Trial Project

Problem: If an army platoon is issued weapons and put together after advanced infantry training, are they now a fighting unit? If nine experienced baseball players are handed gloves, bats, and a ball, are they capable of playing as a team right away? If an experienced software development team is run through training in relevant technology, are they immediately capable of employing it effectively as a team ? Would you risk your company on it?

Context: A team of experienced software developers is formed and then put through training together in tools and technology that are relevant to an upcoming project or to prepare them for future development deemed essential by business research. TrainHardFightEasy has been taken to heart.

Forces:

• Training is only useful if it has been applied at least once
• First mistakes are usually the largest
• "What? You mean we spent $$$ on training and they're not ready yet?"
• The higher the stakes, the more preparation pays off

Solution: Build a trial project together using the new learned technology. Make it a real project, but a small one of no profound consequence. Call it "pre-season."

Resulting Context: The team learns to manage the dynamics of working together using the new tools and methods recently learned per the TrainHardFightEasy Pattern. The team is now battle-tested and motivated to tackle some real-world work.

Rationale: Training alone will not an effective team make, or even a single engineer create. Application of knowledge in a real setting is essential. A brief project of some weight and consequence, but not show-stopping value, should be given to the team to shake out their stiffness with the new lessons. It gives a team time to hit its stride, learn to turn that double play cleanly, set up an ambush, implement clean code meeting the agreed-upon interfaces.

Related Pattern: CasualDuty

Author: DonOlson 95/09/14

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CategoryProject