The more isolated the person, the easier it is to replace their work with AI

The idea of self-organizing teams of product and sprint goals is more wishful thinking than reality in many companies. When I start working with a new client, I naturally try to find out what the teams are working on. Once, when I asked a team, "What product, what software are you working on?" they replied, "No idea." The people literally didn't know what they were developing software for.

Escape the Feature Factory: Stefan Mintert english

Stefan Mintert works with his clients to improve corporate culture in software development. He currently sees the greatest potential in leadership, regardless of hierarchical level. He set himself the task of leveraging this potential after a career path that involved several changes of direction. Originally coming from a computer science background with several years of consulting experience, he initially founded his own software development company. In doing so, he realized that leadership is something that needs to be learned and that good role models are rare. It became apparent that his customers' greatest need for support in software development was not in producing code, but in leadership. So it was clear to him where his company Kutura was headed: improving leadership so that the people who develop the products can develop and grow themselves. Stefan has been writing for Heise as a long-time freelancer for iX since 1994.

How can that be? The answer in this case was simple: The various programs the business unit was working on had been broken down into components in the form of microservices, which in turn were assigned to individual teams. As a result, the team in question received tasks that, viewed in isolation, had no discernible business purpose.

The team members were nothing more than coding monkeys. Their ability to innovate, their ability to question things, and their potential to contribute had been structurally eliminated.

If, against the backdrop of such an organizational structure, one concludes that coding performance can be achieved through AI, it is neither a judgment on human programmers nor praise for AI. It is nothing more than the consequence of earlier decisions by managers, not only to structure the software into microservices but also the organization. For developers, this is usually not a fulfilling activity.

Shifted Impacts

Not least for this reason, it was a stupid idea even before the recent AI wave. Meanwhile, however, the effects have shifted. Previously, the financial damage caused by unmotivated, uncreative programmers was exclusively borne by the companies. For the developers, there were perhaps mental damages that first manifested as dissatisfaction.

Today, however, developers can suffer the financial damage, namely when they lose their jobs. For companies, it only gets cheaper, not better.

If developers want to defend themselves against AI threats in this scenario today, there is clear advice: Make sure you are relevant within the business! This means, in particular, getting more involved in business goal setting. We are currently in a phase where technology (through AI) is becoming more important. Those who understand technology in depth can contribute to business success more than ever. This also includes taking on some leadership responsibility so that business goal setting is based on a solid technical foundation.

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(rme)