Thread by @swardley

X : What's your thought on 10x developers?
Me : I prefer to think in teams.
X : Like a 10x team?
Me : More like a 2000x team.
X : Eh?
Me : The scale of waste and the difference between a high performing team and a poorly run, badly organised team is somewhere well north of 2000x.

X : You are kidding?
Me : Why would I joke? This is not new - quora.com/In-Scrum-The-A…

X : What about serverless?
Me : Oh gosh, I hate to think. The speed of difference between a high performing, well organised team on serverless vs a poor performing, badly organised team building its own infrastructure and components? It'll be through the roof.

X : Any ideas?
Me : No, it'll be guesswork.
X : Can you guess?
Me : A well functioning team of 12 on serverless in a week beating the output of 200 people working for 5 years in a badly organised manner using home grown everything and structured processes? I could believe it.

X : Do you have evidence of this?
Me : No. You asked me to guess. So, I'm guessing something I could easily believe. The above is easily believable to me.
X : That's shocking.
Me : Actually, it's called experience.

X : Wow, that seems so ridiculous.
Me : Hmmm, maybe ... the team is a bit overweight. Can I guess again?
X : Ok
Me : Let's pick a smaller team ... so say 5 people in 5 days beating 200 people over 5 years ... that feels more realistic. I'm happier now.

Anyway, just wait until the world of conversational programming hits. It'll take a bit of time but you'll end up with a team of 5 building in a few hours what a poorly performing team of 200 couldn't in 5 years. This is why we evolve both in terms of tech and practices.

X : That just seems nonsense.
Me : Not to me it doesn't. Go take an interest in people like @simalexan and Jarvis etc - - early pioneers of a very different way of coding. Give it time.

What you need to understand is in that 5 minute video he built an entire system whilst in a park and on a phone. In a poorly functioning large team, it would probably take a month or two to get the kick off meeting organised.

X : What do you think about building your own serverless environment?
Me : Hmmm. I'm sure in some niches, if I placed my hands over my ears, shout loudly and squint really really hard whilst shaking my head from side to side then it sort of makes sense maybe ... ish. No.

X : What about legacy IT?
Me : Do you mean the toxic IT that has been allowed to build up over decades in the organisation through a time honoured method of ignoring it?
X : I wouldn't put it like that.
Me : Are you close to retirement?
X : Yes
Me : Keep on ignoring it then.

X : What about our competitors?
Me : What about them?
X : Some are using far more modern techniques and practices.
Me : You sure? Everyone claims to be agile these days.
X : Well, some of the startups then.
Me : if you're really worried then invest in them.

X : How do we convert our organisation?
Me : Oh, no.
X : What?
Me : You don't mean that.
X : What do I mean?
Me : You mean ... how do we convert our organisation into high performing teams using modern technology and practices whilst keeping our legacy and existing practices?

X : Is that possible?
Me : No ... but I can find someone who will tell you it is, if your cheque book is big enough.
X : So, it is possible?
Me : To spend lots of money - yes.

X : I disagree. We can create new teams and let the past wither.
Me : Sure, strangler patterns etc. Redirect past expertise into these groups. That's all fine. But you're not trying to keep that toxic IT or the past practice ... you're trying to kill it.

X : Kill, toxic, wither ... these are all rather aggressive words.
Me : I'm a gardener. We don't use words like "phasing out". Let us "phase out" the weeds ... nah, let us burn them.
X : We've been "phasing out a system next year" for the last sixteen years.
Me : Yep.

X : You seem to talk a lot of sense across technology to culture to management. How do you do this?
Me : Thank you. I've made an awful lot of mistakes and howlers. If something could be done wrong, I got it wrong ... probably twice. I've a lot of experience of getting it wrong.

X : So, what is the right way to do this stuff?
Me : Oh gosh. No-one knows, we're still learning. Just try not to be as wrong as I was but then again, people rarely listen to past experience especially if it belongs to others.

X: You must have some general advice?
Me : Hmmm. Learn how to map. It's a lot easier to communicate, challenge and learn if we have a common way of understanding the landscape and it costs you nothing bar your time - - medium.com/wardleymaps