write honestly. He, consciously or subconsciously, will try to guess the correct answers, in accordance with stereotypes. He wants to appear as a Contractor, or an Analyst, or a Generator, and will remain without work, because you need a Finisher, you already have a traffic police team. It is better to refuse the candidate at the entrance than to be shy to drive out - he will feel it.
It seems everything wrote that he remembered. I wanted to add some cases, such as the most appropriate sets for different situations, but I thought that they would only confuse you.
If you decide to try a similar model, then you will not need any of my or anyone's advice. All the same, you will start with what you have - make profiles and try to redistribute responsibilities. And then the fun begins - experiments, discoveries, and a unique team building experience.
“The boys told that real businessmen, who, according to the laws, live, have a gang called a“ deck ”, and each deck has its own bundle. The kumplect is eight lucky ones, each with its own position. The main one is “the king”; with him, a maruha, a business-friendly “lady”; then “the jack” is sort of like the main assistant; well, other fighters, from ten to six. And more than eight people are not held in a gang . "
It makes no sense to take less than eight people, there will be gaps in the “competencies”. More - it is impossible, there will be duplication and loss of controllability.
Oddly enough, the same Jeff Sutherland, one of the authors of the scram, called similar numbers - from 5 to 9 people. Although not specified specialization.
Anyway. And we continue the theme of building teams by roles, based on Belbin's tests. Descriptions of roles, as I saw them in my practice, are here . The lead on the question "why is this needed?" - here .
I'll tell you a few more features and chips, both for understanding roles and for their introduction in our profession.
Role influence
A clearly expressed role a person performs easily and with pleasure. This is usually one, maximum two roles. The key difference is a pronounced, “its” role: for its performance, a person does not need to be motivated, customized, forced or taught.
He will acquire knowledge himself, in the course of work, because he will want it. It will be moved forward by intuition and intrinsic motivation. Work on the main role is easy .
A less pronounced role is, as it were, a spare. A person is not so willing to perform work related to this role, but, in general, he does not experience difficulties either. How to brush your teeth is not much pleasure, but it doesn’t cause any problems.
Trouble is the fulfillment of duties associated with non-expressed roles. Particular attention in the construction, or rather the rebuilding of the team should be given precisely the use of unexpressed roles.
If a person is sickly “go to negotiate with users”, i.e. he has never been a Diplomat, but he is kicked out with his kicks, then he is under severe stress. Very serious. Not even because he is afraid to communicate with users - his soul, it seems, is resisting, as if it is being broken. Sometimes a person cannot even explain himself to himself - “I don’t want everything”.
Or, if a person who does not have the role of Coordinator is asked to manage the work of several colleagues, he falls into a stupor. Of course, he will do something as a result, he will distribute some instructions, but, again, at the cost of high stress.
There is an opinion, and I have long shared it, that if a person is forced to do what he doesn’t want with his gut, he will get used, learn and enjoy it. Several years of observation persuaded me. Learning to learn something, but the main thing will remain - the stress of doing something unpleasant for yourself.
There are exits from such a situation, they will be lower.
Role activation
Personally, my opinion - damn, hellishly important thing. This is almost the same activation that I recently wrote about - when a person suddenly realizes that he has everything he needs and starts to act.
Roles have the same story when reformatting a command.
Here were the programmers themselves, and did not know about any roles. They had a stupid chief, like me, who sculpted someone from them — experienced programmers, fighters, automatics — it doesn't matter.
I didn’t use the features of the characters, although I did. Sometimes even forbidden to use, because this approach did not fit into the pattern. For example, I did not listen to the Diplomat, who in the smoking room agreed with the head of the automated department to reduce the requirements for the project - he said “let him come to me and tell him himself”, fearing to lose credibility.
And then suddenly something changed, and people learned about their features. Not the most appropriate word - we learned, rather - confirmed, because intuitively, most people can somehow compare themselves with this scale. But a certain percentage of novelty after the test still appeared.
At such a moment, activation occurs - a person understands that he has , even if unconfirmed, inclinations and innate abilities for some kind of activity. If he does not believe, like most people, then everything will remain as before. And if you believe, well, or at least decide to check, the result can be amazing.
I was convinced of it personally on myself - you learn, you start to try, you are convinced, you believe, you develop and you receive pleasure. Because I was sitting, roughly speaking, in the barracks of the construction battalion, among identical bald heads, in the same form, and then they came and said: dude, your calling is to be a fighter pilot, let's pack and drive, the plane is waiting.
