Has the developer become an Iron Man?
“Work is of two kinds: first, altering the position of matter at or near the earth’s surface relatively to other such matter; second, telling other people to do so. The first kind is unpleasant and ill paid; the second is pleasant and highly paid. The second kind is capable of indefinite extension: there are not only those who give orders, but those who give advice as to what orders should be given[i]”.
Is the developer like the Iron Man in the Wizard of Oz doomed to lose his humanity?
The Wizard of Oz[ii] is presented as a children's fairy tale. He describes through a dreamlike tale an initiatory journey in a fantastic country. The journey is strewn with pitfalls, but the cunning of a child is enough to overcome them. The heroine, Dorothy, accompanied by her little dog toto, lives peacefully in Kansas until the day a tornado takes her with her home to a fantasy land, the Land of Oz, a land of Munchkindland. As she falls, Dorothy meets Glinda the kind witch of the north who tells her that Dorothy's house has just crushed the wicked witch of the east. To thank her, she gives him silver skates and advises him to find a great sage, the Wizard of Oz who lives in the Emerald City. To get help from this scholar, Dorothy must follow a golden brick road and steal the wicked witch of the west's magic broom. On the way she meets 3 protagonists. A scarecrow who lacks a brain, a fearful lion who wishes to have courage, and a tin lumberjack who wishes to find a heart:
“Do you think he could give me a heart?
- Why do you want a heart? asked the scarecrow.
- Before, I was a lumberjack of flesh and blood, and I was in love with a young Munchkin. But her mother hated me, and she asked the Eastern Witch to hex me. Every time I wanted to cut down a tree, I would cut something to myself: first a leg, which a nice gentleman replaced by a tin leg, then the other leg, the two arms, the head, and finally the chest. The nice gentleman replaced everything, but he forgot to put a heart back in my chest. So much so that I no longer liked my Munchkin. And then one day, after a terrible thunderstorm, I rusted. I got stuck and had time to think: when I was in love I was happy, but without a heart I couldn't love anymore. That's why I want a heart ”[iii].
A different interpretation has nevertheless been offered[iv] and places the Wizard of Oz in the context of the end of the gilded age[v]. Each character would be the personification of a social category or a political figure. Thus the Iron Man would be the worker subjected to assembly-line labor who has lost his humanity. Wouldn't the modern developer be like this Iron Man in search of a heart to be able to give meaning to his daily life and once again love his Munchkin, his work? In an industrial organization, interventionism leads individuals to lose their personalities in favor of the values of their companies. Thus the developer metamorphoses over time into Iron Man, doomed to be cut into several pieces, then condemned to rust.
The Agile developer:
“Developers are the people in the Scrum Team that are committed to creating any aspect of a usable Increment each Sprint. The specific skills needed by the Developers are often broad and will vary with the domain of work. However, the Developers are always accountable for:
- Creating a plan for the Sprint, the Sprint Backlog;
- Instilling quality by adhering to a Definition of Done;
- Adapting their plan each day toward the Sprint Goal; and,
- Holding each other accountable as professionals»[vi].
This definition could lead us to think that Scrum is taking over the practices of the old industrial paradigm and its dehumanizing trinity: monitor, punish, reward[vii]. A closer reading of the scrum guide, however, tells us that the entire Scrum team has much more freedom. “Adaptation becomes more difficult when the people involved are not empowered or self-managing” [viii]. “Scrum Teams are multidisciplinary, their members have all the skills necessary to create value with each Sprint. They are also self-managed, they decide internally who does what, when and how ” [ix]. “The Scrum Master serves the Scrum Team in several ways, including: Coaching the team members in self-management and cross-functionality”[x]. These few quotes therefore show us that a great deal of autonomy is granted to developers. Rather than completing tasks in a set time, developers are encouraged to work on a transcendental goal (the sprint goal) within an environment that fosters collaboration. It is up to the organization, along with its scrum masters, to put in place a structure that promotes the expression of feelings and benevolence[xi].
How can the artisan developer regain his humanity ?
“Upon their return to the Emerald City, Toto discovers the Wizard of Oz's rose pot. He is in fact just a simple man with no power who uses tricks to appear impressive. The group of friends is disappointed with this discovery, but the “magician” finally keeps his promise. He does not use magic but persuades everyone that he already has deep inside him what he has always been looking for ” [xii].
