Road trip!
I will be driving this route sometime in late February to early March:
I have to be in Salt Lake City for MountainWest RubyConf on March 13-14. I have no fixed departure date. That’s because I want to do some visiting along the way. I may also do some visiting on the way back.
I have a half-formed plan to use such trips to do research for a book, tentatively titled Travels in Software: What the Great Teams Know. I want to find teams that are special in some way that other teams ought to learn from. It could be that they are particularly good at some specific technique, or that they have a general style that deserves emulation, or that they’re notably long-lived. (I mention the latter because I’ve gotten interested in the idea of “resilient teams”: ones that don’t dissolve because people get bored with what they’re doing, have survived big changes in their corporate environment, etc.)
If you are such a team, let me know.
My idea for a visit would be to “embed” myself in a team for up to a week. I would work with people on the team, pitching in on whatever they’d be doing were I not there. I’d also consume some time interviewing people.
Someone with authority would have to sign a Disclosure Agreement beforehand. Roughly, you’ll have to agree that you have no control over what I write about how you do things, but you can have reasonable control over descriptions of what you’re doing those things to. If you don’t want me to describe the product or your super-duper, soon-to-be-patented algorithms, that’s fine.
January 21st, 2009 at 3:08 pm
So close! If I will be in Des Moines or maybe Iowa City as you drive by, I’ll let you know. I am not a Great Team.
January 23rd, 2009 at 2:51 pm
I remember you mentioning this idea back in December; I absolutely love it. I think that a book on this would be very valuable in our profession, based on actual experiences with many different teams.
I can’t wait to follow the trip as you go.
January 23rd, 2009 at 2:52 pm
I don’t have a better place to put this, so
That red line on the top of your blog is sure starting to distance itself from the green one, and not in a good way.
January 23rd, 2009 at 2:55 pm
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