Are you a perfectionist and a developer or do you know someone who is? 

We know we're not supposed to check in code that does not compile, but do you get the sweats checking in feature incomplete code?  Do you stress out about having to release a "minor" version cause you know "the job's just not done yet?"  How do you feel about starting on a new task before finishing the last one?  Does it drive you batty to be told by your team lead "that task" is done when you know there's just a bit more time required to make it juuuuuuust right?  Gold plating?  Maybe, but juuuuuust another hour to make it perfect!  Does any of this sound familiar?

In my latest ventures down the archaic road of archiving technology (Ken Schwaber's book called Agile Software Development with Scrum), I had a brainstorm this week!  Ya, I know, surprised me too! :>  But something leaped off the pages and blog entries and smacked me between the eyes is Agile/Scrum is PERFECT for perfectionist developers!  Bold statement I know, but hear me out.

Perfectionists hate, they just detest releasing anything that's not, well, perfect.  BUT, IF you give them a way out they'll probably take it.  But how can you give a Perfectionist a way out without having them diverge from their perfectionist ways?  Agile tells them it's ok to do something incomplete according to their standards (this is not to be confused with doing something half-ass) by telling them they will revisit this incomplete task later on. 

Why will this work?  Because of the trust people have in the Product Backlog!  Yes, you have to trust the product backlog and the scrum master, but trust is one of the most important facets of Agile.  In trusting the backlog, the perfectionist just believes they'll get another chance to refactor that module, that class, that test case into something better, but at some point in the future.  This lets the team move onto the next task, and by the time the Perfectionist realizes what's going on, they're onto implementing the next backlog item and deeply engrossed into that item. 

I think this is BRILLIANT!  Not only do you get more work out of the perfectionists, but you've been able to do it without doing anything special, other than implementing a few Agile practises.  No arguments, no performance reviews, no negative meetings, just productive and happy employees!  Awesome!

 

PS  That archaic technology is wonderful (click on the first link, I'm sure you'll have a great chuckle! :>), no more GPFs!  No more blue screens of death, no more reboots, very much like a BlackBerry! :> hahaha :>  Going in the opposite direction, time wise I mean, check this Star Wars Help Desk. :>