Wednesday was more of an interaction day. I was able to enjoy a wonderful panel midday though.

No Silver Bullet: Reloaded

Fred Brooks seminal paper: No Silver Bullet from 1986 was discussed by a panel including Martin Fowler, Ricardo Lopez, Aki Namioka, Linda Northrop, David Lorge Parnas, David Thomas, and of course... Fredrick P. Brooks Jr himself (also the author of "The Mythical Man Month" by the way). It looked like an OK panel, but the introductions were kind of dragging long and when they got to the 7th intro I was thinking "oh c'mon, just get on with it." This last person to introduce himself was Martin Fowler. He said about 4 sentences and then fell over backwards with a horrendous shriek. The shrieking continued for about 20 seconds, until Martin rerighted himself with a huge werewolf's head (if you haven't read the paper, the paper makes references to the werewolf legends). And he then proceeded to play the devils advocate throughout the panel. This added a really nice touch, able often best to illustrate points by taking the satirical counterpoint.

The panel moved through a couple of different topics before I had to exit early (had a lunch obligation). Parnas defined a Silver Bullet (to him) as anything that purports to give you something for nothing (or very little). He introduced the notion of "lead bullets" to the discussion by metaphor, as those things that are things you can do that might solve your problem, but they don't try to dress themselves up as quick/easy improvements/fixes.

The Wolf (Martin) made a comment that Brooks was vehemenently nodding in agreement to, which was basically that what really helps him keep productivity down, is that so much time, effort, and resources are dumped into looking for the silver bullets, that no one spends much time actually trying to excercise their lead bullets. He said the Silver Bullet Purveyors were his best helpers.

Dave Thomas had mentioned that one of the best experiences he'd had in life was working at OTI, where the group or team of people that came together had just gelled in a very satisfactory way. And everyone felt more productive than normal. Said he had had this experience 1 or 2 other times, but even at this point in his career, felt he was unqaulified to really define how to make that happen. This really resonated with me. I have had this experience as well, where sometimes a group of people just comes together, and it's like an "enlightenment" experience. The person who figures this equation out will be rich was agreed. The Wolf chimed in that "Peopleware" and other similiar texts makes his job a lot harder. He was happy that in general, managers read it, and then are easily seduced back to using Microsoft Project. "Every time a ghant chart is created, another kitten dies."