Sun, 12 Jun 2005

Bernard Notarianni on Resisting the Promotion

Regarding his feedback, it resonates with a conversation I had with former programmer Ross Petit, the ThoughtWorks account principal on my current project. We were discussing Resist The Promotion and Ross pointed out something similar to Bernard. As you progress toward mastery, your vision of the development lifecycle expands. Take for example one of my teammates, Paul Hammant. He operates at multiple levels of the project, all the while remaining intimitely involved with the lowest level code. As Bernard put it:

For sure, those tasks are not programming, but maybe, a master has the ability to keep an eye on all of them, at the same time, and drive them into the right direction to enable the programming task to happen in the best possible context.

Hence, for sure you must resist for promotion if accepting it will put you away totally of programming, but maybe, you could be at a sufficient level to keep doing it, while addressing more managerial tasks.

In response to Bernard's feedback, I should also point out something I have had to point out other collaborators previously. These patterns are specifically for apprentices. Resist The Promotion is not written for journeymen or masters. While some of the apprenticeship patterns might apply to craftsmen at all levels, there are some that are inappropriate outside the context of apprenticeship. Which ones? You tell me.

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