Hacking on Empty

If you’re involved in software then you may have heard of the Joel Test. It’s a quick, unscientific way to get a ballpark estimate of how dysfunctional a software development organization may be. A company with a low score needs help and before joining you should seriously consider if you are going to be the person to help them. A high score is an indication that the organization is well managed.

The thing about the Joel Test is that not all of the questions are equal in how well they represent the health of the organization or the quality of its management. Likewise, some things are much easier to fix than others. For instance, some people haven’t experienced the benefits of continuous integration and/or may not be aware of new tools that greatly simplify the creation of virtual integration environments. Even without CI, for instance, it may be a good place to work and it shouldn’t be difficult for a good developer with some leadership skills to introduce better development practices.

One of the questions on the Joel Test is “Do programmers have quiet working conditions?” The answer at virtually all software companies is NO. Famous exceptions are Apple, Microsoft, and Fog Creek, of course. Without quiet working conditions it is more difficult and expensive to implement all of the other things in the test or the product itself. It’s harder to get good people. The people you have aren’t working at their full potential or they are sacrificing their lives to work early/late in order to avoid the distractions of their offices, which leads to burnout and turnover. If you’re at a place without quiet working conditions then it is almost certain that there is nothing you can do to change it. Management didn’t see it as a problem in the first place and is unlikely be persuaded by any argument. That’s why this question is actually the most important question on the test.

I was just looking at some jobs on Stack Overflow and noticed that employers may answer the questions in the Test and have their “score” featured in search results. The first ad I looked at that responded to the Test had a score of 11/12. It’s a startup in San Francisco called Grockit. The only question in the Test that they responded negatively to was “Do you do hallway usability testing.” If a company answers affirmatively to all of the other questions then it is probably a good place, because nobody is going to stop you from asking the next person that comes down the hallway to test out a new feature.

So I go to Grockit’s web site and click the “Jobs” link and what do I see? You guessed it, a picture of all their developers jammed in a single room. I have no doubts that there is a kitchen and dining area just out of the frame.