Security Geek-Ed

Read this post on Grady Booch’s blog this morning, and it crystalized some thoughts that I’d been having about software development and making movies. I think this extends to multiple activities … including project managment and creating a project team. Here’s the quote:

Dave Bernstein emailed [Grady Booch] a reminder of an article by Walker Royce published in the September/October 2005 issue of IEEE Software, titled “Successful Software Management Style: Steering and Balance.” In this article, Walker points out a number of parallels between software development and movie making. “Software project managers are more likely to succeed if they use techniques that are more like managing a move production than an engineering production.” Movies products, Walker notes, are “professionals who regularly create a unique and complex web of intellectual property limited only by vision and creativity.” He goes on to say that “a software manager’s day-to-day decisions (like those of a movie producer) are dominated by value judgments, cost trade-offs, human factors, macro-economic tends, technology trends, market strengths, and timing.”

There’s another dimension to this as well: the nature of work, reputation, the ability to work with others, at a distance, etc.

Downside? Movies frequently fail, come in wildly overbudget, don’t deliver on expectations. Hmmm.