The Software Developer's Career Handbook

Chapter 17. Gaming the System

On my list of creative management solutions to dire situations, I offer the rolling whiteboard.

The rolling whiteboard was a curiosity at the startup. Not a full-size whiteboard, but a door-sized whiteboard on wheels, suitable for rolling into conference rooms and cubicles alike. I never knew who owned it; I just grabbed it in a moment of desperation.

It was the end game. The time in the project where you pay for every single shortcut you’ve taken, for every specification you didn’t write, and for all the warnings from engineers that you’ve ignored. All the data is grim. Bug arrival rates are skyrocketing while bug resolution rates are pathetic because, uh, we are still finishing features.

Like I said, grim.

The endless stream of bad news was grating on everyone. We were already three weeks into working weekends with no end in sight. A normally pleasantly pessimistic engineering staff had gone uncomfortably quiet. Everyone was staring at “the date we can’t miss” and thinking, I guarantee we’re missing it.

I needed a game.

An Entertaining System

Engineers are system thinkers. We see the world as a very complex but knowable flowchart where there are a finite number of inputs that cause a similarly finite set of outputs. This impossible flowchart gives us a comfortable illusion of control and an understanding of a chaotic world, but its existence is a handy side effect of a life staring at, deducing, and building systems. It’s also why we love games—they’re ...