The Virtue of Rest

It is the end of the Labor Day weekend in the United States, and I have been thinking about America's unusual relationship with work.  We are the most prosperous and productive nation on the planet, but there is a price to pay for this accomplishment.  Workers in the United States take fewer vacation days, and they suffer from burnout at a higher rate than other western nations.  If we want to continue being the leader in the world economy, we must have a conversation about the virtue of rest.  

Max Webber, in his book, "The Protestant Work Ethic," argues that America is uniquely situated to be an economic powerhouse because many of the founding members of the American nation came from the Protestant denomination of Christianity. According to Webber, since work provides people with dignity and purpose, creating wealth, capitalist societies' virtues are predominantly Protestant.  It is a nice counterpoint to Karl Marx and his thoughts about how economies fit into the culture.  

Today, America is more diverse than at any time in its history.  We have Christians of all denominations, Jews, Muslims, and Hindus.  It is also common to find Buddhist temples and neo-pagan shrines in many big cities around the United States.  It is a significant strength of our nation.  While we have many religious faiths, American workers have embraced the protestant work ethic first described by Webber, and I see it among the professional people work with each day.  

The notion that work provides dignity and purpose slots conveniently with the laissez-faire approach to our economy in the United States.  We have fewer vacation days and national holidays than other countries.  Labor laws are more favorable to business owners than workers.  Finally, any support for working families comes from private businesses instead of from a government safety net.

Lost in this situation was the idea that you should rest.  Olympic athletes need to rest between bouts and include recovery time in their training.  Lack of sleep has similar effects to being intoxicated with alcohol.  Problem-solving declines the longer individuals look at a problem.  Finally, constant pressure to perform creates stress which leads to health consequences.  The biggest paradox of productivity is that the more productive we try to be, the less effective we become.

It is why the labor movement pushed for a forty-hour workweek one hundred years ago.  It is also why banks are paying extreme salaries for entry-level workers.  People, to be productive, need to rest.  The agile principles explicitly talk about sustainable pace.  It is impossible to get work finished if the workforce is too exhausted to accomplish it.

I am a firm believer in Webber's Protestant work ethic, but without rest, it isn't very sensible, something we all need to respect on a Labor Day weekend.

Until next time.

Your Developers Are More Than Resources

These are more than resources

It is the Labor Day weekend in the United States.  I marks a turning point in the year as summer winds down and all attention turns to the fourth quarter and generating as much profit as possible before the end of the fiscal year.  As a scrum master, I spend so much time jumping from sprint to sprint that I find it hard to see the big picture of the how my projects are going.  It is a constant balancing act between tactical choices and strategic goals.   This week I want to talk about the most important part of the scrum process – the people who do the work.

I have worked in the technology business for over 18 years.  I have experienced the giddy and stupid times of the dot.com boom and the fear and uncertainty of the great recession.  The common thread through all of these periods was that work needed to get done.  In order to get that work completed many companies relied on consulting companies to augment their staff.  These “contract workers” were often treated poorly and given tremendous responsibility for the success of the project with none of the financial and career benefits if it did.  Add to this situation that many of these contract workers were working under H1-11 visas and you had a situation which resembled indentured servitude.  I remember working for one company and being in a staff meeting where everyone was afraid to speak because if they did they would be rolled off the project and they risked being deported.

I blame most of this misconduct on how technology work is funded in a corporate environment.  For instance, much of the technology work is considered an overhead expense.  Thus, to keep expenses down many business people only hire the bare minimum of technology staff.  There are a few help desk people.  Network engineers dot the organization chart and you see a manager keeping everything running on time.  Software developers and User Experience professionals are not considered “necessary” for the operation of the business until new software needs to be written.  Thus, when they are needed they are brought in like mercenaries to try and build software they have little professional or personal investment to build with any sense of craft.  They get paid for showing up and billing.  They are not compensated for creating shippable code.

Many of the people who do the work are referred to by other business people as “resources”.   People ask questions such as, “Do we have enough resources, to do this project?” or “Do we have the right resources with the correct skills?”  Every time I hear technology workers referred to as resources, it makes my flesh crawl.  It treats highly educated and smart people like they were rivets in a giant construction project.  I have never heard of iron workers referred to as “resources” by construction managers but every project manager I have known has referred to developers as resources.  It is so prevalent that I even catch myself saying it from time to time.

People who build software are not resources.  They are flesh and blood.  They work in cubicles and offices around the world from Chicago, to Belfast, to Chennai.  They are the people who are building to global economy one web page and user class at a time.  They take the vague ideas of a sales person on the back of a napkin and transform it into working software.  They maneuver through corporate politics and red tape to get things put on production servers.  They tolerate not having office supplies because there is no budget for paper clips from finance.  They work late hours and early mornings to communicate with off shore teams.  They make your business successful.  You just don’t see it because we keep all the lights on and everything working even if it requires metaphorical duct tape.

So show a little respect to your developers and the people who employ them.  They are more valuable than you know and they are more than just “resources”.

Until next time.