Two management methods of software companies

http://blog.csdn.net/shimiso/article/details/8287291
This article was recommended to me by a foreign colleague, Gareth, with whom I worked for a while. The reason why he thought it was very good was because this article made him experience it, and he felt that I would also experience it, and asked me to consider translating it into my blog. After reading it, I think it is very representative, and I think it is too right, so I translated it, I hope everyone can read it, and it is best to pass it on to your company boss.
　　This article comes from a question on StakeExchange - "Why do BAs and PMs get paid more than programmers?", the reply on the top floor analyzes the reason and points out two management cultures.

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　　A simple answer should be——“Because in our society , we always think that the salary will be tied to the level of the position.” However, this answer also reflects the fact that our salary is based on what we understand the value, but this does not explain:

1. Why PM (Project Manager) and BA (Business Analysts) are organized in many software companies the upper level?
2. Why is the software project team always at the bottom?
　　These two questions are really worth asking and thinking about.

　　In general, there are two different organizational structures of software companies in this world. I call them Widget Factory and Film Crews.

　　Widget Factories wants to figure out how to inspire people influenced by Theory X. Theory X was put forward by McGregor. This theory is that the average person is lazy by nature, the less work the better, and the avoidance of work if possible. Most people do not care about the goals of the collective (company, institution, unit or organization, etc.), Therefore, managers need to motivate people to work with incentives such as coercion, threat of punishment, guidance, and monetary benefits. Therefore, the manager always has to do the work of his subordinates. Therefore, the management method thought out based on this premise is naturally that the entire team can be easily replaced by a manager alone, and everyone in this team can easily be replaced by others. In the team, the manager's work ability is continuously strengthened. Therefore, such companies generally use a tree-level organizational structure rather than horizontal job roles.

　　The Widget Factory management system operates on a certain assumption of the production software, which requires the BA to prepare the software specification in a well-defined process that needs to be supervised by the competent project manager. Such software manufacturing requires sufficient replaceable programming and testing resources for project placement. The entire work is driven by a pre-arranged budget, which is completed by the PM and BA when initializing the business case.

　　The management of a Widget Factory company can be identified by observing the way employees of the company talk. They like to talk about Resource resources (including those who do the work, also called resources), Process flow, Operating efficiency, uniformity consistency, repeatability, repeatability, strict control over the use of resources, distinct job roles and distinct processes Definition (inputs and outputs). They are indifferent to actual software development, and they want to turn the ideal software development operation into a picture they can see.

　　Film Crews. This kind of company believes that people have high intelligence and creativity, and they can inspire themselves (Chen Hao Note: Even if there is no external pressure and threat of punishment, they will work hard to achieve their goals - people have self The ability to regulate and self-monitor), people work hard, and can enjoy work (people are willing to work for collective goals, do their best at work, creativity, intelligence), just as children love to play. Film Crews believes that each individual's own professional ability is far superior to the ability to be organized and coordinated. Because managers no longer replace everyone, and tree hierarchies don't work well - people have to cooperate in more complex and formal ways to get things done. Job responsibilities have become very vertical - you need to have a broad range of capabilities from top to bottom (Chen Hao Note: Everyone needs to have management and technical skills), which is based on McGregor's Theory Y .

　　A Film Crew Director (note: the meaning of director and director) understands every piece of the piece to put together a great piece of software, he needs to organize an unparalleled team, and to help this team come together and stick together Work. His role is to inspire, guard the Vision, provide direction and focus. Everyone is critical because "Director" believes that software results come from all participants and their unique way of working as a team. Everyone knows they are a star in this matter, and star power can increase everyone's chances of success. And their Vision drives budgets and appropriations.

　　When we express it in terms of compensation, Widget Factories believes that valuable things are always derived from PM and BA, so they are resident on the top of management and have corresponding compensation, and software teams, as long as they correctly put Once the requirements become working code, it doesn't matter. PMs and BAs work hard to maintain their positions, and they usually don't give you access to raw information on projects. The team cannot get the original information of the project, the team will desperately create various reasons to make their solution valuable, and the programmers become the workers who only follow orders from the PM and BA. This situation has instead made Widget Factory amplify their idea that programmers are all the same, just like workers in the workshop, they are just doing some very complex but very standard things mechanically.

　　In stark contrast to Film Crew, Film Crew advocates the idea of ​​equality, each member has unrestricted access to primary and original information, which encourages the formation of value judgments, and is free to choose different ways to achieve The idea of ​​the team. Leadership Leadership structures are based on human capabilities rather than job roles. Compensation shows how this person worked on the project, and we need to understand how much value this person has created for our software and what kind of results it has produced. In this environment, the PM's job is not prominent, and he is probably not likely to be a creative leader, and the job role is reduced to an administrative support and contact outside the team. . Part of the BA's work is directly replaced by the team (replaced by the Director early in the project).

　　Now, it's no surprise that most in-company software development teams, as well as some consulting work, operate at Widget Factories, which rely on processes to make boring software constantly. In this case, PMs and BAs routinely earn more than programmers, which is basically an assumption that they can create more value. In this organizational structure and management, it is difficult for programmers to prove that management is wrong.

　　Successful software companies tend to go the Film Crew way, and anything else gets in the way of their ability to attract great people, because you can only create great software by attracting great people. In this kind of company, a good programmer's income will be much higher than BA and PM.

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　　After reading this article, I found that this is completely talking about me The previous company and the current company. Managers at my last company liked to talk about resources, process, and their Project Manager or Team Manager or Dev Manager hardly took the pressure of real software development for the software team, not as good as Widget Factory. Why! It was the first time I saw it being expressed so systematically, and some of my confusions were answered.

　　Which one is your company?