Motivation of software professionals

Swifty wrote:

> On Fri, 5 Feb 2010 04:23:41 -0800 (PST), Richard Cornford
> <Richard@litotes.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>Strange question; the most efficient motivator of professionals is
>>money, and money is very popular.
>
> Then how do you explain the people who work on free/open source
> software?

Altruism is self motivated.

The question was how do you motivate software engineers, not what motivates
them.

--
"All right, all right, if it will make you happy, I will overthrow society."
Â* - Philip J. Fry

Richard Cornford wrote:

> On Feb 5, 11:19 am, Stefan Kiryazov wrote:
>> I am doing a research about motivation in software development,
>> the most efficient practices to motivate software engineers,
>> their popularity, etc.
>
> Strange question; the most efficient motivator of professionals is
> money, and money is very popular.

That would mean that the more you are paid, the more motivated you are,
which is obviously wrong. Money is only part of the equation. Money is a
factor of motivation in capitalism only because of the things that money can
buy, and which it means to others. But those things can be gained without
money as well, so you would probably be equally motivated if someone
provides them for work you have done. See, e.g., Maslow's hierarchy of
needs.


F'up2 poster

PointedEars
--
var bugRiddenCrashPronePieceOfJunk = (
navigator.userAgent.indexOf('MSIE 5') != -1
&& navigator.userAgent.indexOf('Mac') != -1
) // Plone, register_function.js:16

On Fri, 5 Feb 2010, Richard Cornford wrote:

> On Feb 5, 11:19 am, Stefan Kiryazov wrote:
>
>> I am doing a research about motivation in software development,
>> the most efficient practices to motivate software engineers,
>> their popularity, etc.
>
> Strange question; the most efficient motivator of professionals is
> money, and money is very popular.

There's a robust body of work that suggests this is very much *not* the
case. Money motivates some people; technical people are more motivated by
interesting work and respect from their colleagues.

tom

--
It is a formal cultural policy to show unreasonable bias towards any
woman who is both attractive and weird.

Stefan Kiryazov <stefan.kiryazov@gmail.com> writes:
>http://ask.wizefish.com/en/MotivationSurvey.aspx

This survey has a strong selection bias:

Real professionals are motivated by the money.

But those motivated by money will not attend
the survey as they are not being paid for it.

Swifty (steve.j.swift@gmail.com) wrote:
: On Fri, 5 Feb 2010 04:23:41 -0800 (PST), Richard Cornford
: <Richard@litotes.demon.co.uk> wrote:

: >Strange question; the most efficient motivator of professionals is
: >money, and money is very popular.

: Then how do you explain the people who work on free/open source
: software?

Well actually I understand that for many such projects (especially large
ones) the people do get paid. They often work for companies that pay them
to work, and then their jobs include adding the features that a company
needs (including some things a company needs simply because it needs to
keep their key employees happy). The company does that because the tool
is useful, perhaps better than the alternative, probably cheaper over all,
and because it denies a revenue stream to a competitor who might otherwise
be able to sell a similar tool.

Not that money is the only motivation in that case, but the point is that
the only way the work gets done is ultimately because the programmer has a
job and gets paid to do that work.

For small projects, people often create the things they themselves need or
want. If they could buy an alternative then creating their own saves
money, so money is still a part of the motivation. If no alternative is
available then the creation of something you need is tantamount to money
in your pocket (i.e. you didn't create it simply for the fun of creating
it).

(P.S. I doubt many people have filled in the survey, they just post their
$0.10 worth back to usenet.)

"Stefan Ram" <ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de> wrote in message
news:selection-20100205175941@ram.dialup.fu-berlin.de...
> Stefan Kiryazov <stefan.kiryazov@gmail.com> writes:
>>http://ask.wizefish.com/en/MotivationSurvey.aspx
>
> This survey has a strong selection bias:
>
> Real professionals are motivated by the money.
>
> But those motivated by money will not attend
> the survey as they are not being paid for it.

And those not motivated by money will also not
attend the survey because they'll think it is
offensive, catagorizing them as "non professional"
simply because they are not motivated by money.
Saga

On Fri, 5 Feb 2010, Patricia Shanahan wrote:

> That said, by definition professionals are, to some extent, in it for
> the money. If they were not, they would be amateurs as I am now.

Interesting. Do you think that all the non-financial rewards that are
available (if rarely!) in industry are available in academia or on
volunteer projects?