"Each one that he already has deep inside him what he has always been looking for", means that the key to our problems is in us. The structure provided by Scrum must foster the emergence of this moral renaissance, placing the developer as an independent and respectable expert and not a small hand in the service of a "Project Manager magician"[xiii]. The developer is a craftsman and should be seen as such. He has specific know-how[xiv] that he uses to do manual work. It is a very qualified worker who creates objects, he participates in the design of a work. The developer practices an art, a profession. He acquires theoretical knowledge, but it is through observation of his peers and practice that he achieves mastery of his art. Even if the code is not a tangible thing, its work is nonetheless visible. Just as the blacksmith beats metals in his creation process, the developer hits the keyboard to make artifacts[xv] with his hands. The developer manages elements of the sprint backlog to produce a product increment. “The entire Scrum Team is accountable for creating a valuable, useful Increment every Sprint. Scrum defines three specific accountabilities within the Scrum Team: the Developers, the Product Owner, and the Scrum Master”[xvi]. The product increment is one of the 3 Scrum artifacts[xvii]. The developer registers as a craftsman in a construction site, he works on the design of a product / a project. To achieve this goal, he collaborates with other craftsmen who are specialized in specific fields. Together they achieve a common and transcendent objective, a work. The purpose of this work is symbolically attached in Scrum to the product goal. “The Product Goal describes a future state of the product which can serve as a target for the Scrum Team to plan against. The Product Goal is in the Product Backlog. The rest of the Product Backlog emerges to define “what” will fulfill the Product Goal” [xviii].
Some Agile schools go even further by grouping developers into guilds and chapters[xix], which in their minds resemble the guilds of the journeyman craftsmen of the Middle Ages.
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END NOTES
[i] RUSSELL, Bertrand. 1932. In Praise of idleness, Publish in Review of review. https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.458601/mode/2up
[ii] BAUM, Lyman Frank. 1900. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Ed George M. Hill Company.
Then FLEMING, Victor. 1939. The Wizard of Oz. Film adapted from Lyman Frank Baum’s novel.
[iii] BAUM, Lyman Frank. 1900. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Ed George M. Hill Company.
[iv] LITTLEFIELD, Henry. 1964. The Wizard of Oz: Parable on Populism. American Quarterly, Vol. 16, No. 1 (Spring, 1964), pp. 47-58 (12 pages) Publish by: The Johns Hopkins University Press. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2710826
[v] “The American Belle Epoque”, the Gilded Age, was a period of prosperity and reconstruction that followed the Civil War (1865) and ended in 1901. The Wizard of Oz was written in 1900.
[vi] SCHWABER, Ken et SUTHERLAND Jeff. 2020. Scrum Guide.
[vii] An interesting article on this subject: GIMBERT, Yves. 2018. Monitor, evaluate, reward, punish. Posted in cherries.
https://blogs.mediapart.fr/sylla/blog/100418/surveiller-evaluer-recompenserpunir
[viii] SCHWABER, Ken et SUTHERLAND Jeff. 2020. Scrum Guide.
[ix] SCHWABER, Ken et SUTHERLAND Jeff. 2020. Scrum Guide.
[x] SCHWABER, Ken et SUTHERLAND Jeff. 2020. Scrum Guide.
[xi] This manifests itself in the adoption of the 5 Scrum values : “Commitment, Focus, Openness, Respect, and Courage »
SCHWABER, Ken et SUTHERLAND Jeff. 2020. Scrum Guide
[xii] BAUM, Lyman Frank. 1900. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Ed George M. Hill Company.
[xiii] MANGIORAKOS, Francois. 2021. Le Product owner, scientifique ou magicien ? The Product owner, scientist or magician ? https://www.scrum.org/forum/scrum-forum/50031/product-owner-scientist-or-magician
[xiv] Plato. The Theaetetus. The craftsman is described as the holder of knowledge in the same way as scientists or philosophers.
[xv] Artefact: A phenomenon of human origin, artificial, involved in the study of natural facts; product of art or human industry.
[xvi] SCHWABER, Ken et SUTHERLAND Jeff. 2020. Scrum Guide.
[xvii] SCHWABER, Ken et SUTHERLAND Jeff. 2020. Scrum Guide. P12. « Scrum Artifacts”
[xviii] SCHWABER, Ken et SUTHERLAND Jeff. 2020. Scrum Guide.
[xix] KNIBERG, Henrik et IVARSSON, Anders. Spotify model. 2012.