The Formic War Model for Interactive Application Development

Before we get too far into this blog post, you’ll need to present your Geek Card™ at the door for verification purposes: if you’ve never read the sci-fi classic Ender’s Game series, it’ll be hard to keep up. In any case, this story is a favorite of mine, and as with many war stories, there’s a hint of software development wisdom in the plot that can be peppered across almost any important effort. After a recent re-read, here’s my war plan for galactic domination, interactive agency style.

Craft Your Team Carefully

One of the main characters in the series, Colonel (and later Minister) Graff is a ruthlessly efficient planner. You can question his motives and ethical underpinnings, but you can’t question his results. He masterminds the Battle School experience, hand-picks child warriors, and shepherds the experiences of each of those children in a very specific way to meet his end-game goals. Ender and Bean are even genetically engineered, more or less. Agencies, especially smaller groups, must craft perfect teams, and create and protect their culture.

Crafting a perfect team does not mean you always hire the best people for the job. It means you hire the Bean to complement the Ender. Too many alpha males, a prima donna, or a weak link in a team group can cause disaster. Hiring is difficult master, especially in organizations where teams live and die like the projects they complete. Not only do you need a great employee, but that person needs to perform well in any ad hoc team they end up working inside of.

Practice Formations

If you’re doing the same thing everyone else is, you’ll probably not get very far. One thing I love and hate about working at Rain is our tendency to take on impossible projects. You really have to innovate and approach problems differently to succeed. We’ve all heard about out-of-the-box thinking, but what percentage of the day do you spend in that mode?

It may also be important to realize that there are entirely different levels of thinking that you can apply to a project. In the novel, Ender uses one brilliant strategy after another to win his battle room episodes. He spurns tradition, focuses on the game’s win conditions, and outsmarts more experienced teams, even when crippled and outnumbered. That’s one level of innovative thinking. The super-level is the fact that he’s playing these games as part of a master plan to eradicate a hostile alien enemy. The over-arching strategy is brilliant in and of itself.

Software Development Requires the Thorough Victory

While Ender’s extreme victories are an ethical and philosophical topic that underlies the series, the principles really can be brought across to software development. Every software bug must be treated like the invading buggers. Every miscommunication to the client, every imperfection in the final delivery needs to be wiped out like a Bonzo Madrid or Stilson on the attack. Ender really is right about one thing—allowing the enemy a second chance to attack may be your last decision.

While crafting the perfect team is a part of this, developers and managers need to maintain a vigil against bleeding problems. A performance issue that goes ignored, a sidestep from your tried-and-true process will almost always end in disaster. From a technical standpoint, every shortcut or sloppy implementation is a withdrawal from the glory fund you plan to cash in at the end of the project. You won’t get a second chance with an important client anymore than you would mercy from the invading alien army.

Protect the Children from the Horrors of War

As a project manager, I try to take a Graff-like stance on protecting my team from the pressures surrounding the project. Client complaints and inter-office politics should never be a worry for the development team. If you can turn development into a game, your team will be much more happy and productive in the long run. Unless you happen to be in the xenocide business, I think your developers will be pleasantly surprised to know about the war they accidentally won after the project is complete.

Summary

Should you be unfortunate enough to find yourself in a Rain-sponsored Call of Duty 4 match, you’ll find me shelling and bunny-hopping under the callsign “Bean”. I do that for a number of reasons, but the main reason is to help me remember one important part of doing something well: trying harder isn’t enough. Too many people who aren’t doing well at something seem to try to apply positive mental attitude magic to their workday, hoping that somehow the extra effort will make a difference. One important part of the Ender story is his focused, analytical approach to getting better at a game. Folks, if you can programatically and purposefully get better at the game, you’ll end up winning the war.