Midwest IT Survival

Below are some links to interesting articles I came across over the last week or so.

Article: 10x Productivity Myths: Where’s the 10x Difference in Compensation? by Steve McConnell at Construx

Quote: When someone says, “I’m 10x as good a programmer, therefore I should be paid 10x as much,” they’re assuming that their value to the business is based on their programming capability/contribution. That is part of the story, but not the whole story. Some mediocre programmers might be better at interacting with customers. Some might have better potential to move into management. Some might have less personal output but a wonderfully positive influence on overall team output. There are lots of other factors that influence “value to the business” besides raw programming output.

“My overall conclusion is that paying for productivity on any more than a very-rough-approximation basis is a panacea that cannot practically be achieved.”

Article: Is Your Failure Rate High Enough to Succeed? by Todd C. Williams at Back from Red

Quote: “This concept is more than learning from our mistakes, it is stepping out our comfort zone into area of known risk in order to get higher returns. After achieving success, we must repeatedly push our bounds to create more failures in search of even loftier goals. This requires leadership that tolerates, or even celebrates, the right kind of failure—failure as part of a plan to move the company forward in new and bold ways.”

Article: Three Balances For Resilient Groups. Why Every Group Will Collapse. by Bas De Baar at Project Shrink

Quote: “In general people prefer like minded people. In an environment that changes this means that homogeneous groups would become larger. It is more comfortable to be among “your own people”. So, a changing environment the natural balance would shift toward homogeneity.”

Related posts:

1. Articles of Interest – 01 17 2011