I am somewhat emotionally describing, because I do not know how to explain this rationally. For me, this is akin to some unexpected discovery, which is approached by the anecdote “so what, could it be?”. Or, one more thing - a traffic cop once stopped me on the road, I wanted to write out a fine for a pedestrian, I say: maybe let me go home? He says - okay, go. Here, about these feelings can be experienced from the activation of the role.
In order for people to experience such sensations, an appropriate atmosphere is needed, and a leader must create it. If the team is self-managed, which happens not so often, the atmosphere will be created by itself.
Activation can help people find themselves, including in a global sense. If your subordinates happen to activate the main role, which they did not suspect, and you will be the reason for this, then people will not forget this. I have not forgotten the person who activated me.
The combination of roles in man
I will touch on the topic of combination of roles. The main thing: the combination of roles is good if it is bright or medium-expressed roles. Concrete combinations are good for different types of activities, there are also suitable for our specificity.
Generator + Analyst is one of the best combinations for developers and factory programmers, because such a person will come up with an idea, and he will check it for adequacy. A clean generator tends to soar in the clouds sometimes, and the analyst, on the contrary, crawls along the ground in search of obstacles. If these roles are sitting in different people, then the process will interfere with the usual problems of interpersonal communication. Inside one person, such roles get along quite well.
Coordinator + Motivator - the perfect combination for a clean leader. The main feature - such a person can not only give an indication, but also explain why it is needed. Moreover, explain so that the subordinate himself wanted to perform the task. The coordinator is the steering wheel, it shows the direction, and the motivator is the engine. If they are different people, then, again, they have to agree, and if the roles are within one, then it becomes a locomotive.
Coordinator + Finisher is a good combination for project activities, especially for working for a client, where it is important to finish a project without delaying money to flow in a stable way. In the tasks that such a manager sets, the focus on completing a release, phase or project will dominate. He is also well suited to the role of the owner of the product in flexible methodologies: there periodically it is necessary to solve just such a task - “what should be done first of all in order to quickly complete the project or roll out the release?” If the finisher does not participate in this choice, then the project can go aside from completion - for example, in the implementation of useless, but “cool” functionality (generator) or in the global tests of the correctness of the SLAE solution with standard modules - what if there is an error? (analyst).
Generator + Diplomat is a good solution for implementation projects and factory programmers - where there is a client. The beauty is that the ideas of the generator will be offered not to the team, but outside it to the clients. These can be ideas that will save the team from unnecessary work if the diplomat agrees with the customers. For example, it will offer the client an alternative among ready-made solutions, instead of developing “according to my TK”, which the customer wanted so much.
Motivator + Soul Team - a combination for a development department or a sluggish team of factory programmers. This is nothing more than a paternal Goleman management style, when a manager establishes a relationship of trust with his subordinates, and they open up to the maximum, because they trust him. True, such a model can turn into a manipulation, since the leader has access to souls, knows features and weaknesses, and can take advantage of it. Personally, as I mentioned in the first article, I don’t like these team souls. Although, maybe I just do not know how to cook them?
Generator + Artist - a combination for a loner, in the development department or at the factory, with special rights. This is a person who makes breakthroughs, because he himself comes up with ideas, and he himself implements them. He has no obstacles in the form of approvals, discussions and analysis. Invented, made, issued. In life it is not very common, due to the dominance of managers who love KPI.
Analyst + Coordinator is a good combination for building control systems, at least in development, even at the factory. Usually the coordinator is content with manual control - distributes tasks, checks the result, controls the process. If inside there is also an analyst, then it will be annoyed by the inefficiency of the process of its own management, and it will begin to contribute
changes. If he is a good analyst, then an intelligent control system may turn out.
Enough, probably combinations. The principle is clear, and your personal practice will show much more and more interesting.
Incorrect placement
As I wrote above, using a person in an uncharacteristic role is stressful for him. But there is an exception rule in this rule - generator, analyst and performer. Perhaps someone else, but personally I watched these very ones.
These guys, in view of the nature of their character and worldview, can sometimes be happy to take on duties not intended for them and spoil the whole thing.
The generator in any position feels cool , but only deals with one thing - it comes up with something new to stir up. He forgets to fulfill the duties assigned to him, does not consider it important. It seems to him that the main thing is to invent something.
