OSS, with drama, without drama. Your choice

A recent blog from Seth Godin brought back some memories from a past project.

Two ways to solve a problem and provide a service.
With drama. Make sure the customer knows just how hard you’re working, what extent you’re going to in order to serve. Make a big deal out of the special order, the additional cost, the sweat and the tears.
Without drama. Make it look effortless.
Either can work. Depends on the customer and the situation.
Seth Godin here.

Over the course of the long-running and challenging project, I worked under a number of different Program Directors. The second last (chronologically) took the team barrel-chested down the “With Drama” path whilst the last took the “Without Drama” approach.

The “With Drama” approach was very melodramatic and political, but to be honest, was also really draining. It was draining because of the high levels of contact (eg meetings, reports, etc), reducing the amount of productive delivery time.

The “Without Drama” approach did make it look effortless, because by comparison it was effortless. The Program Director took responsibility for peer-level contact and cleared the way for the delivery team to focus on delivering. The team was still working well over 60 hour weeks, but it was now more clearly focused on delivery tasks. Interestingly, this approach brought a seemingly endless project to a systematic and clean conclusion (ie delivery) within about three months.

Now I’m not sure about your experiences or preferences, but I’d go with the “Without Drama” OSS delivery approach every time. The emotional intensity required of the “With Drama” approach just isn’t sustainable over long-running projects like our OSS projects tend to be.

What are your thoughts / experiences?

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