If you've followed the story of Maxine Chambers in the Unicorn Project, then you know it's not a simple "10x engineer saves the day" engineering tale of derring-do. It's a struggle; it's hard for Maxine. Her story starts with an effective demotion because she's taken the blame (or been pinned) for an outage. The rest of the book explores the toxic culture at the fictional company Parts Unlimited. We learn about the people, the places, the feelings and that elusive thing 'culture' that the various characters experience as they try to turn around another failing software project.
The Unicorn Project and the Phoenix Project before it are significant books because they don't just focus on the work that the characters are doing but also on their home lives and the impact that stressful software projects have not just on employees but also on their families.
The Unicorn Project probably had the most significant impact of all the books I've read in the last year or two. It made me say, " YES! FINALLY, SOMEONE HAS CALLED OUT TOXIC BEHAVIOUR!" Gene Kim has accurately described the struggle of being a dedicated developer working for a company that probably doesn't fully appreciate their dedication.
I've been so inspired that I'm now writing my own piece of fiction, which examines the strains and stresses placed on families and friendships by tough, demanding jobs in software engineering. If you want to find out more, you can go here. Let me know what you think of the idea!
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEKEND: I've been navigating the choppy waters of logging this week. What do you do when someone else thinks their logging is fine, and you think it sucks?
Have a great weekend,
-- Richard
Published on February 5, 2024
Software systems rule our world. My regular newsletter explores the human factors that make software engineering so unique, so difficult, so important and all consuming.
Writers are terribly impatient. We are so fragile, we crave attention all the time. So, for us, writing into a vacuum and not getting anything back is the worst. We will happily take anything including "wow, it really sucked" or "how could you be so old and so feeble at writing?" At this point in the journey of Human Software, I'm so desperate for feedback, I'm even willing to pay for it! So that's what I did. In January, I hired an editor, and he's been great. He helped me with the...
Over the last week, I drew a map of Kent reimagined as if the 1286/7 floods hadn't happened. According to the history books, those large storms and tidal events significantly changed the coastline of eastern England. The former Wantsum Channel became blocked with alluvial mud and sand, turning the once important seaport of Sandwich into a landlocked town too far away from the sea to accept large boats. Further afield Dunwich in Suffolk suffered a similar fate: In the Anglo-Saxon period,...
Three years ago, I started a podcast without much idea of its future. Before that, I'd started writing, wandering through automation, programming techniques, infrastructure, DevOps, and thoughts about management, leadership, and how companies are organised. Where was I going? While I'd read a few books, it was clear that I was searching for something. Was I just talking for the sake of it? It sometimes certainly seemed that way. And then, about eighteen months ago, I started writing a novel....