Interesting article here on what skills IT manages wish their IT people had.
My thoughts…
I agree with most of it. Don’t know that risk taking is that important, or at least not at the level of an entrepreneur, but definitely for “Well, let’s try it and see what results we get”.
I’d like developers to at least be aware of the sales component of the business. Who do we sell to and why do they buy?
And I really, really want developers to try and use the product as it was intended. It’s hard to do that when you’re building it, and hard to see it objectively, but it would be great if they had more of a feel for the product. I see it sometimes, but it’s not common.
Related to that, do you think developers just build what they’re told or should have an understanding of the intent and purpose? Agile development calls for it, but again, I don’t see it often.
The next level question would be ’should developers build a product that they don’t really get, or wouldn’t use themselves?
Asking too much?
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3 responses so far ↓
1 Kate Carruthers // Jun 1, 2008 at 3:28 am
To a certain extent the list you linked to is nice to have. But better to have developers who understand the business they are serving. Have, on occasion, had to actually take developers out to show them how real people use their software in real life. Really smart folks but they just did not realise different kinds of people in different environments to them would use the stuff everyday for years. That ability to think from user perspective is so powerful. Don’t really care if they can speak in public though (unless they want to).
2 oliverw // Jun 1, 2008 at 5:16 pm
Agree with Kate. I’m a usability guy and it’s invaluable (and for some “life changing”) for developers to see their software being used by their target market.
3 JMab // Jun 3, 2008 at 7:51 am
“Don’t know that risk taking is that important,”
I think risk taking can get you ahead in any creative role.
“The next level question would be ’should developers build a product that they don’t really get, or wouldn’t use themselves? ”
They should certainly “get” why they are building software. Agile methodologies emphasise face-to-face communication over written documentation. Developers should ideally get their requirements directly from the end users (certainly for internal applications developed in an agile way, anyway). Developers don’t necessarily have to be end-users themselves, as long they understand the requirement to develop.
When you combine the technical chops with an entrepreneurial nature, you get the legions of “new money” techies littering the world’s richest lists (Gates, Ballmer, Allen, Ellison, those Google guys, etc).
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