I'm looking for resources about sustainable software dev!
December 9, 2016 5:21 PM Subscribe
Hola hivemind!,
I'm being asked to lead a medium-ish team of game developers on a project with a budget around ~1 mil. I've worked on many teams in the past and suffered the various ills of game/software development- Crunch, long hours, people-as-replaceable-parts etc.
It's my belief that these things aren't necessary and often detrimental, relics of a macho culture that prizes brute force over being smart. What I'm trying to is to find great readings about leadership, management and especially development to support my point. What're your favorite reads on the subject?
Software Project Survival Guide.
Continuous Delivery.
The DevOps Handbook.
Leading Geeks.
I've never managed a game project, but I've managed a lot of software projects. Some of the ills you mention are due to poor leadership, but a lot of it is due to poor planning or inefficient, burdensome, or non-existant processes.
posted by elmay at 5:42 PM on December 9, 2016
Continuous Delivery.
The DevOps Handbook.
Leading Geeks.
I've never managed a game project, but I've managed a lot of software projects. Some of the ills you mention are due to poor leadership, but a lot of it is due to poor planning or inefficient, burdensome, or non-existant processes.
posted by elmay at 5:42 PM on December 9, 2016
Peopleware is really good.
posted by Doleful Creature at 6:42 PM on December 9, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Doleful Creature at 6:42 PM on December 9, 2016 [1 favorite]
Start digging into Rands (aka Michael Lopp), his blog, and his 2007/2016 book Managing Humans.
Rands' blog articles on leadership is a good starting point.
posted by JoeZydeco at 9:24 PM on December 9, 2016 [1 favorite]
Rands' blog articles on leadership is a good starting point.
posted by JoeZydeco at 9:24 PM on December 9, 2016 [1 favorite]
"Software development as a cooperative game", Alistair Cockburn
He also lists some other characterizations, "What is/isn't software development"
Model Building - Jacobsen
Engineering - Meyer
Discipline - Humphries
Poetry - Cockburn
Math - Hoare
Craft - Knuth
Art - Gabriel
posted by at at 3:46 AM on December 10, 2016
He also lists some other characterizations, "What is/isn't software development"
Model Building - Jacobsen
Engineering - Meyer
Discipline - Humphries
Poetry - Cockburn
Math - Hoare
Craft - Knuth
Art - Gabriel
posted by at at 3:46 AM on December 10, 2016
Checking in with a contrarian view. I did a two year stint in the gaming industry; just before that I worked in telecommunications and just after in medical devices and then airline reservation systems. It was a real contrast. Those other sectors were high stakes for bugs/defects and you really had to think about software that was going to be around and maintained for ten or twenty years. Consequently, there was a lot of process around making sure that defects were caught as early as possible and you had multiple chances to find them and fix them before code went into production.
In the gaming industry, or at least the studio I worked in, it was the opposite. Because such a high percentage of games are sold at Christmas time, the only thing that mattered was getting the game out the door in time for Christmas buyers. And, unless you had a real hit on your hands (which was always a good problem to have), the game would fade off into obscurity after six months. Spending too much time on testing, or even just simple error handling, was literally time wasted.
If this rings true for you, I'm going to suggest that some of the books linked above aren't going to be net helpful because they are addressing the development process and have an inherent bias towards some of those high stakes industries I mentioned above - industries where the executives are generally willing to add resources and process to reduce risk of defects. If you don't have control over your dates, or the ability to add resources or get other parts of the organization to change what they are doing, then there is only so much you can do about the process and planning issues. What you can control is how you manage and lead your team - keeping them happy and satisfied with the work, clearing roadblocks, and helping them be as productive as possible. For that reason, I would second some of the upthread recommendations like Peopleware or Leading Geeks (haven't read that one). I also like some of the mainstream leadership books like Leadership without Easy Answers, On Leadership, and Leadership on the Line. Send me a memail if you'd like to get more specific on your situation.
posted by kovacs at 7:54 AM on December 10, 2016 [4 favorites]
In the gaming industry, or at least the studio I worked in, it was the opposite. Because such a high percentage of games are sold at Christmas time, the only thing that mattered was getting the game out the door in time for Christmas buyers. And, unless you had a real hit on your hands (which was always a good problem to have), the game would fade off into obscurity after six months. Spending too much time on testing, or even just simple error handling, was literally time wasted.
If this rings true for you, I'm going to suggest that some of the books linked above aren't going to be net helpful because they are addressing the development process and have an inherent bias towards some of those high stakes industries I mentioned above - industries where the executives are generally willing to add resources and process to reduce risk of defects. If you don't have control over your dates, or the ability to add resources or get other parts of the organization to change what they are doing, then there is only so much you can do about the process and planning issues. What you can control is how you manage and lead your team - keeping them happy and satisfied with the work, clearing roadblocks, and helping them be as productive as possible. For that reason, I would second some of the upthread recommendations like Peopleware or Leading Geeks (haven't read that one). I also like some of the mainstream leadership books like Leadership without Easy Answers, On Leadership, and Leadership on the Line. Send me a memail if you'd like to get more specific on your situation.
posted by kovacs at 7:54 AM on December 10, 2016 [4 favorites]
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The Mythical Man Month.
Controlling Software Projects. I'm surprised there isn't a Wikipedia article for this one. This was the first paperback I ever paid more than $50 for and considered it money well spent. (And that was 30 years ago.)
posted by Bruce H. at 5:30 PM on December 9, 2016 [1 favorite]