The Fun Factor

Developers should learn to master the art of trade off. There is an endless need to find the balance between the opposites factors that push a feature forward. There is a fairly known triangle model for trade off: time, quality and quantity (TQ^2):

Time - Complete a feature on time, obviously before the deadline.

Quality - Complete a feature with the best quality, without bugs.

Quantity - Complete 100% of the feature specifications.

Since developers are unique and have different characteristics, some have more ambition to complete the feature on time rather than deploying a zero-bugs feature, while others might prefer delaying a feature in a week and not releasing a buggy feature.

While it’s great to strive for perfection in all three, it is unrealistic to find the optimal solution for this problem. The best way to handle it is to communicate of what’s is expected to be done, in what quality and when…the problem is that it’s easy to miss expectation in providing accurate visibility.

Why? Maybe there is a missing component in the evaluation and the triangle model is incorrect. There is a missing factor in this model, a very important one. I call it Fun:

Fun - The need to complete a feature and enjoying while working on it. Fun can be interpreted differently. For some, fun is a team work, brainstorming, pair programming, while for others, it can be breakdown to minor tasks or complete the feature in 14 hours of intensive work while playing XBOX all night. Others like to try new libraries and new design patterns. Some like to refactor code more than others. Others like to invest more time in analytics and do some data analysis.

Managers must understand the importance of fun. In the long run - Fun is one of the important factors that need to be preserved and be aware of. There is always a place for fun, yet, developers should learn how to rule & reflect this factor, while managers should take this into account and accept it.

I’ve recently stumbled upon this great quote from Martin Luther King book, that nicely depict the potential of mastering opposite forces:

A French Philosopher once said: “No man is so strong unless he bears within his character antitheses strongly marked”. The strong man is the man who can hold in a living blend strongly marked opposites. Very seldom do men achieve this balance of opposites. The idealists are not usually realistic, and the realists are not usually idealistic. The militant are not usually passive, and the passive are not usually militant. The humble are very seldom self-assertive and the self-assertive are rarely humble. But life at its best is a creative synthesis. It is the bringing together of opposites into fruitful harmony. As the philosopher Hegel said, “truth is found neither in the thesis nor the antithesis, but in an emergent synthesis which reconciles the two.”

So whenever you have a feature or a task to do, learn to control your Time, Fun, Quality, Quantity (TFQ²⁾ and learn to rule them.