Karmona`s Pragmatic Blog

I have an old, sentimental newspaper-article-cut claiming “pessimistic hi-tech employees are more productive than their optimistic peers” hanging on my office wall.

In this context, last summer I wrote, coined and trademarked the Pessimistic Developer Paradigm.

Early this week I have interviewed a very interesting dude* who saw this old article hanging on my office and introduced this amazing poem by Robert Graves which I must share in this pessimistic context…

In Broken Images (by Robert Graves)

He is quick, thinking in clear images;
I am slow, thinking in broken images.

He becomes dull, trusting to his clear images;
I become sharp, mistrusting my broken images.

Trusting his images, he assumes their relevance;
Mistrusting my images, I question their relevance.

Assuming their relevance, he assumes the fact;
Questioning their relevance, I question their fact.

When the fact fails him, he questions his senses;
when the fact fails me, I approve my senses.

He continues quick and dull in his clear images;
I continue slow and sharp in my broken images.

He in a new confusion of his understanding;
I in a new understanding of my confusion.

* Thanks Tomer and Good Luck!

In game theory, the prisoner’s dilemma is a game in which two players may each “cooperate” with or “defect” (i.e. betray) the other player. In this game, as in all game theory, the only concern of each individual player (”prisoner”) is maximizing his/her own payoff, without any concern for the other player’s payoff. In the classic form of this game, cooperating is strictly dominated by defecting, so that the only possible equilibrium for the game is for all players to defect. In simpler terms, no matter what the other player does, one player will always gain a greater payoff by playing defect. Since in any situation playing defect is more beneficial than cooperating, all rational players will play defect.

The unique equilibrium for this game is a Pareto-suboptimal solution—that is, rational choice leads the two players to both play defect even though each player’s individual reward would be greater if they both played cooperate. In equilibrium, each prisoner chooses to defect even though both would be better off by cooperating, hence the dilemma.

Note: Please read more about it in Wikipedia since there is much more information there then I want to copy-edited-paste into this blog… (especially after reading Kalish’s last blog post)

—The prisoner dilemma is mainly about trust, cooperation and honest communication…

During an interview (back on June 2003) XP founder, Kent Beck was asked when XP is not appropriate?
Beck answered that “It’s more the social or business environment. If your organization punishes honest communications and you start to communicate honestly, you’ll be destroyed.”

So… if a team member cooperates (”communicates honestly”) while the environment competes (”punishes honest communications”).
In terms of the prisoner’s dilemma, this is the worst situation for the cooperator, and so, it is expected that no one will cooperate in such an environment.
Sounds familiar? Did you happen to work in a place where warnings (a.k.a. red flags) tagged you as a complainer? (also connected to the Stockdale Paradox post) or end up with assigned person tripping all over your problem space, trying to figure it out, while you try to implement the solution (When to approach your supervisor with a problem).

It is known fact that Agile methodologies enhances trust among team members by encouraging (as working standard) honest communication and cooperation with Daily Standup Meetings, TDD, Collective Ownership, Pair Programming, Sustainable Pace, Planning Game etc.
Leading me to claim that Agile leads teams into cooperation-cooperation situations and this is exactly where you want to be in your next police interrogation… ;-)

Don’t be caught…

The Stockdale paradox refers to Admiral Jim Stockdale, who was the highest ranking United States military officer in the “Hanoi Hilton” prisoner-of-war camp during the height of the Vietnam War. Tortured over 20 times during his eight-year imprisonment from 1965 to 1973… in Jim Collins book “Good to Great” chapter 4 page 83 (which is by no-doubt a must book) he is quoting Stockdale saying: “You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end - which you can never afford to lose - with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.”

The Stockdale Paradox have much deeper implications than I present in this post and I am only using it to shed some light on The Pessimistic Developer Paradigm

I truly believe that in software projects, the pessimistic developer will win 80% of the software “battles” over an optimistic one (which is more than enough for me as a true believer in the pareto principle).

Don’t be confused with the semantics of what I am saying; we are not talking about this-can’t-be-done developers! - the best developers will keep an “optimistic attitude” (a.k.a. can-do spirit) with an “pessimistic mindset” (a.k.a. what could possibly go wrong?)

A “pessimistic mindset” will bring you to double-check, anticipate and be pro-active in mitigation of possible points of failures.

Saul Lieberman said ”The difference between a smart man and a wise one is this: A smart man can work his way out of a difficulty that the wise man will not get into in the first place”

I heard it many times and saw it in real life more than once so don’t “kill” the pessimistic messengers in your organization…

Keep being pessimist in the tacticalities (I want to patent this term :-) and insure your strategic success.