<story><title>How to work with Software Engineers</title><url>https://www.kennethnorton.com/essays/how-to-work-with-software-engineers.html</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>hvs</author><text>I know where this article is coming from, but I guess I&apos;ve just been lucky to work with a lot of great PMs that:&lt;p&gt;1) Are a firewall between upper management and the development team.&lt;p&gt;2) Organize the priorities of the team and help the developers to get the most done in the limited amount of time that they have.&lt;p&gt;3) Follow up on business requirements and the thousands of other details that need to be figured out so that the client doesn&apos;t say, &quot;what the hell is this?&quot; on delivery day even though it is precisely what they asked for (but not what they wanted).&lt;p&gt;4) Praise the team for the great work that they&apos;ve been doing and make their successes known to management.&lt;p&gt;I&apos;ve worked with as many (or more) crap developers as I have PMs, so I&apos;m always wary of articles like this. It&apos;s way too easy to talk about how management/sales/PMs/etc don&apos;t add any value to the process (which is patently false) while lionizing the work of the developer as if they are all dedicated, hardworking, and never, ever, make mistakes.&lt;p&gt;This &quot;us vs. them&quot; mentality that exists is ridiculous. We are all trying to accomplish something. Some are better than others at it. But don&apos;t shit on someone else&apos;s job, complain about how you want to be left alone, and then wonder why your career isn&apos;t going anywhere.</text></comment>
<story><title>How to work with Software Engineers</title><url>https://www.kennethnorton.com/essays/how-to-work-with-software-engineers.html</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>edw519</author><text>Cute. Nice fake list. Nice writing. The &quot;true&quot; list at the end, like a Hollywood ending, was probably not necessary.&lt;p&gt;Now my list:&lt;p&gt;1. You don&apos;t &quot;work with&quot; software engineers. We don&apos;t even &quot;work with&quot; each other. If you don&apos;t learn anything else from this, get this: we work alone. Always. Even when we think we don&apos;t. Sure, we occasionally get together to plan, analyze, discuss, white board, even &quot;pair program&quot; whatever that means, but sooner or later, we all sit down alone and do what we do. With that in mind...&lt;p&gt;2. Leave us the fuck alone! If you see a software engineer looking at a screen and typing, that means we&apos;re BUSY. Do not interrupt. Do not call. Do not text. Do not IM. Do ask if we&apos;re busy (WE are!). Do not tap us on our shoulder. And whatever you do, don&apos;t just stand there waiting for us to stop typing (We won&apos;t; that&apos;s a test of wills you will lose). Just send an email. That&apos;s it. When we break, we&apos;ll check email and reply. If you don&apos;t write well enough to communicate with us, then learn how to.&lt;p&gt;(If my language seems a little strong, it&apos;s because I feel so strongly about this. Nothing is more frustrating to us than having work to do and being kept from doing it when we want to. We often need large blocks of time and room to focus deeply.)&lt;p&gt;3. Don&apos;t try to understand how we work, what makes us tick, what turns us on, or the &quot;secret&quot; to making us more productive. a. All those things are different for every one of us. b. We don&apos;t even know what they are ourselves.&lt;p&gt;4. Don&apos;t patronize us. Sure, we all appreciate beer, donuts, chocolate, and foosball, just like everybody else, but don&apos;t bother trying to get something from us with a gimmick. It may work once or twice, but then never again. That shit doesn&apos;t even work on your dog. Why do you think it would work with us?&lt;p&gt;5. Provide us with the resources we need. This is pretty binary. Do this and get results. Don&apos;t do this and don&apos;t get results. For the most part, we&apos;re fairly easy. A comfortable chair. A decent machine. Good lighting. Fresh air or HVAC. Peace and quiet. Decent facilities. Specs or requirements &amp;#62; 50% accurate. (Forget about 100% accurate; none of us has ever seen that; we&apos;ll live with 50-80%.).&lt;p&gt;6. When we tell you we need something, believe us!.If we need clarification on something, get it. If we need more time, give it to us. If we need access to someone/something, make it happen.&lt;p&gt;7. Never lie to us. We are used to our machines always telling the truth. We insist on no less from other humans.&lt;p&gt;8. Contrary to common belief, we do not hate the following classes of things, we just hate idiotic instances of them: meetings, status reports, timesheets, processes, procedures, policies, mission statements, motivational posters, HR, reviews, interviews, reports, specs, and team-building exercises.&lt;p&gt;9. The best thing you could possibly do for us: everything you must and not one thing more.&lt;p&gt;10. Top ten lists suck (except this one).</text></comment>