--Originally published at TI2011 – Miguel’s Blog
Chapter 3 starts with Mr. Tompkins waking up in a room he hadn’t seen before, however, he had seen the furniture in the room. Apparently, his new job came with many benefits, one of which was that the job pays really well. After that, Lahksa mentioned more details about Morovia. Morovia somehow had fifteen hundred highly skilled software engineers ready to work under Mr. T. She explained that Morovia used to be a communist nation in the past, and one of the few benefits of being communist was the good education. Mr. T had fifteen hundred people and only 6 projects to do. That’s way too many people, so Mr. Tompkins has an idea of running an experiment. I actually found this really interesting. There’s so much you can learn from it: the correct size of teams, the correct time frame, the correct age, etc. While I find this very intriguing, it’s kind of like using the employees as toys or test subjects. But maybe the benefits obtained by the experiment are worth it. Does the end justify the means?
“It’s all yours, Webster. You have got all of Morovia to play with.”
At the beginning of chapter 4, Lahksa hands Mr. Tompkins a journal for him to write everything he learns during the experiment. Mr. T is also introduced to his assistant. The first project Mr. T has to work on is the building of the CD-ROM plant. It’s actually not a software engineering project, but he still has to do it. Next, he has a talk with the construction manager, Mr. Mopoulka.
I find the talk as a really good example of why fear doesn’t work as motivation. There’s a problem with the terrain so the construction can take up to 25 weeks. This is obviously not