Something i find quite enjoyable, having moved from academia into
industry, is the sense that a project is actually doing something
valuable, something a business thinks is worth money. Work in academia and
the FOSS community can be very interesting, but a lot of it feels like
farting about.

tom

--
I sometimes think that the IETF is one of the crown jewels in all of
western civilization. -- Tim O'Reilly

Jedrin (jrubiando@gmail.com) wrote:

: If money was the only motivating factor wouldn't we all want to be
: wall street bankers instead ?

Perhaps we all do - but until we get that chance...

If money was the only motivating factor wouldn't we all want to be
wall street bankers instead ?

On Fri, 5 Feb 2010 04:23:41 -0800 (PST), Richard Cornford
<Richard@litotes.demon.co.uk> wrote, quoted or indirectly quoted
someone who said :

>
>Strange question; the most efficient motivator of professionals is
>money, and money is very popular.

That may be a motivator for taking a job, but I suspect is fairly far
down the list for leaving a job.

Leaving motivations might include:

personality conflict
boredom
too much pressure

Personally, the opportunity to do something I had never done before
was always the top priority. Employers usually want people who have
extensive specific experience.

In hiring, my main interest was loyalty. Employees don't get really
useful until after the first year. I don't expect them to hit the
ground running. I anticipate investing considerable effort in training
them. I looked for reasons why they would likely want to stay.
--
Roedy Green Canadian Mind Products
http://mindprod.com

You can’t have great software without a great team, and most software teams behave like dysfunctional families.
~ Jim McCarthy

On 5 Feb 2010 17:00:48 GMT, Stefan Ram wrote:

>Stefan Kiryazov <stefan.kiryazov@gmail.com> writes:

>>http://ask.wizefish.com/en/MotivationSurvey.aspx

> This survey has a strong selection bias:
>
> Real professionals are motivated by the money.
>
> But those motivated by money will not attend
> the survey as they are not being paid for it.

Hehe, I like that kind of reasoning.

Hans-Georg

On Fri, 5 Feb 2010 04:23:41 -0800 (PST), Richard Cornford wrote:

>Strange question; the most efficient motivator of professionals is
>money, and money is very popular.

Don't overestimate money. My motto, to give just one example, is
that I work because it's interesting and fun, and only
secondarily I make sure I get paid properly.

Of course I need to make a living, so money is never entirely
uninteresting. I gladly admit that.

Hans-Georg

Which is why I rarely participate as they are ALWAYS FUBAR and BIASED.

"Richard Cornford" <Richard@litotes.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:62cdf238-b5ce-4d42-aaa0-1ebe099a01d9@k41g2000yqm.googlegroups.com...
> On Feb 5, 11:19 am, Stefan Kiryazov wrote:
>> Hi all,
>>
>> I am doing a research about motivation in software development,
>> the most efficient practices to motivate software engineers,
>> their popularity, etc.
>
> Strange question; the most efficient motivator of professionals is
> money, and money is very popular.
>
>> As a part of the research, I am doing an online survey for
>> software engineers and managers in software development.
> <snip>
>
> This would be more convincing as an academic exercise, as opposed to,
> say, spam intended to encourage visitors to some web page with the
> intention of gaining advertising revenue, if there were not so many
> advertisements on the page.
>
> In any event, your survey needs the addition of a large number of
> "This question makes no sense" option checkboxes, as it is
> unanswerable as it is.
>
> Richard.

On 5 Feb, 11:19, Stefan Kiryazov <stefan.kirya...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I am doing a research about motivation in software development, the
> most efficient practices to motivate software engineers, their
> popularity, etc.
>
> As a part of the research, I am doing an online survey for software
> engineers and managers in software development. It takes just several
> minutes and filling it is a good opportunity to share your opinion
> about the motivation practices being used in the software industry
> today:http://ask.wizefish.com/en/MotivationSurvey.aspx
>
> Anyone who does the survey and leaves any contacts will be sent the
> results.
>
> Also, if someone is running a web site or blog dedicated to any aspect
> of software development we can do some link exchange.
>
> Regards,
> Stefan Kiryazov

On Feb 5, 12:23 pm, Richard Cornford <Rich...@litotes.demon.co.uk>
wrote:
> On Feb 5, 11:19 am, Stefan Kiryazov wrote:

> > I am doing a research about motivation in software
> > development, the most efficient practices to motivate
> > software engineers, their popularity, etc.

> Strange question; the most efficient motivator of
> professionals is money, and money is very popular.

Yes and no. Obviously, money plays a role---some of us have
expensive habits, like eating regularly, that have to be paid
for. But it has its limits, and I've rarely seen money alone
motivate the best performance (in anything).

--
James Kanze