Dealing with Unaccountable Developers

[ Thanks to James Maguire for this link. ]

""Not a problem."

"Déjà vu. It was the same response to a different request. Looking back on it, I can’t believe I didn’t see the pattern.

"John was an above average developer on my team. He was the type of guy who everyone liked to be around. He was totally easy going and had great sense of humor. But John was not accountable.

"As a manager, it is much easier to implement consequences for a bad job if the person responsible is someone that isn’t such a nice person.

"I know. It shouldn’t make a difference.

"It’s the manager’s job to treat everyone fairly. In my experience, this isn’t usually the case. It’s just more palatable to punish someone who is a jerk.

"John was not a jerk. Not even close. And his code deliverables were all well tested and conformed to standards. His code worked as expected.

"The problem wasn’t the quality of his work; it was that he was consistently late with his deliverables. And I am here to say that John was an expert at finding excuses."

Complete Story

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