Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} hire a programmer or company?

[Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@gmail.com>]

On Tue, 29 May 2012 10:51:13 -0700
Grant <emailgrant@gmail.com> wrote:

> > Oh , one last thing: despite all appearances to the contrary, most
> > people out there can be trusted to do the right thing as far as they
> > are able, and do want to do a good job. Don't let occasional lapses
> > cloud your view of this. Everyone makes mistakes sometimes, we all
> > must learn to be tolerant when it happens.  
> 
> Sorry for the scrolling but that stuff just can't be snipped.
> 
> Regarding proposals, schedules, roadmaps, milestones....  I've got a
> list of a million changes to make to my website's front-end and
> back-end.  There is a very specific way I want things to work, so
> everything is broken down to a granular "task" level.  In the old days
> I would just dig in and start grinding away on things, but I'm ready
> to pass that duty on to a real programmer and I can't imagine that
> it's productive to have him submit a proposal, set up a schedule,
> generate a roadmap, and create milestones for every little thing that
> needs to be done.  Can I hire one guy and give him one task at a time
> and see how it goes without any of that stuff?

That will only work if you show him the big picture first so he sees
where the bits fit in. By all means contract him to focus on one aspect
at a time, but please don't disguise the overall view. It's
counter-productive and he's not doing something he has already done
many times before so he really needs to be able to see how the bit he's
working on fits into everything else.

We've discussed this project of yours more than once here over the
years, and each time the same thing gets raised - you are unwilling to
show a programmer the whole picture. Does this mean the handover
efforts have all failed before?



-- 
Alan McKinnnon
alan.mckinnon@gmail.com