by [name redacted]
After lunch Tuesday, the Summit presented an hour-long lecture from Steve McConnell, Chief Engineer of Construx Software. McConnell’s goal was to illustrate the value of improved planning in software development, for development teams and management alike. Counter to intuition, McConnell explained, greater structure means greater morale, as the team members know what to expect. Greater morale means greater productivity. “Will a systematic approach hurt creativity?” McConnell posited. Not necessarily, he explained. It can, if you’re dumb and lazy about how you apply it. Otherwise, structure can be of benefit. It is orthogonal to creativity; there is no real connection between the two.