November 3, 2010 at 3:25 am
It's a paradigm I don't like very much.
It seems to me that could easily transform things into complete chaos.
Who's responible for the projects? Who's the business owner? Who steers the requests?
I work for a quite young firm that started (like many little shops do) with this model. You end up receiving requests for new features or modifications from people that don't fully understand the business processes and didn't discuss the requirements with their boss.
The "swarm" paradigm could work in a perfect organization, where everyone's totally aware of what he's doing. Have you ever worked in a place like that? I haven't.
-- Gianluca Sartori
November 3, 2010 at 5:11 am
I can see us evolving some businesses to having a "guidance counselor" who approves our expense reports, performs periodic reviews, helps us manage our careers, and is available to discuss issues. I think many of us might prefer this to a direct manager that is looking to assign us work.
This is how IBM Consulting (Global Business Services) is organized, except the guidance counselor is two people. I have a "Manager" who has from 3 to 7 direct reports who does the performance reviews, etc. I also have a Resource Deployment Manager whose only job is to match people and projects. There is typically one for an entire department. For the actual project I happened to be assigned to there is a Project Manager and depending on the size perhaps a layer or two below that.
Since most projects require a variety of talents (Analysts, Architects, Programmers, DBAs, Testers, etc.) the odds that my direct supervisor on a project is in my field is slim. I like having a manager whose skills are similar to mine and is just one or two steps ahead of me on the career ladder. In a previous job my manager was mostly business development with some project manager. After two annual reviews where he was trying to steer me to his career path instead of helping me advance in mine I moved on.
It might be more interesting to go find your own work, or respond to requests from others inside the company.
This is the part I really like, partly because IBM has a really good intranet for positions that need resources. I have been able to find projects that both suited my skills and were logical steps in my career.
Of course a project at IBM is a very formal thing, so they are not "Ad Hoc" in most senses, but they tend to be a one time grouping. In the last six years there is only one instance of being on two different projects with the same other person.
These opinions are my own, I cannot speak for IBM, your milage may vary.
But it is a great place to work.
November 3, 2010 at 5:39 am
We had the same thing 20 years ago back in the Mainframe Stone Age. Only it was called Fast Action Response Team..... Seriously, FART.
Everything old is new again, just a different name. :hehe:
November 3, 2010 at 6:09 am
Good editorial... I think this kind of thing is a truly American thing, and I think its because we, the populous, are all considered basically stupid by the Madison avenue types... That is...
Years ago, long before cell phones and the internet we had RAD, Rapid Application Development. I was a big supporter of RAD and the concepts therein. But it just gets sooooo stupid when RAD becomes Agile, and then I guess what Steve is telling us now is that Agile is going to become "swarm"...
To me, this is like when you go to a snooty restaurant and you try to order a cheeseburger, but they call it "beuf de la fromage sur les bun." You ask the waiter; "What the heck is this?" and he responds, "its a cheeseburger..." Oh, I get it... You serve me the exact same thing with a silly name and somehow this is "progress" - yeah, right...
What is most frustrating about these kinds of things is that some pinhead somewhere spends his or her days coming up with these old ideas with new names and then writes 1000 pages and what do you see? All sorts of people getting lathered up at the mouth over these "new ideas"... which are of course very old ideas.
Look, you can put lipstick on a pig - its still a pig, just with lipstick on. And the only "innovative" motions going on here is someone too brainless to do a little research and find that these ideas are not only old, some are ancient. Agile, Cloud computing, and now I guess swarm - these were all thought and written about back in the 1960's... Renaming them doesn't make them "new", let alone revolutionary.
So whats coming next? I suppose someone will rename the Frisbee and the Hula Hoop, and then spend millions touting them under some other name, and calling them "innovative", "forward thinking", and "revolutionary". Two steps forward and a hundred steps back.
November 3, 2010 at 7:07 am
I think that a swarm is designed to be a rapidly formed, ad hoc group that comes together for a period of time. They are self forming, probably driven by one person that needs help with a problem and either seeks out colleagues, or perhaps just somehow posts a request for help from people in the company.
In my case, a "swarm" is the daily mix of clients and coworkers that interrupt my work because they can't figure out their own simple problems... 😛
November 3, 2010 at 7:52 am
A sudden swarm of team members focussing on one specific project or task is nothing new to those who have worked on the database or network administration side of things and who typically deal with things like outages and performance issues. However, I wouldn't expect to see it so much for application development or business intelligence.
For example the government has police or task forces who swarm to stop people who break the law, but it doesn't (or at least shouldn't) swarm to create new laws. That's not useful.
