I’ve recently identified a pattern used for most of corporate South Africa’s software development. I call it the Dev Manager Obfuscation Layer Pattern.
When is it applied?
When businesses have a need for bespoke software development, but haven’t figured how to get software developers and business people to interact properly.
How to apply it.
Hire a Dev Manager. Their role is to act as an obfuscation layer between development and business.
- They obscure from business what the development team is currently working on and how long it will take.
- They obscure from the development team what the important things are that business really want’s them to work on.
- They take the ‘heat’ for the team.
- They act as a fake communication portal, if you are feeling down, speak to them - they are masters at saying to you what you want to hear.
If one Dev Manager doesn’t provide enough obfuscation, you can hire multiple layers of Dev Managers to get the right level of obfuscation where both business and the development team are happy.
Anti Patterns to Avoid.
- Agile, nothing makes a Dev Manager fear more than having both groups of people they have lied to for the last few years in the same room without them there to control the situation.
