Good will toward all

[wiredferret]

One of the interesting things about Agile development is that it assumes good will, or at least professionalism. The team is assumed to code together, no one is in charge of assignments, although there are scheduling coordinators, and no one can tell another person how long it will take to do a unit of work. I don't think this would work everywhere

Comments

[talkswithwind]

At this job? Peer, hands down. My two co-workers who share the same job title and functions both use power-player methods to get what they want when talking to people outside our department. This has earned me the Nice Guy badge, and I'm now the first point of contact when folk want to talk to us for some reason. I've even had side-bar conversations about how they don't like talking to my co-workers if they don't have to, and I'm a lot nicer. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth if/when I decide to leave here.

This comes in part from my last job, where I was working dotted-line-under a power player. It took a lot of coalition building to overcome that kind decider-er environment. The skills have translated well into this one.

I'm the Good Cop to my co-worker's Bad Cop, and GOOD GOD does it work. Coworker A announces a change fait accompli, already decided, this is how it is. I then get calls intending to sound our department out for how flexible we are on the whatever, in order to judge how high to raise the stink to get it changed. I reply with the details about why this is a good idea and why we're doing it like this, and that usually satisfies them. It has markedly reduced the amount of flack boss and grandboss end up dealing with. It's almost spooky. Game theory at work eh?