Clash Of Titans

In the development process one can meet with two asymmetrical forces.

There are stakeholders. Obviously. Acting like biblical Jewish God. Unmistakable convinced about what customers need the most, decide about “live and death”. Or — in other words — what end users will or won’t need. Stakeholders are sitting on the budget and drive direction towards “promises Land” of share profits without mercy.

There are also developers. Unmistakable convicted only they know what application needs. They’re sitting in the ivory tower of their technical wisdom. Like Greek half Gods. Like Achilles. Development process is like sandbox to them. They forgot a long time ago, what is the reason they are doing it.

Development process is the supernatural clash of titans. You will never see this in its pure bipolar version in daily banality of life, but both Titans somewhere inside are convinced it’s them, who is right.

And what are the chances of a project manager in this titanic struggle? She /He may end up as a hero or complete idiot. It depends on his/her ability to create common communication platform and lead (not manage) both unmistakable gods to mutual understanding.

Project manager as human (too human) can do that only when realizes that every development process has a unique context (and it is not a general matrix of well-known idioms and behaviors) and therefore there is a room for mistakes and multiple point of views. The world doesn’t need third sort of Gods, but it needs a man who can give all the stuff back to the ground.

Ok, paraphrasing’s enough, back to life, to speak with my Gods…

May 2015