Since finishing The Passionate Programmer I’ve been putting a lot of thought into how to package the advice from the book into something more structured, serial, and prescriptive.
The Amazon reviews for the book are almost all glowingly positive with the occasional piece of constructive criticism. Here’s one such excerpt from an otherwise positive review by Ira Laefksy which I agreed with and took to heart:
Ira and I have the same idea. What I think we’re both looking for is a career development methodology.
As an example methodology pulled from the software field, Extreme Programming has always been codified as a set of distinct practices, all of which can be beneficially understood and adopted on their own. But, as the famous flowchart shows, XP doesn’t just give you a bunch of great ideas about how to develop software. It tells you what to do when you get to work each morning.
The idea of following a software development methodology is nothing new to any of us in the field. It’s common practice. Software projects are expensive, complex and (sometimes) important. Letting them chaotically emerge isn’t a reasonable approach for a professional to take.
So why should our careers be any different?
Mike Swaine recently approached me about writing an article for the Pragmatic Bookshelf’s PragPub issue #3. I decided to use this as an opportunity to explore some of the ideas I’ve had about crystalizing the advice from The Passionate Programmer into a prescriptive career development methodology.
I think I’m onto something, but I’d like feedback. The article, titled “Clone Yourself – Destroy Your Job Through Automation and Outsourcing”, contains just the beginnings of what I have in mind. Please go read it and let me know what you think.
Sorry, comments are closed for this article.
September 4th, 2009 at 07:06 PM
....n their own. But, as the famous flowchart shoes, XP doesn’t….
I think you meant “shows”....not “shoes”?
And I think I owe you another beer….love your books!
September 4th, 2009 at 07:16 PM
LOL, nice catch :) Thanks!
September 5th, 2009 at 11:30 AM
XP is powerful because it is a triumvirate of Practices, Principles, and Values, i.e., not just Practices.
September 5th, 2009 at 01:18 PM
Chad, I suspect that your career success has been based more on your core personal strengths than on any particular set of skills; the fact that you’ve moved between different very types of role is evidence of this. And yes, you can afford take take chances on people who look less good on paper but clearly bring something fresh. So I liked very much the optimism of the early part of your article.
The later part is however not a basis for a career development framework. Not because the advice is bad (actually it’s all good stuff), but because its focus is so narrow.
The mentoring, training and self-education (I’ve read Seligman and then Buckingham recently for example) that has been most valuable to me in my own career has led me to learn something about myself; the only career advice worth anything has been the idea of shaping/growing my role around my strengths and worrying overmuch about my “development areas” (terrible name) unless they’re genuinely career-limiting. I now try to live by this as a manager too.
I appreciate that I’m reviewing your article in a context different to the one for which is was originally written, so please take this as input rather than criticism. In its original setting it’s all good stuff!
September 5th, 2009 at 01:22 PM
oops – I missed a “not” in “not worrying overmuch”!
September 5th, 2009 at 03:52 PM
Bil, right and well said.
September 5th, 2009 at 03:56 PM
Mike, thanks for the response. FWIW I agree with you. I don’t think I’ve outlined the basis of a methodology in the article. I’ve just taken some first steps. Thanks for reading!
September 19th, 2009 at 05:05 AM
I’m a bit intriqued on how you can apply software development principles, typically somewhat hard and logical to career development….......seems a bit anthropormorological. I am coming from someone in a human services field where the serial, sequential steps you consider do not seem to quite apply so smoothly. Help me with that…........?