Google Tech Talks May 6, 2008 ABSTRACT When you look around, there are a lot of leaders recommended for software development. We have the functional manager and the project manager, the scrum master and the black belt, the product owner and the customer-on-site, the technical leader and the architect, the product manager and the chief engineer. Clearly that's too many leaders. So how many leaders should there be, what should they do, what shouldn't they do, and what skills do they need? This will be a presentation and discussion of leadership roles in software development -- what works, what doesn't and why. Speaker: Mary Poppendieck Mary Poppendieck started her career as a process control programmer, moved on to manage the IT department of a manufacturing plant, and then ended up in product development, where she was both a product champion and department manager. Mary considered retirement 1998, but instead found herself managing a government software project where she first encountered the word "waterfall." When Mary compared her experience in successful software and product development to the prevailing opinions about how to manage software projects, she decided the time had come for a new paradigm. She wrote the award-winning book Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit in 2003 to explain how the lean principles from manufacturing offer a better approach to software development. Over the past six years, Mary has found retirement elusive as she lectures and teaches classes with her husband Tom. Based on their on-going learning, they wrote a second book, Implementing Lean Software Development: From Concept to Cash in 2006. A popular writer and speaker, Mary continues to bring fresh perspectives to the world of software development. Speaker: Tom Poppendieck Tom Poppendieck has 25 years of experience in computing including eight years of work with object technology. His modeling and mentoring skills are rooted in his experience as a physics professor. His early work was in IT infrastructure, product development, and manufacturing support, and evolved to consulting project assignments in healthcare, logistics, mortgage banking, and travel services. Tom led the development of a world-class product data management practice for a major commercial avionics manufacturer that reduced design to production transition efforts from 6 months to 6 weeks. He also led the technical architecture team for very large national and international Baan and SAP implementations. Tom Poppendieck is an enterprise analyst and architect, and an agile process mentor. He focuses on identifying real business value and enabling product teams to realize that value. Tom specializes in understanding customer processes and in effective collaboration of customer, development and support specialists to maximize development efficiency, system flexibility, and business value. Tom is co-author of the book Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit, published in 2003, and its sequel, Implementing Lean Software Development: From Concept to Cash, published in 2006.

Comments

1. Good leader also manage his networks.
2. So in 3M the workers actually weren't workers, but they were skilled engineers, who just had no other workers as helpers. Additionally, sure, workers know how to do their work. But there is still good to be roles for people and supervision. You still had managers and supervisors and normal visors doing their things. It is not so good, that in a software project you just get random people and let them figure things out without any frame of reference who is project manager, and so on. Also in bigger software companies there is more going on, and sometimes it is more efficient to decide from top how to mold things. I mean, managers decided to go to lean model, not the workers. Also many levels of managers simulated the lean way of doing things, so at higher levels managers knew what they wanted. It is not so good if you have managers, but they are not deciding things nor "simulating" things.
   
   And software engineering is not manufacturing job. On the other hand, it should be as much as possible: There should be certain ways of doing things instead of ad hoc banging of heads against walls. For example always gather requirements first, then do specification, then prototype and definition, coding, etc... and documents always consistent,... If you just let workers do work, it is not the most efficient way possible. Sure you can let workers use tools the best possible way, but things need to be in order. In manufacturing you have assembly lines that move slowly. A worker cannot suddenly decide something that doesn't go with the assembly line. In software development the workers need to follow requirements. But if requirements are obscure, how do you follow them? Workers sort the requirements out? How do the workers know, how many features the customer bought? There needs to be some management and differentiation of work, you can't just "let the workers figure everything out". Someone needs to be project manager and so on.
   
   How does an individual worker improve the process, if he has the power over only his own little work area? I mean, each worker needs input from others, or might have to take care of other work areas which are not by standard and therefore seem (are) messy? I think that there should be general framework and practise for doing things. One worker cannot affect that framework, he needs the support of supervisors. But if supervisors don't listen, then things don't improve in general. And then you need a manager who introduces the next "lean".
3. Discussion is interesting. But I expect more ...
4. A little bit slow at the beginning (the first hour of the video hahahaha) for anyone that have had a management training, but well... it's ok, like @meitarm already said, it's a nice summary on the management topic. And please change the name of the video to comprehensively management or something like that, because the name it has now is really wrong!!!
5. The network. Was in the links quickly. Communicate Well .. a category or group or field, group. The rest of the group leader. Description and responsibilities of each group. Send to a larger center. To check in, and management.
6. Everything meitarm wrote.
7. Life is too short for for this shit.
8. yes, good technology but uh......can you fuck it? lol
9. Gayyyyyy
10. I love Google, Sony, Microsoft, Facebook, Aazda, GM. Ford, Samsung and Apple!!! In other words I love my family... -Some gys on my family dont like each other...!
11. very good talk. Lots of examples, I love learning from examples. I would like someone to video a few actual projects in progress and then put the best bits on youtube. A bit like Ripple Down Rules, where good ideas get linked to examples. Not just one or two, but a few hundred.
12. this is an excellent guide! good stuff
13. It is so deep!
14. very good video ,,,, thankz to all
15. This. Is. AMAZING. What a remarkably clear, and exceptionally well-presented discussion. I am very glad I took the time to watch this video. I feel like it took me from 0 to 60 in understanding the importance of business process management—and how not to shoot myself in the foot with it!