Thoughtworkability
The thoughtworks phenomenon is quite an interesting one, and going beyond the loud and obnoxious public persona of many of their employees, the whole thing is based on a fascinating model.
The ‘leap’ that Thoughtworks has made is that it has explicitly acknowledged the need to pander to its employees basest weaknesses and vanities. The powers that be have done an absolutely brilliant job of brainwashing all these kids into thinking that they’re some kind of legion of prophets out fighting the good fight. Some bright management type has understood the developer mindset on a very fundamental level. Essentially, it boils down to the fact that in terms of the actual job, consulting is astoundingly tedious and unrewarding, for the type of projects that that sort of company takes on. There’s nothing satisfying, nurturing, or sexually titillating about the experience. These young kids are hurled out into highly crappy locations (Dixons anyone?) and made to work on horrible horrible things.
So how to retain such staff? If you’re a big consulting company, the individual ceases to matter. Trying to make each person happy simply won’t scale. So instead, you develop a culture whereby the employees learn to tug on each others genitalia, saving everyone a lot of money and hassle. So these poor kids get to spend their out of work hours doing worky things with their coworkers. Thus geek night and whatnot. Everybody wins because the socially dysfunctional young kids get to feel glamorous and spend quality circlejerk time with one another, and the company doesn’t have to waste any real company time on these children.
To thoughtworks’ credit however, this is a very calculated and cynical policy, and if you talk to some of their more senior wizened guys, they’ll smirk and wink cynically; they know exactly how the System works and how successful it is.
However, there is a bit of a beast being unleashed. The more entertained these kids are, the less satisfying their ‘day jobs’ are. You don’t have to look very far to find a thoughtworker that will rant and rave for hours about how much their day job sucks.
With this disgruntlement come other more serious issues. As developers get bored, they’ll try and spend more of their time entertaining themselves. This will manifest itself in more time spent on the job on pointless irrelevant faffing about. Clients end up with less getting done, and overall getting worse value for money. Don’t believe me? Here’s an example. Obie Fernandez (a thoughtworker) posted a blog entry saying how great it is to get back to ruby after his day job, where it took him 2 days configuring jsp reloading in tomcat, and a week to add one (seemingly trivial) feature. Thoughtworks is indeed quite lucky to have customers that are so incompetent and undiscerning that wasting two days on configuring one of the most standard configurations these days in my-first-webapp-land seems reasonable and to be expected. Granted, he might have been exagerating (I hope he was), but that this kind of exageration is one he did in public is telling in and of itself.
Perhaps instead of having your geek nights filled with loudmouthed fatheads discussing how great it is to staple dangleberries from fowler’s beard to your pair’s genitalia while developing dependency injected TDD driven unit tests for ruby, you could maybe have some web app 101 courses. Maybe even start with the basics, like what container to use and how to reload jsp pages.
I have no doubt that this company, like every other normal company in the world, has some competent clued in people that have genuine skills beyond the ability of spasming wildly when confronted with any sort of qwerty configuration. Sadly, those people don’t seem to do much beyond sigh sadly (and quietly) at the collective shame inflicted on their employer by the (many) bad apples. Really, the company is a living justification for the silly (or perhaps not) ‘employees must follow this code of conduct when speaking out in public’ rules that all big companies have. Thoughtworks’ lack of one has made them somewhat of a laughing stock in certain circles.
April 8th, 2005 at 12:53 pm
first!
April 8th, 2005 at 1:12 pm
I think this is true across the board. Look how many people read this blog, hour on hour waiting for it to change. Do you thinkt he same can be said if they were actually doing something.
I don’t work at Thought, but I bet people there do this.
http://discuss.joelonsoftware.com/default.asp?off.9.105243.11
April 8th, 2005 at 2:04 pm
I am not impressed with your vulgarity. Also, it is a credit to the company to be able to show both the good and the bad. Read http://www.martinfowler.com/bliki/RoysSocialExperiment.html
April 8th, 2005 at 2:20 pm
You next blog should be about people posting a comment just saying “first”. I know Rob is a smart guy and tangosol has only smart guys,but what’s up with this “first” thing. This is not the first time I see something like this. On TSS also people do the same. I guess someone mentioned that blog is a perfect tool for people to see their names more often on something that is widely read even though the comment should be considered a spam comment.
April 8th, 2005 at 2:21 pm
Is it true that Martin Fowler might be our next Pope ? At least the Vatican is looking for a “high ability intellectual”, and as we know they’re all at ToughWorks.
April 8th, 2005 at 2:41 pm
Hani is the frontrunner for next Pope. The conclave is very impressed with his vulgarity.
