Geek Rants

Knowing where you are going and when gives one a feeling of stability, or 'a place in the world'. I find that having a plan that constantly changes was more demotivating than no plan at all. The problem of not having a plan commuicated to the programmers is that it means they can not use their own judgement to best help you achieve what you want. Instead they must just follow orders blindly, like a machine. As a result management should try to buffer some of the changes, so that programmers don't feel that they are blowing in the wind (hung out to dry).

The people closer to the ground (closer to the problem) are going to have the better information about the problem space. Any managment as a rule will be more willing, and LESS capable of solving any given problem than those directly involved. Leaving them (the workers) to do their jobs may be hard for managment, but is usually the right thing do. This does not mean that supervision is unnecessary, but rather that only supervision and not usurpation of the programmer's judgement. This should help avoid "attacks of managment" where management see a problem and feel that they need to react (to solve the problem) even when they don't have everything they need to do so.