"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Instead, seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho
November 3, 2010 at 8:57 am
As a beekeeper I can't help but reply. A swarm of bees is usually triggered by overcrowding of the hive in the spring or early summer. About half of the bees will leave/swarm with the old queen. You might imagine that the queen is the one in charge, but the interesting thing is that the worker bees, in preparation of the swarm, start making queen cells several weeks before the swarm happens. The queen cells are there to insure that a new queen will be born for the old hive. Of course, there can only be one queen per hive. We don't really know who is in charge of the situation. There is a sort of hive or group mentality that tells the bees what to do for their survival, and each one plays their part.
There are probably some parallels that could be drawn to our human work situations. My guess is that most of us are not tuned into the group the way bees are; therefore our need for structure and leadership. Thus we have project managers to keep us on track and team leaders to point us in the same direction. Whatever we call them, I think cross disciplinary teams that arise to meet a specific need can be a useful part of organizational life.
November 3, 2010 at 9:05 am
Steve, your analogy about the Mission Impossible vs the Mystery Men teams was a good attempt, but it fails in one seriously important aspect.
Even the Mystery Men team "got the job done" and "solved the problem".
Given the industry stats on project failures, most management would be ecstatic to be able to experience success on a frequent basis.
November 3, 2010 at 9:14 am
Good editorial Steve!
I've worked in similar models as a consultant and as an employee. The swarms are clled different things at different companies, but the concept of self-organizing to solve a problem isn't new or revolutionary, even though the semantics may be.
As with any methodology, there are varying degrees of success. Swarms won't work in every corporate culture, but it will work like a silver bullet in some. Most will benefit by having this arrow in the quiver, tool in the toolbox... pick your metaphor. Applying the technique to the an issue or problem where swarms will be the best solution is the key.
:{>
Andy Leonard, Chief Data Engineer, Enterprise Data & Analytics
November 3, 2010 at 9:57 am
I think it is an interesting concept.
Jason...AKA CirqueDeSQLeil
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November 3, 2010 at 10:10 am
A majority of the people I have worked with over the past 40 years did not know how to collaborate. There were always egos and agendas and seldom a team.
In that respect, it often felt like a swarm.
November 3, 2010 at 11:57 am
Sounds to me like the "swarm" is for a very specific, focused purpose - and dissolves after the purpose is complete. Like one of my current short-time-frame projects that's due 11/8! I had to find my own "swarmees" ("swarmers"?), but I have to say it's working very well and we're on track to meet the deadline. We've had a collaborative working environment for years at my company, and it usually works very well as long as everyone's aware of the level of importance (priority) of the project. This one has very clear support from the highest levels - which helps! :w00t:
Steph Brown
November 3, 2010 at 12:14 pm
I'm not sure I get the new concept of 'swarm'. Nope, not at all. Most of my experience with swarming is me trying to fix some issue with 8 people 'swarming' around my desk and me trying to NOT swat them. 😛
Swarms, for good or ill, are not going to be widely used for the simple fact that the IT guy can't justify his existance as easily in a swarm scenario as one with distinct projects, budgets, and ROIs. Your average lackey knows what an ROI is, but no idea how to properly set one up. This leads to the problem that your average executive only knows how to read an ROI and not a GUI interface story plan or that the preventive maintenance MIGHT save them $20k down the road in the database.
I'm not a fan of this mostly because it makes the financial impact of IT less obvious to the managers that be, and everyone right now is trying to cut costs. Squeeky or non-squeeky wheel, the car you THINK you leave in the garage all day you sell off for money... until you realize your kid has been dropping by everyday to borrow it to run errands in between his college classes... at which point it's too late.
IT has a hard enough time proving its value to management, this will be worse. "Why isn't this done?" "Well, I got swarmed!" "Well, unswarm yourself and GET MY STUFF DONE!" "Aye aye..."
2 hours later, a different boss: "Where's my stuff?!" "I got unswarmed!" "Go swarm yourself, and GET MY STUFF DONE!"
Yeah, this won't end well.
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November 3, 2010 at 12:26 pm
Here is what Wikipedia says about "Swarm Intelligence" as it relates the field of computing:
"...SI systems are typically made up of a population of simple agents or boids interacting locally with one another and with their environment. The agents follow very simple rules, and although there is no centralized control structure dictating how individual agents should behave, local, and to a certain degree random, interactions between such agents lead to the emergence of "intelligent" global behavior, unknown to the individual agents..."
You have to admit this does describe some IT projects.:-P
"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Instead, seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho
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