Hey, this is daily overpass, my name is Eric and I make apps! Now today let's
talk about apathy in software projects!
Have you ever worked on a software project so long, that you couldn't
imagine ever not working on it? Like, it just went on forever! So you have
a certain project that you were working on, and towards the end you had
like lots of little bugs that came up, or lots of little issues that came up and
you just started to get apathetic, like, what's the use? I'm never not going
to be working on this! So, I have been a software developer for nearly 20 years,
and I've been in so many projects like this in the past, where I was just
like, apathy starts to set in in project. Where you know you've done all
the big things, you just got all these little tiny things, little issues like
little bugs that you're trying to nail down. It's just something
in the network, something that appears randomly and you just haven't
found the cause of it yet, and things just start to slow down in a project.
And I think this is just natural in software projects.
It's just happened so many times in the past on larger
projects that I work with. I'm talking about larger projects being like three,
four, five months projects. I'm not talking about like two weeks or
something like that. Usually those ones are are pretty good, right. So hey, if you've
ever run a marathon, you know the concept of the wall. It's a different
place for different people, but if you run the 26 miles, you get to a
point where everything just stops, everything gets harder. All of a
sudden everything starts to slow down, you start to wonder
whether or not you're actually gonna finish that marathon, and I think
software projects are like that too. This, and I hate to say this, is where a
good project manager comes in. A good project manager, towards the end of the
project, and I've talked before how that last 10% of a project could
sometimes take 40 or 50 percent the time of the entire project, just
because things slow down motivation lower. You would think
that you would see the finish line and just be going towards it, but this is
when all those little things start to come in. So a good project manager is the
one who will keep the developers moving, at the same time as keeping the
product owners or the clients, whatever it is - the people who own the
software - to keep them from adding in new scope creep, because they start saying
"you know, now that I see this, it would be really cool to have this...". So a good
project manager is holding them back and keeping them moving, and I tell you what,
some of the most effective project managers that I've ever worked with in
the past, I could not stand. Because they were always on my case, like always
just you know "Eric, where are we with this?" Even if you're just making small talk,
you know, "hey, you have plans for the weekend?" all this stuff and you're making small
talk, and then they say "so, where are we with that issue?" Because it's all they ever
think about. They're just moving the ball forward.
They're like the drill sergeant or the coach. They're just
screaming in your ear saying "keep moving, keep moving, keep moving!", when
you're just like "It's not working! For some reason I get this error, I've been
on Stack Overflow for three days trying to find out what it is! Everything should
work this way, but it's not." I could remember one time
telling a project manager that a certain project we were working on was cursed,
There were no other explanations for it! I said,
"This project is cursed! I am NOT a superstitious person, I don't believe in
magic, but at some point in the past someone on this project has insulted a
witch or something, and she has put a curse on this project, because everything
that can go wrong, does go wrong on this." We have network failures, we've got database
failures, we got, you know, tiny little things just started failing
all over the place on this project. Because you can get a bit emotional
as a software developer when you're on a project and you just want to get it
done. Everybody wants to get the project done, but at some point apathy sets in,
sets in with developers, and you just start realising that, you know, you start
feeling like "You know what? We're never gonna finish this project!
We're never gonna get there." Now I'm in the situation where I start to
see that in developers. I started to see when, you know, we
start picking up more issues as a project goes on. This is when
you start getting, you know towards the end of a project, you start getting
nitpicky about stuff. Like, you start thinking " when I click on this,
it's a bit slow to render. When I do this, sometimes it does that. Sometimes it does
this. What's the logic behind that?" and it can get, you're really getting
nitpicky. You're doing the fine-tuning and it could do a lot to
the confidence of the developer because they just feel like, you know, I've done
all this and you're just coming up with these little things. But that stuff has
to be done. So I start to see the apathy in the developers, and I know
exactly what they're going through, right. And I have to say "hey, you know
what, we're nearly there. We're nearly there, we just have to
finish up these last few issues. So, have you guys had this
kind of issue where just you're working on a project
that's so long, and usually it's bigger projects. I mean, I haven't found this when
I work on my own projects. When I work on my own projects I'm like really...
I could get up in the middle of night and work on them, like, "nearly there! I just
gotta get this bit done today!" Where I will not get up to go to
the bathroom even, because I'm just so into it, right! Have you ever
coded so much that you give yourself a bladder infection?
Nearly, I'm nearly there! So you start coding away, and you don't
want to get up to go to the bathroom. You realise that it's dark in the house
because you didn't turn on any lights. You're just so into it. When you're working
on a big project at a job, you know, apathy sets in. So,
the best project managers I've ever worked with, they
see that when it happens, they see that when it comes up. Last year
I was gonna hire a project manager and I didn't, because I just didn't see that
in any of them. You know, maybe we need one. Anyway. So let me know,
have you ever been in a project like that where apathy starts
to set in? I'm wondering if it's just me who notices this, or is it all
developers? So anyway, that's it for today, I'll talk to you guys tomorrow.
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