The Spelling Bee Effect: Why all-nighters in Software Development are for Amateurs

I get upset at most Spelling Bee competitions! Especially at audience that cheers for kids that struggle through a word and get it right after a lot of drama and suspense. The kids that prepare make it look easy and they are the real heroes!

And they usually get the “meh!” reaction.

Let me tell you what software developers can learn from all of this!

Watch the first few minutes of the last spelling bee competition (2015).

Both these finalists were declared co-champions since they spelled all their words correctly till the end.

But what is remarkable are the questions they ask before they execute. Word Origin? Root Word? How is it pronounced again? Then they get the word exactly correct.

Those are exactly the lessons you need to take away from spelling bees.

Ask anybody with reasonable experience in software development and they will tell you the real reasons for pushing things till the last minute and pulling all-nighters to get it pushed out by the deadline.

Almost all of the reasons would be bad communication and bad planning issues!

Requirements not being clear or changing at the last minute.

Oh! That’s what you meant? I understood it to be this!

And planning. Things get pushed till the last minute and 80% of the work gets done in the last 20% of the time available. Agile software development addresses many of these questions but only if it is executed properly. Agile software development is only as good as the quality and speed of communication involved!

All-nighters and last minute scrambling were necessary during the dot.com boom because everyone was in a hurry to build something and exit as soon as possible.

Just like the spelling bee champions above, software development professionals know that they need to communicate extensively first, ask the same questions a hundred times and once they are sure they understood what is needed, execute once correctly.

Amateur software developers postpone communication, clarification till the last minute and put something together in a hurry. You say, this doesn’t happen in Agile shops? I beg to differ. Agile methodologies address this problem, but only up to a certain extent. Communication is still such a difficult human process.

People think they have communicated well. People think they have understood well. Only to find huge gaps in understanding!

So next time, don’t be the spelling bee kid that struggles to get the word correct and pulls it off at the last minute. Don’t be an amateur!

Be the champions that prepare well, communicate extensively to make sure they understand what is needed and execute once.

And make it all look easy!