For the analyst, food for the mind is very important, and he also finds it in any position. Only he will not stir up something new, but dig in the old one - endlessly, for a long time, looking for new reasons for criticism and system analysis. The case will stand still, but the analyst does not care about that either. He will say that the main thing is “to understand everything”.
I have listed the performer with a reservation - he may feel well in some unusual positions when given instructions . He can, for example, manage people according to instructions. The quality is so-so, because there is no feedback loop - the performer is not interested in whether he does the right thing or not. The main thing is to follow the instructions .
Just keep in mind if you decide to rebuild the team - some guys may get up for inappropriate positions for self-assertion, but this will not benefit the rest.
The development of unexpressed roles
Unfortunately, in relation to our profession, some unexpressed roles will have to be developed.
The usual approach, when a person is simply forced to do something to which the soul does not lie, generates internal protest and keeps under stress. Not good, proper stress, which happens on implementation projects when the ground burns under your feet, and bad - routine, tedious, inevitable and sluggish, eroding from the inside every day.
When everything is explicable, and the goal of overcoming oneself is clear, then life becomes easier. You just explain to a person that we have a profession, where you need to be able to do this and this, and he agrees - himself, without coercion, and maybe with pleasure.
Personally, the Contractor seems to me the most necessary role for a programmer. Anyway, but work is necessary. For a project manager, it's probably not so scary not to be able to work, but the programmer stupidly needs to write code and solve problems. Neither ideas, nor motivational speeches, nor the ability to negotiate with users will not get rid of coding.
The second most important role, in my opinion, is the Analyst. Here you will probably correct me, because I am not well versed in the modern division of labor of programmers — did any architects, methodologists, technical writers, coders, directors, etc. appear there? I, in the old fashioned way, I consider the programmer of a person who solves a problem from the beginning (conversation with the customer) to the end (conversation with the customer). The customer is either internal or external. Here, the role of an analyst is indispensable, since it solves problems that were previously heard in the question “how will this refinement affect the system as a whole?”.
If the work is divided - for example, the coder to whom everything is painted, up to the name of the metadata, may not be an analyst. Here you know better.
The third most important, in aggregate, the role of the Generator. Without it, just to live is boring - the routine will eat. It is necessary, at least sometimes, to try to think outside the box and look for new solutions.
Now about how to develop an unexpressed role. Nothing supernatural, everything is trite and simple - to master, in practice, the corresponding techniques and algorithms, of which there are countless.
The expressed role itself will find its own way, intuitively, on scraps of knowledge and insights. And the unexpressed requires an algorithm, a path, an instruction, and constant attention.
For example, there are a lot of practices in the development of the role of the Contractor - the same time management, or procrastinology, which is now popular. A bunch of motivational videos with the phrase “how to make yourself act” is about the development of the role of the Contractor.
The expressed Contractor does not usually have such a problem. He came to work, turned on the computer, sat down to program. Everything.
For the unexpressed, there are constant downtime, motivation, kicks, control system, etc. are needed.
If the team has a motivator, then you can entrust him with tracking the development of unexpressed competences. The main thing is that he will understand the nuances of “doing nothing”: the expressed Contractor does not work if he has been forgotten to set the task, the unexpressed - because he cannot force himself. A cool manager would just scream at both, and the right motivator will talk to the unexpressed, and set the coordinator on the expressed.
On the development of the ability to analyst literature, too much. You can start with systemic thinking, there are quite a lot of theory and practical techniques. It will also be good to study the methodological part of the software you work with, at least the main blocks. An understanding will appear in the head what is connected with what, where it arises and where it flows, what it influences and what it depends on. Let him not sincerely analyze, but he can avoid gross mistakes.
How to truly develop the ability of the generator - I do not know. It seems there are some books and methods, such as TRIZ, but I have not read them. I have the most pronounced role - the generator, so I just generate.
I only know the trick from practice, which will not make a human generator, but will help a little - expanding my horizons. This is the case when they are content with little - not with their own ideas, but with strangers. Although, it is not so little, and sometimes it is even better to take someone else’s idea or a ready-made solution than reinventing the wheel. It turns out, of course, not a generator, but rather a reference index, but in part it will cope with the “find several solutions to the problem” function.
