The ‘3’ day workshop masters

Software developers are the only professionals who have the misfortune of some random layman who went through a 3 day workshop will tell them how to develop and deliver. They will also get a title called ‘master’ who will be backed with a certification.

No other field be it sports, medicine, architecture or any other professional stuff; there won’t be laymen coming in as masters after going through a 3 day workshop and dictating terms on how they should go about doing their business. Why did this happen? Because software development is largely misunderstood as to be solving a technical problem, but it is about solving a communication problem. Technology is only an enabler, the development process is nowhere near the manufacturing process yet a lot of inspiration is taken from the other disciplines.

The code is the blueprint for a working software, writing the blueprint is in every developer’s hands. Blueprint represents architecture and design, we have way too many cooks at the same time and it needs a great skill in making people work together. A good part of the industry is sadly treating developers as mere coders (a.k.a labours) and thinking that simple mathematical work division along with masters with whip will get things done.

When you encounter such a master in your workplace, be it under whatever name, it is time to move on to saner things. Only developers will be able to lead and coach developers well, only if they are given a chance and treated as architects, not mere coders.