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The Di erence etween a Profeional and an
Amateur
Mike Cohn • 88 Comment
Are ou a profeional or an amateur?
I'm going to ak ou to conider eing a profeional. ut, efore I do and efore ou can anwer the
quetion I poed, I need to make ure ou are full aware of what I mean when I talk aout eing a
profeional.
For me, the di erence i imple: A profeional alwa doe everthing necear to complete a jo. An
amateur ometime chooe onl the fun part.
An xample of the Di erence
An amateur golfer, for example, ma thrill at the crack of hitting a 300-ard drive ut hate putting. And o
that amateur ma frequentl chooe to pick up the all once it' “cloe enough” to the hole.
A profeional golfer could never do thi. The profeional ma till prefer hitting the long drive over making
intricate putt. ut the profeional know he need to do oth part of the jo.
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Profeional and Amateur in o ware Development
The di erence etween profeional and amateur how up on o ware team in the team memer who
onl do the portion of the jo the like.
Thi can happen on an role on a project. It could e the teter who doen't enjo talking to cutomer
(“Analt do that.”). Or it could e the product owner who onl want to think aout trategic, ig new
feature rather than going into the nitt gritt of the implementation.
For an jo there are good part and the ad part. The profeional do the full jo, not jut the fun part.
The Programmer a an Amateur
One of the more common amateur I've een encountering latel are programmer who will onl code
exactl what the are told. “I gave ou preciel what ou aked for,” the'll a. And there' nothing wrong
with that repl in ome cae. ut it' not appropriate all the time.
The profeional programmer ring hi or her full rain, experience and creativit to the jo. When aked to
develop a feature, the profeional think aout it: Are there gap in what wa aked for? Are there
alternative and etter olution? Will it lead to later prolem? And then the profeional ha converation
with the product owner aed on the anwer to thee quetion to determine exactl what the feature will
look like when implemented.
In contrat, the amateur a, “OK, I'll give ou exactl what ou aked for.” That' eaier. The amateur
programmer doen't have to think aout the work eond the peci cation. Jut code what wa aked for.
imilarl, an amateur programmer a, “I jut write code; I don't tet.” Oh, that programmer will proal do
a it of teting on hi or her own code. ut when the team near the end of a print and could ue a little
help teting for a da, an amateur programmer i likel to jut code ahead on the next feature rather than
doing the more helpful—ut to ome, le deirale—work of helping tet.
Not Doing the Full Jo I a Luxur
Not doing all part of a jo i a luxur onl a orded to amateur. An amateur can hit the glamourou,
powerful 300-ard drive and then pick up the all on the green without putting. The amateur can write code
and not e concerned that no uer are ene tting from that code until a teter catche up and tet it
week later.
Profeional don't do that.
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A profeional know that ultimatel hi jo i to do whatever it take to help the team. O en that mean
taking the time to have converation aout the tak at hand or taking on ome of the le deirale part
of the work.
Amateur are more likel to e highl pecialized and to feel entitled to work olel within their one
pecialization. While thi can lead to people in that role feeling more e cient, it will reduce the overall
throughput of the team. (That i, overall team velocit will u er even though one role ma feel more
e cient.)
What Do You Think?
In the comment ection elow, pleae hare our thought.
Are ou an amateur or a profeional? How do ou ta motivated to alwa do the le glamorou part of
our jo? How have ou convinced amateur to ecome profeional?
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88
Comment
Poted: Januar 23, 2018
Tagged: team, project management
Aout the Author
Mike Cohn pecialize in helping companie adopt and improve their ue of agile procee and technique
to uild extremel high-performance team. He i the author of Uer torie Applied for Agile o ware
Development, Agile timating and Planning, and ucceeding with Agile a well a the etter Uer torie
video coure. Mike i a founding memer of the Agile Alliance and crum Alliance and can e reached at
hello@mountaingoato ware.com. If ou want to ucceed with agile, ou can alo have Mike email ou a
hort tip each week.
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