Everyone Has The Same Job

ChrisPeters?'s famous MicrosoftSolutionsFramework quote: "EveryoneHasTheSameJob. Your job is to ship product."

The full quote is as follows (from http://www.microsoft.com/technet/archive/ittasks/plan/teamops/team.mspx):

Everybody ... has exactly the same job. They have exactly the same job description. And that is to ship products. Your job is not to write code. Your job is not to test. Your job is not to write specs. Your job is to ship products. That’s what a product development group does.

Your role as a developer or as a tester is secondary. I'm not saying it's unimportant – it's clearly not unimportant – but it's secondary to your real job, which is to ship a product.

When you wake up in the morning and you come in to work, you say, "What is the focus? – Are we trying to ship? Or are we trying to write code?" The answer is, we are trying to ship. You're not trying to write code, you're trying not to write code.

I disagree with the quote. Everyone's job is to make profits for your employer. Shipping product is generally a good way to achieve that, but not always. In particular, shipping a product that no-one wants to buy is not your job. Nor is shipping a product that loses money due to support costs. While I would agree that programmers should be focused upon the company's productivity, the philosophy of "Don't just sit there - ship something!" can be harmful.

I would sum up "everyone's job" this way:

While this may seem obvious, I think most employees don't really think in these terms. Most employees think that their job is to fulfill their particular role, and it is "someone else's job" to find customers and sell the stuff. If everyone thinks of themselves as salespeople and product managers, then I think more useful work gets done.

-- KrisJohnson

To make profit for your employer is too money-centric and not applicable for every company. This is apparent if you work for a nonprofit organization; but a lot of other corporations do not adhere to this simple 'make money, lots of it' scheme either but have broader goals where making profit is only one target amongst others.

Agreed. Also, it's just too difficult to turn that into a framework for making day-to-day decisions. If I'm a software developer, I'm not likely to get involved in finding customers or selling product.

Also, To make profit for your employer is no more correct than to say To earn money for themselves. The economy is a case of "what comes first - the chicken or the egg'' where people earn money to spend on goods that make money for companies that pay people money to spend on goods..... You can start anywhere in the cycle.

Well, you can substitute "attain my organization's goals" for "earning profit". By "job", I mean what one gets paid to do. I'd also say that if you are not involved in finding customers or selling product or otherwise directly serving your company's/organization's goals, you aren't going to get very far. Back when I was young, I thought being a good programmer was all I needed/wanted to be, but now I know better. -- KrisJohnson

My job is to improve myself and hopefully have some fun along the way working with good people that hopefully make life a little more interesting to live. To this end, I try and find employers willing to pay me to do this because they think they will get something from me that will help them. My work excretions are the company organisms [?] inputs by mutual arrangement. Other than that, I don't care about shipping product, making money, etc. - that's a by-product of statement number one. Companies are just ways of reproducing yourself... something like that anyway.

I like to annoy my coworkers (CowOrkers) by saying "Ship it!" at every possible opportunity. Let them tell me how the product is no good, and not ready for shipping. ;-> -- JeffGrigg

I worked for a number of years with a non-profit/volunteer group which made use of some unique administrative and management rules. One of these was the rule: "anything that reduces confusion is your job."

If you do it, and there is more confusion, then that's not your job. If doing it results in less overall confusion, then it's your job notwithstanding "titles" and "job descriptions" that would seem to indicate otherwise.

This can be translated across to commercial endeavors, once one accepts whatever the overall aim of the enterprise is. Then, in the context of "CompanyPurpose?" a reduction in confusion directly contributes to the accomplishment of those aims.

And, yes, "CompanyPurpose?" is usually "to make the owners rich" (or powerful, or free from work, or whatever) and the compromise of <JobApplicant?> is the balance of worthiness of CompanyPurpose? against BenefitToSociety? against compensation to the JobApplicant? himself.

-- GarryHamilton

ChrisPeters?'s famous MicrosoftSolutionsFramework quote: EveryoneHasTheSameJob. Your job is to ship product."

Then why am I paid less than the CEO? -- PeteHardie

Because you ship less product? -- JonathanTang

CategoryEmployment

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