AntiPattern Name: AlcoholFueledDevelopment
Type: Organisational
Problem: Development team loses focus on primary goals due to volume of alcohol consumed during regular team meetings, lunches, evening events, social meetings etc.
Context:
- Large development team, working under organisational-imposed stress.
Forces:
- Considerable stress imposed on development team as a result of other AntiPatterns.
- Management style encourages team to congregate together outside of work to discuss means of undermining management.
- Development team frequent social establishments where teams from other, competing organisations are also known to meet regularly.
- More common in Western Europe, particular the UK and Ireland.
- Also more common in military and government establishments.
Supposed Solution: Development team adopt a lifestyle of drinking heavily, anti-social behaviour, fighting. This results in an invincibility delusion. Development pace increases, but abuse and violence directed at competitors' development teams results, eventually in wholescale rioting. Law enforcement authorities are ultimately required to intervene.
Resulting Context:
- Loss of ability to maintain project vision.
- Effort reduction as developers may be taken into custody.
- Organisation's reputation may suffer.
- Project's endgoals may not be achieved.
- Seductive forces: Alcohol is addictive.
- Alcohol can have considerable negative health and social consequences.
- Product lifecycle or objectives are less significant than taking on the competition and winning. Windows M.E. is believed to be a classic case of AlcoholFueledDevelopment.
- Pattern could be replaced with more positive approaches such as HolisticDevelopmentThroughYoga?.
Design Rationale: ...
Related AntiPatterns: ...
Applicable Positive Patterns: DevelopmentTeamLoveIn?, HolisticDevelopmentThroughYoga?.
AntiPatternCategory: OrganisationalAntiPattern?
Also Known As: TeamBeerFrenzy?, FlamingSambucaFrenzy?
The informal motto of a previous employer (complete with beer fridge): "We're a drinking company with a software problem!"
Seems to be a common symptom of a DotCom company.
- We have an unfinished bottle of vodka in the fridge from the christmas >_> no, I won't tell where I work (and hey, it IS still unfinished)
From the XpMailingList, many winters ago:
UncleBob: I cannot program with any amount of ethanol in me...
PhlIp: YMMV
Alcohol Fueled Development