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

[Grant <emailgrant@gmail.com>]

>> 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.

In the past I did plan to disguise the overall view, but I've gotten
over that thanks to folks like yourself.

> 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?

Previous handover efforts have failed, and precisely for that reason.
I didn't bring up obscuring the big picture this time, but re-reading
my top paragraph in this message I can see that it sounds like that's
what I'm getting at.  It's not at all.  I'm just trying to preload
some management knowledge and fit it into my context (which does not
include obscuring the big picture from developers).

- Grant