On the other hand, you don’t build a culture that is dynamic, fun, and passionate about the work that they do by bashing ROI over everyone’s heads all the time. ROI is the proper focus for Marketing, Sales, and ultimately for the one overseeing everything. But craftsmanship and passion are fundamental to the ones building the development team. They need to understand the money and the reason ROI is important. But if that’s all they know, and have no passion for the craft that they are in, there’s no way to build a culture around that.

Successful software and business require both, IMO, and striking the right balance is the key to succeeding. The trick is to understand that the balance point is not always the same depending on the lifecycle of the company/department/project.

Reducing waste and improving efficiency can be boiled down into one phrase from carpentry: “Measure twice, cut once.” In software that means spending the time to get the requirements right. This is something learned from experience. Irregardless of your code craftsmanship, or how well your can cut a dovetail joint and bring the grain out of a nice piece of Blackwood, it won’t mean peanuts if the customer wanted mitres in Cherry. But that digresses into a completely new discussion.

I believe the passion of one’s chosen craft and ROI will always be a bit polar. Learning how to use tools efficiently may be on the path to craftsmanship, but at some point that path must diverge towards ROI to be successful. The Craftsman side of you will say “it can be better”, the ROI side will say “it’s good enough to sell.” That’s a tug-of-war I see, or read about every other day.

I don’t know too many people that would admit to staring in awe at what a master did in 40k lines of Cobol in 1989. I doubt anyone will give any more care for looking at 50k lines of C# with 98% coverage in unit tests and an automated build environment running on a cluster of P4s, in 2020. But we marvel at a Stradivarius or a Monet. To me, that’s the difference.

OK, so I get it. I have been the guy making your argument. I swear. My wife has a friend who runs a catering company and she refuses to put cheaper potato salad on the menu, even when customers request it.

My statement to my wife was, “Well, good luck with her business. She isn’t giving customers what they want.”

Her reply was, “It is a quality issue. She refuses to make that compromise and is willing to take the hit that it costs her.”

I get both arguments. How about this for a leveling statement? “Craftsmanship is quality as measured by the creator, not the consumer”

So, this balance is what I am trying to strike. I refuse to believe that we can’t serve the ideals of craftsmanship and ROI. These things are not mutually exclusive.

Further, tools of craftsmanship applied well further the goals of the ROI focused organization. I do not believe that well built software cannot be the most efficient to build. Quite the opposite. Why do you think Norm uses a table saw? The same reason we save money when we build with TDD and CI. It is faster to produce something of higher quality. No?

And for every Chrysler there is a hundred companies that pull it off. Every company is going to have it’s ups and downs. The fact that you have to consider with Chrysler is that the impact of their failing is as big as it is, *because* Chrysler was as successful as it was. They didn’t make their Billions by hand-assembling and inspecting each car off the line then colapse because they started using robots operated by grad-11 drop-outs.

IMO “craftsmanship” is not the same as “quality”. Craftsman are generally very focused on quality, but companies can certainly be successful, very successful without going to that extent. Quality is about delivering and responding to customer needs, and a process of continuous improvement to that end. Craftsmen have that same goal, but approach it at a very personal, almost spiritual level. “I make what I make, how I make, because I love it.” That’s not a bad attitude to have towards software, but it is not a necessity to producing successful (read: Highly-Profitable) software. I’d argue it could be an obstacle to building highly-profitable software.

Besides, just because something isn’t built by a “craftsman” doesn’t automatically delegate it to the dragon-infested land of “crap”. A lot of it is actually quite good. (I love my Poäng) A crafted piece of furniture would probably last longer, but it will also be more expensive up-front. As a customer I’ll decide whether that extra up-front cost is justified. With software, putting on the Devil’s Advocate hat, I don’t care if it’s easier for you to maintain, modify, or extend if all I want is what I know I want right now. If yours costs me $200k but I can get that same functionality for $150k from someone else, (with reasonable quality) even if further enhancement is more expensive with the second option I’d likely go with it. Just as YAGNI applies to software development, it also applies to software consumption. If you can’t convince the customer, you can have the best-crafted, highest quality piece of code, but a niche customer base, or living out of other “successful” organization’s pockets like OSS “pets”.

“Craftsmanship is more about personal preference, I don’t see it playing a significant factor in the success of a company.”

You might want to mention that to Chrysler.

I struggle with the more crap vs. less quality culture we have built for ourselves, too. That is also an age-old problem facing craftsmen. I really enjoyed this book on the subject that expounds on both of our points.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/06/books/review/Hyde-t.html

It has little to nothing to do with software development, but makes the points we are discussing here better than I can.

As for the summing up the parallels between software craftsmanship and traditional craftsmanship. Take a look at where traditional craftsmen and guilds are headed… 95-99% of things people use every day, that make companies/people money are mass-produced. ROI and processes like Six-Sigma are gods in this realm. Craftsmen still exist making Ash rocking chairs vs. Ikea’s Poängs. You can debate all you want about which one is “better”, but it’s pretty clear which is more successful.