I finally got a chance to go back to "coder mode" a couple of weeks back, when Butch asked me to help out in a project. While coding with the other guys, I noticed something different from the usual coding office - we were noisy!
Ok, not rowdy, drunk-guys in a bar noisy, but we were chattering the whole time. Everybody was asking questions, sharing something they discovered, celebrating a fix... ok, and almost everyboy was talking to themselves as they coded, me included - I guess that's another story altogether.
In a usual software development office, it's usually pretty quiet. Programmers would only talk to each other a few times a day, to ask quick questions in soft tones.
Despite our relative noisiness, we were very productive! It's like we were in a "group zone", probably similar to the zone experience by athletes in a team sport. What's more, we were able to resolve issues quickly... programmers wouldn't languish for hours wrestling with a problem before "bothering" another guy with a question. When I'd run into a bit of roadblock, I'd just ask whoever I thought would know, and I'd get a quick response and I can move on with my work. Since we were in a "group zone", somehow his concentration wasn't disturbed.
More and more, we're experiencing how Agile approaches, in this case, the work area layout and the culture of communication, improves productivity over the more traditional software development environments.
That's exactly how we were when my whole eProducts team was still based in Manila. We were the disdain of the "legacy" groups because we were so productively noisy.
ReplyDeleteActually, the "talking to themselves" part can be related to the Japanese way of doing things in a manufacturing setting.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was still working in a japanese manufacturing company, one of the practices in the some of the plants in Japan was to say out loud what you're doing even though the instructions are right in front of you. Example: you're about to put in 5kg of solvent. You have to say out loud "I'm putting in 5kg of solvent".
To most people it can be absurd or weird, but actually it is a way of validating what you think you're doing.
Whoever said "talking to yourself" is weird must be one...hehehehe!