Daniel Bradbury
Development Turntable
And the turntable keeps on turnin' and turnin' Nothing can fuck with the way it goes around - Slug
Human nature tells us that there is a natural desire to make sense of the uncertain and create some semblance of control in our lives. This fundamental desire to create order where chaos thrives is the entire struggle of every growing company and the realization that always occurs when a company begins to grow past its infancy/adolescence. You know a company is in this phase when the Operations side wants to throw X engineers at the problem in hopes that it will increase effiency and get us to that cash cow ASAP (a different can of worms for another time)
When I was introduced to SCRUM in the real world I was blown away with the organization that seemed to be instilled throughout a company of ~20 engineers (the largets team I had worked with at the time) and >100 in all departments. Communication seemed to be streamlined and the pace of development seemed like it was pushing limits and allowing the team to move at the maximum velocity.. As a disclaimer I still am a believer in some system like SCRUM (loose-SCRUM) to keep visibility in a minimal way but I'd like to rethink the "optimal development cycle"
Whenever I think about business I am a bit cynical after seeing a company be sold with very little transparency to the <10 employees in the ranks. Because of past experiences with companies and individuals who have reneged on contracts and payments I like to assume the worst case when thinking in the hypothetical.
Let's imagine a company that has just gone through a big round of funding and is now ready to make the push from 150 employees to 300+ w/ multiple offices around the United States to house all the talent that they have. This company is going places and they are in control of their destiny. Development team is churning out features left and right and the folks in Operations and Sales are able to keep customers happy and sign new customers with ease. In our ficticious company we have happy employees in every aspect of the business.
Now what happens when a Sales manager gets word that the company can sign the biggest contract ever by orders of magnatiude that make
To be continued..