Kuneri bloggy

It is funny how one meets different people at different places. I was sitting in my Spanish class and introducing myself in Spanish:”Soy scientifico…” I told that I had researched agile software development. After the class was over, the man next to me started talking to me. He was an experienced project manager in a leading Finnish company and he was seeking new processes to utilize in his current team. We talked for an hour about processes and how to manage a team in an evolving environment.

One thing I was very curious about was the way he had managed one of his teams throughout his years as a project manager. His team consisted of young competent developers and an experienced developer. The project went on well except one hidden problem: the experienced developer was implicitly running the whole developing process i.e. the other developers got used to the fact that they could ask the experienced one to solve the most complex problems. The result was: other developers had not been evolving and improving their competence on problem solving.

The project manager saw this negative effect, so he arranged a transfer for the experienced one to other assignments. Thus, the development team suffered from a major brain leak. Nonetheless, these developers were very motivated towards their job and assignment and they had a very strong team spirit. Every one was ready to work for common purpose: to achieve project goals and deliver an excellent product. The overall result was that the developers managed to build a very satisfying product. In fact, he said that if you would check Finland’s gross domestic product from those years, you could see an unexpected raise, a peak, compared to the usual level.

Summa summarum: it is quite self-explanatory matter that motivated developers form an effective team. However, people think that as a self-explanatory matter, without really thinking on it, really. One should sometimes stop and think what is important if one wants to really succeed. Of course it is true that the programming itself is an important thing as far as software is concerned, but there are still other matters that affect product quality implicitly.

We, as a team in Kuneri, are motivated because we know our aim and what to work for. The goal is clear in our mind and we are evolving day by day, facing with new challenges on our own. We advise everyone to do the same thing: Keep motivated :)

Veli