This is the mark of a good project according to some friends I was out with the other evening. They are not slackers in the bad sense, though they are slackers as is evident from their credo that is the title of this entry. I would consider it a coup in the extreme to get any of these guys on a project with me; they have all been part of many very successful projects.
As I left them that evening I did not think much about the credo, other than the fact that I liked it and followed it when I could. I vaguely thought that these were people who were really good at what they do so can afford to adopt a credo like that. For the rest of us, software delivery is something of a grind. But I have also been thinking recently about how to introduce change to teams that have been working in a given configuration for awhile and don’t really see any problems with what they do. After having both these things in my head for awhile it came to me that my slacker friends aren’t SO good that they could adopt a slacker credo, instead by ASPIRING to a slacker credo they were able to hone their delivery skills to an excellent level and thereby take up some slacker activity. More precisely, I have no idea why these slackers are so good, but the rest of us could hone our delivery skills by aspiring to the slacker credo
Maybe it is worth exploring if you in fact can have a good project while arriving late, leaving early and taking a big break in between. Well in order to this, in my experience, you need a few qualities on the team.
1. There has to be trust amongst all team members. No way you can have all this time away from the keyboard if half the team don’t believe delivery is possible. They may not believe delivery is possible if they aren’t part of the decision making process and if there are not clear and constant lines of communication between all team members.
2. Team size must be small. You can’t have a whole team involved in decision making, or constant and clear lines of communication between all team members if the size grows too big.
3. The team must be open to change and aggressively looking for ways to improve their processes. I don’t care how good you are, you can’t turn a 3 month 40 hour a week project into a 3 month 20 hour a week project unless you find ways to improve and optimize your processes on a regular basis.
Maybe there are more elements to it than that, but the three elements listed above are a start. If you don’t have those elements in your team then get them. If that still doesn’t work, I can put you in touch with my friends and maybe they can reveal the secret ingredient.
So if you can tell me that you could follow the slacker delivery credo if you chose to without putting your project at risk I would say you have a successful project and great prospects for more success in the future. If you say you could not do that, then what are you doing to get there?
