Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
sional societies to institute more formal methods for regulating the
industry, corporate managers attempted to construct development meth-
odologies that would eliminate the uncertainty and expense associated
with computerization projects.
It would be impossible to describe all of the numerous approaches to
programmer management that were developed in this and subsequent
periods. The remainder of this chapter will focus on the defi ning char-
acteristics of a few of the most prominent development methodologies
that emerged in response to the declaration in 1968 of the software crisis:
the hierarchical system, or software factory; the superprogrammer, or
chief programmer team (CPT) approach; and the adaptive programmer
team (or “egoless” programming) model. The hierarchical systems
approach—originally developed for large, government-sponsored pro-
gramming projects at the SDC and the IBM Federal Systems Division—
resembles the highly stratifi ed, top-down organizational structure familiar
to most conventional corporate employees. The CPT, although it was
also developed at the IBM Federal Systems Division, refl ects an entirely
different approach to programmer management oriented around the
leadership of a single managerially minded superprogrammer. The
adaptive team approach was popularized as egoless programming by
the iconoclastic Gerald Weinberg in his classic
The Psychology of
Computer Programming
from 1971.
15
Weinberg proposed an open,
“democratic” style of management that emphasized teamwork and
rotating leadership.
Although it is possible to arrange these approaches into a roughly
chronological order, it is not my intention to suggest that they represent
any simple evolution toward increasing managerial control or economic
effi ciency. Each of these management methodologies captures separate
but interrelated visions about how computer programming as an eco-
nomic activity, and computer programmers as aspiring professionals,
could best be integrated into the established social and technological
systems of the traditional corporation. Each of these approaches built
on, and responded to, the innovations and shortcomings of the others.
They also refl ected the backgrounds and aspirations of their advocates
and developers. By studying carefully the salient features of each of these
three methodologies, we will be better able to situate them in their par-
ticular social and historical context, and hence to understand more fully
their contribution to contemporary debates about the nature and causes
of the software crisis.