The main problem of unexpressed competences is that they most likely will never become pronounced. It's like an incurable disease, such as age-related hypertension, when it is too late to fight the causes, and it only remains to find the right combination of pills to keep the pressure under control.
Need discipline and self-control, measurement of efficiency, consistency in the application of selected methods, otherwise everything will return to normal.
Such fortresses are taken a long siege, but without this, probably, in any way.
What for?
You have probably already answered the question “why is it necessary?”, But I will give my answer just in case.
Basically it consists of three words: efficiency, pleasure, development .
Efficiency manifests itself when people fall into place. They work without unnecessary stress, and solve problems to which their soul lies.
Labor costs to perform "their" work is lower than the "alien", sometimes at times. In some hyperbolic examples even tenfold.
For example, to the inveterate Contractor, whom we used to force to call the client, takes half an hour to prepare for the call. Tune in, get together, estimate the options for the development of the conversation, learn the first phrases. And the call itself lasts 1-2 minutes.
The same Diplomat will simply call and spend the same 1-2 minutes.
The analyst will answer the question “how it will affect the system” in 5 minutes, the coordinator will not answer at all - he will try to puzzle someone. The executor will respond, but only after a detailed study of the metadata and the call stack.
The generator will come up with 3 options for solving the problem while the cigarette is smoking, and the soul of the team will spend the whole Friday evening on it.
Trite, boring and inhuman, but efficiency increases - the team produces more results for the same period of time.
The pleasure is experienced by all team members, because Most of the time they are busy with their favorite things - each with their own . The deed, which comes from the soul, is carried out easily and naturally, and it turns out the best.
When it turns out the best, but no one competes with you, you just enjoy the process and the result.
But the main pleasure, of course, is that you are understood and accepted as it is . Your qualities have been used, you are appreciated for what you want and know how, and not what is right or proper for a corporate culture, staffing table or coordinate system of a steep manager.
Of course, every team member has to do an unloved job - just like brushing his teeth in the morning. It is necessary - it means it is necessary, if you decided to become a programmer.
Well, the development that arises instead of constantly breaking oneself. Understandable, healthy, disciplined development, as in the path of a samurai. You see your weak points, you work on strengthening them.
It is clear that the term "weak spot" is relative, since associated with the selected activity. I decided to become a programmer - I 'll have to write code. If you don’t want to write code, sorry, man, you won’t be able to be a programmer.
My team had a girl with long nails that prevented her from pressing the keys. Very sensible methodologist on accounting and tax accounting. But the keys are pressed with a pencil so as not to break the nails. I thought, and decided that the nails are more important, and became a pure methodologist.
When the decision was made by myself , then the desire to develop the missing qualities appears, and unexpressed roles cease to be a problem.
Team of one person
All of the above can be safely applied by one person - yourself, if you do not have a team. I did that.
There are just restrictions - there is no one else, no one to shift those roles that are not clearly expressed.
So you have to pull them yourself. The team would have to develop 1-2 unexpressed roles, without a team - 3-4, depending on the situation.
Everything else is exactly the same, only in one. He gave himself a task, he motivated himself, he invented a solution, analyzed it himself, talked to himself heart-to-heart, implemented it himself, communicated with clients or users, forced himself to stop increasing functionality and move to the finish line.
Team gain
Knowing the roles in the team, having worked in this model, you can adjust the expansion plans to the required roles.
We did it right, at the HR level - all candidates wrote the Belbin test, among others. This, it seems, is now a common practice, so no one will refuse.
For example, we had 3 bright and 1 medium performer, but there was no motivator and finisher. Such we are looking for.
With all due respect to the guys who came to us, one more person who will wait for the task and just encode, we did not need. We had no problems with coding, but with a motivator - were.
The only thing is that the candidate must be told to write honestly. He, consciously or subconsciously, will try to guess the correct answers, in accordance with stereotypes. He wants to appear as a Contractor, or an Analyst, or a Generator, and will remain without work, because you need a Finisher, you already have a traffic police team. It is better to refuse the candidate at the entrance than to be shy to drive out - he will feel it.
PS
It seems everything wrote that he remembered. I wanted to add some cases, such as the most appropriate sets for different situations, but I thought that they would only confuse you.
If you decide to try a similar model, then you will not need any of my or anyone's advice. All the same, you will start with what you have - make profiles and try to redistribute responsibilities. And then the fun begins - experiments, discoveries, and a unique team building experience.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/436268/