Object Mentor Blog: Master Craftsman Teams.

Master Craftsman Teams.

Uncle Bob — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 16:51:00 -0500

In the early ‘70s F. T. Baker, and Fred Brooks wrote about the notion of Chief Programmer teams. The idea was that a highly skilled chief programer would be assisted by a team of helpers. The chief would write most of the code, delegating simpler tasks to the helpers.

Though the idea was tried at IBM and shown to work well, the idea has never really caught on. One reason may be that the economics don’t appear to be all that good. A team of four juniors making $50K supporting a senior making $100K costs $300K. That just seems like a lot of money for one well supported chief programmer writing most of the code.

But in light of the movement towards software craftsmanship, perhaps it’s time to dust off this old idea and look at it from a different perspective. Consider the following thought experiment…

We are in the throes of a recession that is challenging us to think differently about things. At the same time our universities are raising tuitions and increasing faculty salaries, while requiring ever less from both the faculty and the students. Today’s professors spend about 9 hours per week in the classroom. And the quality of the CS majors graduating from these institutions is, to put it bluntly, wretched.

Why should a young aspiring software professional spend four years and $200K+ to attend an institution that will teach them less about their chosen profession than 3 months of working on a real project with talented mentors? Indeed, why should employers pay $50K for undertrained programmers who are sure to make horrific messes for the next three years of their career?

Consider instead a team of craftspeople. At the center of this team is a master programmer. This is someone who has been programming for two decades or more. This person understand systems at a gut level, and can quickly make technical judgements without agonizing over them. Such a person can direct a team with the kind of calm confidence that only comes with years of experience and seasoning.

Our master has three lieutenant journeymen who themselves each have three apprentices. Our journeymen have at least five years of experience, and are capable both of taking and giving direction. They can make short term tactical decisions, and direct their apprentices accordingly. At the same time they take technical and architectural direction from the master.

The journeymen write a lot of code – almost as much as the master. They also throw away two thirds of the code written by the apprentices, and drive them to redo it better – always better. They teach the apprentices how to refactor, and often pair with them and sit with them while reviewing their code.

The master probably writes more code than any of the team members. This code is often architectural in nature, and helps to establish the seed about which the system will crystalize. The master also sets technical direction and overall architecture, and makes all critical technical decisions. However, the chief job of the master is to relentlessly drive the journeymen towards higher quality and productivity by establishing and enforcing the appropriate disciplines and practices. From the master’s point of view, it’s “my way or the highway.”

Yes, I know this is very anti-scrum. But this is a case where I think scrum in particular, and agile in general just got it wrong. No battle was won by gaining the consensus of the soldiers. And if you don’t think developing a system is a battle against time, resources, and attitudes, then you’ve never built a system. No great team has ever succeeded without a strong coach who imposed discipline, set the vision, and had the final authority over who played and who sat on the bench. Consensus and team rule may be useful tools some of the time, but only in the context of effective leadership.

The apprentices write a significant amount of code—most of which is discarded by the journeymen. The journeymen act as committers. When an apprentice delivers code that the journeyman finds acceptable, the journeyman will commit that code to their main line. Otherwise he sends it back to the apprentice to do over. By the same token the master accepts subsystems from the journeymen and, if acceptable, commits it to the master main line.

The master sees every line of code in the system. The Journeymen see every line of code written by their apprentices, and they write a significant amount themselves. Pairing is prevalent though not universal. Anyone on the team can pair with anyone else. It should not be uncommon for the master to pair with the apprentices from time to time.

Apprentices begin at a young age—perhaps 18 or 19. After all, the idea is that they aren’t going to a university. Rather, the brightest would start as apprentices right out of high school, while others might opt for two years of community college first.

Apprenticeship would last 2-4 years, depending on how quickly the apprentice learns. Apprentices earn no more than minimum wage. After all, they are young, barely productive, and are deriving great benefit from working with experienced journeyman under the guidance of a master.

Attaining journeyman status is something for the master to decide, with advice from the journeymen. The decision is bittersweet because it is a decision to eject the apprentice from the team so that he or she can start the journey. Usually the new journeyman would join the team of a different master.

Some apprentices simply won’t attain journeyman status. In the end, if they fail to make progress, they must be removed from the team. No one should stay an apprentice year after year. It is the responsibility of the journeymen and master to decide if an apprentice should be removed from the team.

The skills of new journeymen will gradually increase. At first they should have only one apprentice. Over the months and years their increasing leadership skills will allow them to take two or three at a time. The most experienced Journeymen might play the role of master in smaller projects.

Attaining master status is no small feat. It requires the consensus of other masters, and must be demonstrated through several successful accomplishments.

I expect a journeyman would make $50-100K depending on their experience. I expect a master would make $150-$250K or more.

Now imagine a team of 13. One master, three journeymen, and nine apprentices. This is a powerful unit. Its size is right at the sweet spot for hyper productive teams. It has the right balance of experience. And… it’s pretty cheap. This team costs ~$600K per year, or about $50K per person. Or (consulting companies take notice) about $23/person/hour.

It seems to me that such a team could do much more, much better, than a team of 12 graduates lead by a tech-lead with five years experience. The productivity and efficiency (and efficiencies of scale!) of this approach should be obvious. Moreover, I think that being an apprentice on a team like this would provide a much better, much faster, and much cheaper education than a university degree. Finally, I think that using teams of this kind could be a remarkably cost-effective way to get very high quality software written very quickly.

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