From the Editor
IEEE Software, November/December 2001
Raising Your Software
Consciousness
In 1970, Charles Reich published a best selling book called The Greening
of America.1 In it, Reich identifies three kinds of awareness
or consciousness, which he calls Consciousness I, Consciousness II, and
Consciousness III.
Consciousness I ("Con I") is the pioneer mentality. People who operate
at Con I place great value on independence and self-satisfaction. They don’t
easily tolerate other people telling them what to do. They are highly
self-reliant and self-sufficient. Reich believes that Con I dominated the
American psyche during America’s first centuries and that this focus on
self-reliance was a significant factor in America’s development.
Consciousness II is the gray flannel suit mentality—corporation man.
People who operate at Con II understand the importance of getting along with
others and playing by the rules. They believe rules are good for society,
and they think everyone should follow them. Reich believes that Con II
became more dominant than Con I in the mid-twentieth century.
Consciousness III is the mentality of enlightened independence. The Con
III person operates on the basis of principles, with little regard for the
rules that predominate in Con II and without the selfishness that
predominates in Con I. By the time Greening was published, Reich
argued that Con II’s time was over. He believed Con III was in its
ascendancy and would soon replace Con II.
Although The Greening of America struck a resonant chord when it was
published, history has not been kind to the book. In 1999, Slate
magazine’s readers voted it the silliest book of the 20th century. Reich’s
Con III was a hippie nirvana, and the "greening" Reich predicted was a
nationwide movement toward the hippie culture of the 1960s and
1970s—psychedelic drugs, bell-bottom pants, and all. As the hippie culture
faded into obscurity in the 1980s, so did the credibility of Reich’s
predictions.
Can’t Get No Satisfaction
Reich’s political predictions may not have withstood the test of time, but
his classification of Con I, Con II, and Con III provides a useful model for
the software industry today.
Con I in software is associated with a focus on self-reliance.
Software experts often refer to software developers operating at this level
of awareness as mavericks, cowboy programmers, Lone Rangers, and prima
donnas. Software developers at this level tend to have little tolerance for
other people’s ideas. They like to work alone. They don’t like following
standards. The "Not Invented Here" syndrome thrives.
Con I’s advantage is that little training is needed, and the lone wolf
approach works adequately in environments that employ only small numbers of
programmers who work independently on small projects. Con I’s disadvantage
is that it scales poorly to projects that need teams of programmers rather
than isolated individuals.
Con II in software is associated with a focus on rules. Many
software developers eventually discover the limitations of Con I’s
self-reliant development style and see the advantages of working in groups.
Over time, they learn rules that allow them to coordinate their work with
others. Some groups of developers create their own informal rules through
trial and error, and these groups can be highly effective. Other groups buy
a pre-built methodology. Sometimes the rules are provided by consultants—as
in the classic "17 three-ring-binders" methodologies. Other times, the rules
are taken from books, such as the Rational Unified Process,3
the Extreme Programming series,2 or my own Software Project
Survival Guide.4 Developers at this level of awareness tend
to focus on details of adherence to the rules. They argue about which
interpretations of the rules are correct and focus on "following the
methodology."
The advantage of Con II is that a developer needs to be trained to use only
a single approach. If a good approach is chosen, the developer can leverage
a relatively small amount of training across many projects. The disadvantage
is that a Con II developer is ill-equipped to succeed on projects that fall
outside of the specific methodology in which the developer was trained.
Con III in software is associated with a focus on principles. At
this level of awareness, developers understand that the rules of any
pre-packaged methodology are, at best, approximations of principles. Those
approximations might apply most of the time, but they won’t apply all of the
time. The disadvantage of Con III is that extensive education and training
are needed to introduce a developer to the principles underlying effective
software development, and that training is not easily obtained. Con III’s
advantage is that, once that training has been obtained, the developer is
equipped with a full range of software engineering tools that support
success on a wide range of projects.
Love the One You’re With
The software industry has a long history of trying and ultimately rejecting
"one size fits all" methodologies. These methodologies are Con II software
approaches, and they fail outside of narrowly defined areas of
applicability—predictably—precisely because they are Con II. The world of
software is far too varied to be addressed by a single set of rules.
For example, compare the practices you would use to develop a heart
pacemaker control to those you would use to develop a video store management
program. If a software malfunction caused you to lose one video out of 1000,
it might affect the store’s profitability by a fraction of a percent, but
the impact is negligible. If a malfunction caused one pacemaker out of 1000
to fail, however, you’ve got a real problem. Generally speaking, products
that are widely distributed need to be developed more carefully than
products that are narrowly distributed. Products whose reliability is
important need to be developed more carefully than products whose
reliability doesn’t much matter.
These different kinds of software require different development practices.
Practices that would be considered to be overly rigorous, bureaucratic, and
cumbersome for a video store management software might be considered
irresponsibly quick and dirty—or reckless—for an embedded pacemaker control.
The Con III developer will use different practices to develop a heart
pacemaker control than to develop an inventory tracking system that tracks
videos. The Con II developer will attempt to apply a one-size-fits-all
methodology to both projects with the likelihood that the methodology won’t
work particularly well for either one.
Are You Experienced?
Reich identified the three levels of consciousness as the zeitgeists of
different eras, but I see Con I, Con II, and Con III as three distinct steps
along a path of personal software engineering maturity. Most software
developers begin their careers at Con I and eventually journey to Con II. In
many environments, Con II supports effective work, and no further
development is needed. In some environments, however, a further progression
toward Con III is needed.
The by-the-book methodologies of Con II seem to be a reasonable learning
path for developers at Con I who are not yet well versed in a wide range of
software practices. The specific details of the rules-based practices
probably don’t matter all that much. People who are trying to raise
themselves from Con I to Con II simply need to take a first step away from
the chaos of a completely unmanaged project. They need to learn a set of
rules and get some experience applying those rules before they can advance
to the Con III level where they understand software project dynamics well
enough to break the rules when needed. This whole process is part of the
natural progression from apprentice to journeyman to master.
References
1. Charles Reich, Greening of America, Random House, 1970.
2.
Beck, Kent, Extreme Programming: Embrace
Change, Reading, Mass.: Addison Wesley, 2000.
3. Kruchten, Phillippe, The Rational Unified Process: An Introduction,
2d Ed., Reading, Mass.: Addison Wesley, 2000.
4. McConnell, Steve. Software Project Survival Guide. Redmond, WA:
Microsoft Press, 1998.
Editor: Steve McConnell, Construx Software, 11820 Northup
Way, Suite E200, Bellevue, WA 98008.
E-mail: steve.mcconnell@construx.com
- WWW:
http://www.construx.com/stevemcc/