April 8th, 2005 at 3:01 pm
I interviewed there, talked to two tits about java and figured that they really didn’t know much about it. Then I talked with some .NET guy that asked me about the differences between .NET and Java, even though I know nothing about .NET. Then they made me take some cryptic logic test which I guess I am too dim to understand. I guess the only good thing about it was the female HR chick and the lunch that they paid for…
April 8th, 2005 at 3:32 pm
Damn straight, Hani! The fact is that most companies are in this situation. It’s exacerbated by the crap we’re required to work with (both open sores and big bucks tools) and the serious intellectual deficiencies most developers possess. For chrissakes, most of the development organizations I’ve had the misfortune of dealing with can’t add two numbers and get the same answer twice much less spend time working out how to do simple things. And after I swore I’d never post to anything.
April 8th, 2005 at 4:09 pm
The art of heavy lifting is to avoid making the app heavy in the first place. Unfortunately you need the app to be heavy to generate consulting revenue. That’s the problem.
April 8th, 2005 at 4:11 pm
I’ve passed their logic and coding tests by the way. God, what an attitude they have. They don’t seem to understand objects that well - let alone agile. It’s about time they got over themselves.
April 8th, 2005 at 4:45 pm
11th!
April 8th, 2005 at 5:15 pm
ThoughtWorks is the company of former glory.
Once upon a time when internet was young they were the Best of the Best of the Best. The decided with whom to work with.
Now it’s only a shadow filled with old $1500 chairs and TVs.
And their interview process is ridiculously long. On the technical side they are not much better than average software sweet shop, they just scream louder. Imagine what kind of applications those kids can build if Architecture must be discovered after all unit tests pass.
April 8th, 2005 at 5:58 pm
Y’all need to stop hating on ThoughtWorks. You know you are all just bitter because you failed your interview exams. Muahahahaha
Hani was turned down by ThoughtWorks. That’s why he hates them so much.
April 8th, 2005 at 8:14 pm
I for one (and I’m sure many others) am grateful because I owe my new job to cleaning up after some rather large elephants dispatched from turdworx mission control.
Thanks for the gumball Mickey!
April 8th, 2005 at 10:20 pm
Maven 2.0 is out.
April 9th, 2005 at 7:39 am
On Monday morning, many a fowlbot shall be feverishly installing Maven 2 pre-pre-pre-alpha on his customer’s machines in order to gain some intellectual excitement for the week. Maven 1.x is evil now that the first droppings of 2.0 have been excreted!
0 + 82 = ? mmmm
April 10th, 2005 at 1:52 pm
Damn right. A huge number of people in the notoriously incestous development community hate ThoughtWorks with a passion. Theyre ususally a bunch of clueless fucks.
April 10th, 2005 at 10:30 pm
Maybe a bile on people commenting on the math question/challenge is in order?
April 11th, 2005 at 1:13 pm
“Maven 2.0 is out.”
LMAO! Brilliant.
April 11th, 2005 at 1:34 pm
Someone mentioned this blog to me, and I must say that I am thoroughly disgusted. Disgusted that one of our “valued” employees, Obie Fernandez, has been posting his ignorance online. He will of course be terminated, shortly after we extract and delete all proprietary information from his brain.
April 11th, 2005 at 2:52 pm
Wow Hani your obsession with Thoughtworks seems to be a chronic obsession. Get over it and move on. Don’t let it pull you down into its abyse of self-hatred. There are other jobs out there for you in New York. Street peddler, bum or wh*re comes to mind.
April 11th, 2005 at 3:46 pm
They ask a math (?) question but never tell us what algebra we are to use…what is the defintion of +?
April 11th, 2005 at 7:19 pm
If these people at Thoughtworks are so super smart, why haven’t they invented some great new technology? It seems to me like they’re followers, just using someone else’s ideas.
April 12th, 2005 at 3:13 am
“Sadly, those people don’t seem to do much beyond sigh sadly (and quietly) at the collective shame inflicted on their employer by the (many) bad apples”
Not exactly true. Most of the quality people have left or are in process of leaving. I see CVs from current TWers all the time.
Apparently they have responded to all those experienced people leaving by hiring fresh graduates. Exactly who I want to pay consultanting rates for.
April 12th, 2005 at 4:21 am
ThoughtWorks (UK) used to be a company that had many good people, and a couple of knobs. All of the good people now work for banks and those remaining (or just hired) are, frankly, shit (apart from approximately 5 people who haven’t got around to quitting yet). It’s great for TW really, they need a shitload of little fucks in order to populate the craptastic projects that they used to make the good people leave.
April 12th, 2005 at 8:32 am
I wonder why Martin Fowler doesn’t have BileBlog in his BlogRoll.
It gets tiring to hear shameless self-promotion by Martin Fowler & Co.
April 12th, 2005 at 11:04 am
Its not the same here without the clownpuncher…
April 12th, 2005 at 9:18 pm
Thank you Hani! I know, I know, not the most typical reply…
April 13th, 2005 at 1:41 am
About the math question thingy…
Am I the only one that has used grease monkey to write code that parses, adds, and automatically populates that field?
C’mon…and I thought I was hanging around smart people!
April 13th, 2005 at 1:42 am
And Anu, I’m still here…just haven’t had much to comment about.
April 13th, 2005 at 2:46 pm
Hi Guys!
