Developer personality dynamics

A while back, the members of my team participated in an Insights Discovery process session. Insights Discovery consists of a personality questionnaire completed by each team member followed by an analysis and group session to discuss the meaning of the results to facilitate improved communication and synergy between team members.

We found the results very enlightening and I've noticed improvements in team interactions since we went through the process. I'd like to do it again to include team members who have joined us since.

Insights Discovery assigns each personality type to a place on a color wheel. We found that most team members had mostly blue personalities, which are common amongst developers (introspective thinkers), although we had a couple of greens (supporters) and one red (directors).

Blue vs. red can be a challenging dynamic and one recent interaction I witnessed brought me back to our analysis. Here's how it played out (with ficitious names):

Blue Ben was pulled into a data warehousing project after it had become late and over budget. Although Ben had some ideas for improvement, he was met with resistance since those already on the project were already personally heavily invested in the current design. Ben continued to work on the project which, while continuing to come closer to completion, continued to go later and further over budget.

Eventually, Red Rudy was brought in to help complete the project. After just a day or so of orienting himself to the current solution, Rudy approached Ben, saying, "Hey, there are a lot of things with this that really suck." While Ben knew Rudy was overreacting, he also knew some of what Rudy was saying was true. However, Ben suddenly felt defensive; his work was seemingly being called into question. But most of it wasn't even his decisions! He was now in a position where he felt compelled to defend work that wasn't even his!

By the next week, Rudy had largely redesigned the solution. Well, it wasn't really redesigned all that much, but since it was Rudy's work, he could now distance himself from the previous solution. Unfortunately, this further alienated Ben, who now felt "stuck" with "his" inferior solution (that he didn't really even want in the first place) while Rudy ran off with the new, improved goods.

A week later, close to the end of the project, Green Gary came in to help with some final tasks. He took a look at Ben's solution and then approached him, saying, "Hey, I noticed a few things that might be worth looking at for improvement. Maybe you already figured them out, but how would you feel about discussing them?" Ben was more than willing. He finally felt like he could share some of his frustrations; Gary helped Ben confirm his own ideas while enabling them both to feel more ownership over the project rather than defensive about it.

Soon, a new phase of the project began, and Rudy's solution was used as the starting point. Ben had a lot to offer but struggled to feel any connection to the project--this no longer felt like the thing he had invested so much in.

What this scenario helped illustrate is that the outcomes, at least in terms of the attitudes and happiness of the developers, can be affected greatly by how the developers are approached. Beware of forcing developers to defend things they don't want to defend!

How I became a libertarian

Over the next few weeks I plan to post a series of articles describing some of my political beliefs in hopes of spreading the message that there are others out there (many more than you probably imagine) whose beliefs don't fall neatly under the categories of Democrat and Republican (or even liberal or conservative). I figured I should start the series by describing how my thinking evolved.

The truth is, I've always been a libertarian. It just took me some time to realize it.

When I first registered to vote when I was 18, I didn't know much about politics. We didn't talk much about politics at home. I thought my parents were probably Democrats but didn't really know. When I first registed, Republican was the popular party in power, so I just went with that.

I didn't think much about politics for a while after that. But one incident sticks out in my memory--I was an intern at the Rochester City Schools and one of the other interns, obviously politically wise and ambitious, asked me, "So, what are your political leanings?" After a few seconds of my deer-in-the-headlights nonresponse, she continued, "You know, are you liberal or conserative?" I don't recall exactly how I answered, but somehow I came up with a response that satisfied her for the moment.

But that exchange motivated me to do some research. What does it mean to be liberal or conservative? How do those terms relate to the Democrat and Republican parties?

What I found confused me right from the start. Liberalism and conservatism can mean so many different things. Liberalism as originally defined seemed to match a lot of my beliefs: individual rights, freedom of speech, small government. But it doesn't seem to mean that anymore. Now, it seems to be more about ensuring opportunities for everyone: minimum wages, welfare, affirmative action. Conservatism seems to mean the things that liberalism used to mean with an emphasis on slow change in contrast to liberalism. But what is this about social conservatism vs. economic conservatism?

There were so many conflicts when trying to fit my beliefs into those two buckets. I believe that people should keep what they earn rather than paying it to the government. I guess that makes me a Republican. But I believe in a woman's right to choose abortion. That seems to be a Democratic thing. I think welfare and social security are generally bad ideas. Doesn't that make me a Republican? But I believe same-sex unions should be allowed. Doesn't that make me a Democrat? Where is the logic in all this? The consistency? So I remained confused for a while, feeling like I either didn't understand or just didn't have a real political party to call home.

I don't recall exactly how I stumbled onto the Libertarian party and libertarianism in general. But from the moment I did, everything seemed to fit my beliefs. It made sense and was logical and consistent.

There are a lot of misconceptions about what it means to be libertarian. "Aren't they just all about legalizing drugs?", "Don't they want to abolish the government?", "Are those the people that think 9/11 was orchestrated by the U.S. government?" or "Yeah, right, like they ever have a chance of being taken seriously."

Libertarianism is rooted in the idea of individual liberty. That means that people should be allowed to do what they want as long as they don't harm someone else. The purpose of government is to protect that liberty. Note that the U.S. Constitution was built on this principle (ignoring, for now, that it failed to prohibit slavery). So, it is generally fair to say libertarians believe in a government like the one described in our Constitution as designed by our founders.

We believe a big centralized government like the one we have today is actually contrary to the idea that government is for protecting liberties because it takes away more liberties than it protects. It is hugely ineffecient and can't help but be greatly influenced by special interests. It treats us like children rather than responsible individuals and that becomes a growing self-fulfilling prophecy.

I'll talk more about libertarian principles in the weeks ahead. Do you know where you fit into the political spectrum? If not, try the World's Smallest Political Quiz. Post your questions, comments, or perspectives below.

How much is your email worth?

A coworker recently sent me a link for a company's website promoting a cool concept for dealing with email overload. Seriosity's Attent borrows some ideas from the online role playing gaming world and provides a way to attach virtual currency to emails you send and receive.

When you send an email, you attach an amount of virtual currency, called "Serios". You attach the number of Serios you think the email is "worth", meaning the amount required to get your email read. The recipient (assuming they are also an Attent user) sees the number of Serios you attached and emails with the most float to the top of the inbox.

You have a limited amount of Serios to spend, so you have to choose wisely. The idea is that having to attach a limited resource to your emails forces you think a little more about how valuable your communications really are. You get more Serios when people send you emails with them attached and you also get an allowance of 100 new Serios each week that you send at least one.

There are some cool features such as visibility to recipients' Serio balance and history so you can get an idea of how many Serios you'll need to spend to get someone's attention.

I think this is an intriguing and promising concept. The company has plans to expand this to other forms of communication, and I think it would work even better when instant messaging, phone calls, and even support requests are included in the Serios financial world. It would be great as an incentive for participating in collaboration sites.

The biggest downside to Attent is that it requires a "critical mass" of connected users to make it useful. So, I encourage everyone who reads this to try it out!