What did Joel Spolsky mean by the other three methods of software management?

Question

I've just read Joel's "Three Management methods" http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/08/07.html but I'm really interested in some of the other ones he mentioned, including:

• The Jihad Method (I wish there was a less politically loaded name for it...)
• The Charismatic Cult Method
• and "Devil Wears Prada" method.

I've definately lived through Charismatic Cult Management - it was fun, but I'm not sure I would do things that way again. I think I might have escaped "The Jihad Method" - but I'd like to know exactly what's meant by that.

I'm not sure what the "Devil Wears Prada" method is - something to do with buying the lead developer his/her morning starbucks and delivering the binder of TPS reports to his or her home? ;-)

Answer 1

I've got this suspicion that the "Jihad management method" is about a senior team member issuing "rulings" that are binding on all the junior devs. The junior devs are then bound to follow it, no matter how much effort, inefficiency or struggle it takes. Naturally, all the senior devs are exempt from actually having to implement the ruling...

(i.e. They could be forced to do ridiculous things like programming in XML, or huge numbers of manual merges...)

Answer 2

My guess: the Jihad Method is referring to a manager promising heaven (bonuses, raises, promotions) to inexperienced developers (cheap labor), in order to get them to work long hours and weekends. Eventually, developers burn out under the strain and either quit or are fired when they complain too much.

This happens when a company has over-promised and under-delivered (i.e. letting a sales department that thinks "software is easy" run things), and cash flow problems start happening as customer contracts aren't met. So, the manager gets put under pressure to minimize costs and just "get things done."

Answer 3

My guess is that the Jihad Method involves declaring "war" on some particular technology via the fiat of someone more senior who doesn't actually have to be on the front lines. This declaration does not take into consideration any of the consequences of it. There's probably some justification for it but that almost certainly won't justify the extreme response.

Eg. "Thou shalt not use templates" in C++. Sure, they have their abuses, but reading it literally that means no STL either, which will make the lives of the people who have to actually carry that through very miserable.

Once one of these has been "finished" in that those who remain of the development team are sufficiently cowed into just doing it, a new Jihad will be declared and the cycle continues.