“Expecting professionalism” by Robert C. Martin

“The reasonable expectations of your new CEO”

There is software everywhere! And it must be work! It must not fail! People depend on it!

A list of CTO expectations:

• We shall not ship crap!
• We will always be ready!
  • Currently the ideal iteration time is set between 1 and 2 weeks. But we have been shrinking it. Now days its more close to between 3 days and 2 weeks, and nothing bad happens. Some good things happen because the feedback cicle is tighter, so there is more control over the project. Some guy in Norway is even trying 1 day iterations!!
  • At the end of every iteration we are ready to deploy!
• Stable productivity:
  • We must be able to keep the code easy to maintain and develop further;
• Continuous improvement:
  • We must continuously improve the code, following the boyscout rule;
• Inexpensive adaptability:
  • Software must be easy to change;
  • We must accept changes in requirements;
• Fearless competence:
  • We must not be afraid of modifying and improving the code;
  • We must have tests we trust, so we have no fear of changing code;
• Extreme quality:
  • We must not allow a sloppy or careless attitude;
• QA will find nothing:
  • We must demand of ourselves that the software reaches QA perfect;
• Nothing is fragile:
  • Making a change will not break something completely unrelated;
• We cover for each other:
  • We are a team, if a member can not be there, a colleague must be able to take charge;
  • A developer can not be working isolated, he must work together with colleagues. Do pair programming;
• Honest estimates:
  • We must be honest about the exequibility of our estimates
  • If it can’t be done in the expected timeframe we must say so. And we must not cave in when under pressure;
  • We can use a 3 possibilities frame:
    • 1 – Estimate if everything goes perfect;
    • 2 – Estimate if things go OK;
    • 3 – Estimate if everything goes wrong;
  • We must be able to say NO!
• Continuous aggressive learning:
  • Our industry evolves super fast, we must keep up;
  • We must read books, go to conferences, read articles, experiment;
  • The employer is not responsible for our learning nor our career;
• Mentoring:
  • People coming out of school are not properly trained;
  • The more senior people must teach the younger ones;

The Reasonable Expectations of your new CTO. from Robert C. Martin.