Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Do the majority of folks in India realize they are the reference implementation for worst practices?
Anecdotal evidence suggest that One out of twenty programmers... produces twenty times the software compared to an average programmer...
If you acknowledge that India has lots of programmers but few developers and that in a couple of years the masses of programming will occur in India, then you could also conclude that they have more than their fair share of average folks who pound out average delivery. There are approximately 2,000,000 working software managers and developers in America. Currently, there are 200,000 additional job openings. These figures indicate a negative 10 percent unemployment rate.
When you apply the same thinking to the American economy, we could jumpstart it by simply acknowledging that half of these programmers could be terminated without any software projects missing any deadlines. Skilled programmers are essential to the success of a software project. So-called "heroic programmers" are exceptionally productive. As few as one out of twenty programmers have this talent. They produce an order of magnitude more working software than an average programmer.
Studies have shown that the size of a project team is optimized when there are no more than four developers. Imagine what would happen if American companies insisted that there be a reduction in headcount from their offshore team until this target was reached. Would quality improve if India eliminated the average? Is there enough integrity to do the right thing for clients?
| | View blog reactionsIf you acknowledge that India has lots of programmers but few developers and that in a couple of years the masses of programming will occur in India, then you could also conclude that they have more than their fair share of average folks who pound out average delivery. There are approximately 2,000,000 working software managers and developers in America. Currently, there are 200,000 additional job openings. These figures indicate a negative 10 percent unemployment rate.
When you apply the same thinking to the American economy, we could jumpstart it by simply acknowledging that half of these programmers could be terminated without any software projects missing any deadlines. Skilled programmers are essential to the success of a software project. So-called "heroic programmers" are exceptionally productive. As few as one out of twenty programmers have this talent. They produce an order of magnitude more working software than an average programmer.
Studies have shown that the size of a project team is optimized when there are no more than four developers. Imagine what would happen if American companies insisted that there be a reduction in headcount from their offshore team until this target was reached. Would quality improve if India eliminated the average? Is there enough integrity to do the right thing for clients?
