Comments on: Developer Motivation and Satisfaction

By: Blog harvest, December 2009 « Schneide Blog

Blog harvest, December 2009 « Schneide Blog — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 23:14:52 +0000

[...] Developer Motivation and Satisfaction – The “Code Monkeyism” blog by Stephan Schmidt is a never-ending source of wisdom to me. This article talks about demotivation, the saddest hobby of most management. If you wonder what to do against it – you’ll find some hints on our blog, too. [...]

By: stephan

stephan — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 07:09:03 +0000

Esther Derby wrote on CIO.com about “Stop Demotivating Me!”

http://www.cio.com/article/123406/Stop_Demotivating_Me_

By: Jayadeep Purushothaman

Jayadeep Purushothaman — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 03:44:27 +0000

Right on – in fact many of the efforts to motivate developers backfire and become demotivating efforts!

By: abby, the hacker chick blog

abby, the hacker chick blog — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 02:46:25 +0000

wait, you’re a manager? I somehow missed that point – can I come work for you? :-)

This is soo very true – we as human beings are intrinsically motivated. Just read something like Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Our “optimal experiences” in life are those when we get to focus on something challenging and then be allowed to work towards achieving it. And with something as inherently interesting and creative as software development this is SO easy to find interesting challenges for us.

And yet, companies seem to bend over backwards to prevent us from merrily doing our jobs. It is just so baffling to me.

@Itay – huh, sounds like one very smart person ;-)

By: blaxter

blaxter — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 13:20:06 +0000

I’m agree but the another point of view is also valid.

If tomorrow I’ll go to the office and suddenly I’ll see another monitor in my desk or a new chair or a pay raise, etc… I’m sure I’ll be much more motivate than today.

By: Itay Maman

Itay Maman — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 11:17:06 +0000

I can really identify with the path of dissatisfaction you’re describing.

There was a very interesting tweet by @HackerChick which seems to go hand in hand with your point: “give me a challenge & I work harder, keep pushing right past that to Totally Unreasonable & watch productivity dive bomb”

(http://twitter.com/HackerChick/status/2635232836)