Dreamfeed

The website of the AYE conference offers an interview with Gerald Weinberg, conducted by SDMagazine. It’s an interesting read.

A quote on blaming:

Q: What’s the most important piece of management-related advice anyone has ever given you?

GW: If you blame your employees, you’re a bad manager. You hired them, accepted them, supervised them, and directed their training. You’re responsible. If you don’t like what’s happening, look to your own behavior. But, if there’s credit to be given, it’s theirs.

On outsourcing and lack of innovation:

Q: Is this bad behavior coming from the developers themselves, or do you mean to say the entire industry is to blame for not staying on top of innovation?

GW: It starts with the developers, and managers, too. But the overall result is, as you suggest, the entire industry getting too involved in navel-watching and competitiveness over the wrong values. For a long time, customers had nowhere else to go for service and had to put up with whatever we gave them. Now they have choices, and they’re getting even.