Hockey is one of my favorite sports.  I love to play it, sometimes I like to watch it.  Even when you are playing, though, you watch while you are on the bench waiting for your shift.  It is when watching that one gains the most appreciation for the strategy and finer points of the game.  This is our first similarity to software engineering: the unbiased perspective, where you can really ’see’ what is going on, is only gained from being ‘off the ice’ or ‘not a part of the project’.  In either case, if you are in the action your perspective is tainted and you will make errors that you would definitely not if you were ‘off the ice’.  You’ll be a better hockey player, or member of an application development team, if you can lift your mind out of ‘the game’ to look at what is going on with some degree of detachment from time to time.

In the same light, I used to tell a sales manager that worked for me to ‘lift your head out of the swamp for a while each day’.  I said thus because he was getting so mired in the day-to-day goings on that he was losing sight of what we were needing to achieve in the coming weeks, months, and years.

TEAM COMPOSITION

Managing software engineering is my work.  The ‘game’ is application development, played out in offices and on computers instead of on a few centimeters of frozen water.  It takes a team to build an application, the larger and more complex the application, the more varied and specialized the roles on the team.  The need for a team composed of people fulfilling different roles is our next similarity.  In hockey, there are two wingers, a center, two defensemen, and a goalie on the ice at one time.  Each role requires a different mindset and skills to do it well.  In software engineering, we have project managers, software architects, developers, quality assurance staff, and documentation staff.

SOMEONE HAS TO BE THE BOSS

Each hockey team has one and only one captain, just as there must be one and only one head project manager for each application development project.  Someone has to be the boss, able to make the decisions that must be made in a timely manner.  Oh yes, there are assistant captains and vice-project managers, but the reality is that there needs to be a bit of benevolent dictatorship going on for a team of either kind to be effective.  Some of the toughest decisions involve whom is going to do what.  The average winger can’t play defense very well, and let’s not even talk about putting anyone but a born and bred goalie in-between the pipes!  In the same light, most quality assurance staff would not make good developers.  So, in both hockey and in application development, the ‘captain’ has to put each team member in the role that their skills and temperament make them most suitable to fulfill.  And those that don’t fit any of the roles needed on the team should be playing on a different team

THE DEVIL IS IN THE DETAILS

Finally, let’s talk about execution.  In hockey as in application development, ‘the devil is in the details’.  All the little things have to come together to make the big thing a success.  Passes that are crisp and on the tape, everyone giving their all from start to finish of the game, and playing your position properly.  These are the elements of winning on the ice.  Play the details right and the game will go your way.  The same goes for application development–good system architecture, robust and efficient code, effective quality assurance, and good usability make for a successful application development project.

OK, so MAYBE this whole blog entry is really kind of stretch…but at least I got to write about what I do and what I like to do!

Yours in software engineering,
Dean Whitford, B.Comm.
Chief Operating Officer
DraftLogic