- The Fundamental Argument
- Process: How We Got Here
- The Next Step: Velocity
- Approaching Tomorrow
Approaching Tomorrow
In his original "No Silver Bullet" essay, Fred Brooks ended with three suggestions, two of which were rapid prototyping and growing great designers. We have found prototyping to be so valuable and so rarely adopted that we felt it was worth mentioning again.
Unlike Brooks, we suggest more than "just" great designers: Develop great generalists who can be great requirements gatherers, great developers, and great testers. Hire and grow people who desire to excel, who will go out and learn about generative programming, sharp tools, and rapid prototyping all on their own.
If process and technique are the roadmap to speed, the right people are the vehicle. Our model for faster development is nothing less than to hire, train, and mentor smart people to become even better, while giving them room to learn and experiment. While that may deserve its own article, if you read Informit regularly and this article resounded with you, then you probably already belong to that group of smart people. If you can recognize others in that group, and birds of a feather flock together, you probably already have the tools to build that great team. The next challenge is to build it—not to find tomorrow’s tools, but to grow a team that will adopt them, or, better yet, help invent them.