Lately I have been thinking about ways to measure and gauge the health and quality of a software development environment/team. I am wrapping my head around the key components, and need to find ways to articulate these to non-developers. Well, today I came up with an interesting analogy based on the study of motion known as kinematics. It probably won’t help non-developers understand, but I did find it amusing. The analogy goes like this, and hopefully you vaguely remember high school physics.
Three main measurable ingredients of a healthy development team/environment are:
- speed: The rate at which we get things done. Or a better term would be pace. Are things moving so slowly that no progress is being made? Are we operating at breakneck speed, or with reckless abandon? Are things moving at a manageable pace where we can think, design, re-think, and execute? Can we turn if we need to? or stop when necessary? How often does our speed fluctuate?
- velocity: (veloci-raptor): I have been using this term with account managers to describe how quickly we can complete projects, and every time I do my college Laura thinks I am talking about dinosaurs. Velocity is a measure of speed in a direction. It can also be explained as the distance traveled over time. You may remember from physics that a car moving 100km/h forward for 10 minutes, and then 100km/h backwards for 10 minutes has an average velocity of 0km/h. Why? Well, while the car maintained a speed of 100km/h the the entire time, in the end it didn’t go anywhere. Adding direction to the mix begs the following questions: which direction are we heading? Positive? Negative? Towards a greater goal? Short term? Long Term? Are we moving in a direction at all? Does the direction change so often we are actually going in circles, or nowhere at all?
- mass: this is the long shot of the analogy, but lets make mass represent the team’s attitudes. A team which is positive has more mass, while a team which is deflated has less mass. Contributors to mass are simple: Positivity, Support, Teamwork, Collaboration, Leadership, Accountability, and more.
momentum = velocity * mass
Momentum is all about velocity and mass, and remember that velocity is your speed in a direction. To maintain speed and course through a hostile collision, the more momentum you have the better. A team with momentum can easily bump small challenges out of the way, and can maintain speed and course during a collision with a larger issue. Conversely, a team with little momentum can find the even smallest collisions challenging.
Speed, Direction, Mass and Momentum. I am going to re-focus on gaining momentum using throttled speed, by gaining mass and most importantly by maintaining a net positive direction. Remember that friction reduces speed, as do turning, and collisions. If you want speed, you need balance the straightest path with the least resistance, while avoiding the catastrophic collisions. Oh, and once you are rolling with velocity and mass, inertia will keep you moving. Note: the speed and direction need not reflect soulless productivity. You control the speed and the direction, and you can direct the ship anywhere you want. It is up to the leaders and the team to balance these components.
Next I will turn my focus to kinetic energy, potential energy, and gravity.
What are your thoughts?