Ukluk has suggested in his blog that maybe we should have a “business tier” and a “presentation tier” in our applications. That sounds controversial. What do you guys think ? Is it a good idea ? Or is it bad ? What are the pros and cons ? Are there other important patterns our community should know about ?
Thanks for your valuable input. TSS wouldn’t be as useful without you.
PS: you don’t know me.
April 13th, 2005 at 3:41 pm
Joseph Ottinger died early Friday morning at the residence of his son, S.F. Ottinger, on Park Ave. East. Three children survive him, Mrs. Ottinger having died Oct. 14, 1886. Rev. D.J. Meese will officiate at the funeral, which is to take place at Indianapolis at 2 p.m. today.
April 14th, 2005 at 4:35 am
Joseph Ottinger dead? LMAO. He’s probably busy writing the longest pile of crap you’ve ever seen on the inside of his coffin.
His wife died in 1884? Her name wasn’t Ciara was it?
April 14th, 2005 at 5:31 am
abcd
April 14th, 2005 at 5:45 pm
It isn’t the same without big pop punching clowns in every room of the house. It just isn’t right to have a house where there has not been a clown punched in every room. That’s what clowns are for.
April 14th, 2005 at 6:25 pm
< < If these people at Thoughtworks are so super smart, why haven't they invented some great new technology? It seems to me like they're followers, just using someone else's ideas. >>
Totally agree - they’ve contributed nothing to the development community at large why can’t they come up with their own stuff instead of just using tools the rest of us hard working bile blog readers have created like: CruiseControl, CruiseControl.net, JMock, PicoContainer, IBATIS, NUnit, NMock, XWork, WebWork, QDox, Nanning, SiteMesh, Selenium, Marathon, XDoclet … robbing bastards….
April 15th, 2005 at 4:48 am
Interesting article, so much so that I would very likely have emailed the link around the whole company, if it hadn’t been for Hari’s usual fascination with other mens’ genitalia.
Yet another serious piece of commentary rendered sour by John Thomas references.
April 29th, 2005 at 3:07 pm
It’s not only a problem for TurdWorks: all big consultancies are basically shit to work for, unless you buy into the whole “if you adhere to the careermodel and lick enough upwards, you might make X in 2 years!” (unless you get passed over at the last moment and have to wait another year, because mid-year promotions are big no-no).
I’ve worked for 2 larger consultancies: for one for 2 years, before I quit (I was depressed and liked inflicting pain on myself back then), the other I quit after 2 months..
May 1st, 2005 at 7:07 am
Hani couldnt pass the interview process hahaha :)
May 16th, 2005 at 1:35 am
test
May 18th, 2005 at 5:19 pm
in a previous life i used to work for thoughtworks. although a lot of the negative stuff said about them is out of jealousy, a lot of it is true. in my experience, the developers are incredibly talented and cool but the managers are turds. the management team presents itself as progressive and people-friendly when in fact they are highly political cutthroat liars.
November 13th, 2005 at 11:48 pm
TW was, of sorts, my dream company. I was waiting to get enough experience to apply in TW. But After reading throught this, I am having my doubts…
I guess, to expect good quality work AND “knowledgable” managers in IT is just stupid!!
October 14th, 2006 at 8:18 am
Ukluk has suggested in his blog that maybe we should have a “business tier” and a “presentation tier” in our applications. That sounds controversial. What do you guys think ? Is it a good idea ? Or is it bad ? What are the pros and cons ? Are there other important patterns our community should know about ?
November 8th, 2006 at 6:07 am
This is hilarious, I know nothing about Thoughtworks but this is exactly the kind of slanging match that Trilogy always used to generate when I was there, and it sounds like they have a similar kind of culture. I had a very enjoyable 3 months training there exposed to high level management from Fortune 500 companies, and then they canned half the company because the bubble burst. I can see why people hated them, and I can see why people there got very passionate about the company; the outsiders mixed a lot of true observations with jealousy, and the insiders mixed a lot of well intentioned passion with some arrogance and other bad traits. Couldn’t get so excited either way myself, but then I belonged to the cyncial European contingent in training…
October 11th, 2007 at 5:14 pm
Three Thoughtworker Stories from various sources
Thoughtworks quoted fixed price for phase 1 of a development project. To get their foot in the door they threw every resource they had at it to deliver on time. Come phase 2 they had annoyed everyone so much by endearing habits such as re-writing the code written by the client’s in-house developers if they took a day off, that they were thrown out.
Thoughworker comes along to see the “Agile Way” to a bank. Thoughworker tells them if you follow their great methodology they don’t need to write any documents or upfront analysis. Just write test cases, code and re-factor until they you get it right. The potential clients uniformly respond, we actually like thinking about things and trying to understanding them before we start writting code. Thoughtworker retreats, psychologically crushed that people do not follow his faith.
Thoughtworker describing their technique for writing requirements, “We preserve the business semantics in our stories”. Member of audience, “You mean you write them in English ?”. Derisive laughter from the client’s staff.