I agree with some of the points here, but I roundly disagree.
Agree with: people are employed to do a job, they should be empowered to get on and do it with minimal supervision, escalation, and distraction (particularly from "PR Theatre"). Also agree that sometimes unity of vision and focus time can yield exceptional results.
However, this doesn't work unless you can work every part of a system with a high-level of alignment with vision and commercial context to make good decisions and you test mercilessly. I know, have worked with, and still work with, an "entrepreneurial developer" type who can do that, but over time their "isolationist" approach leads to misaligned features that are usually anathema to good by the end of the startup phase.
Additionally, the ability to work with that level of alignment and autonomy simply doesn't describe the majority of the developers on the market and who really just want to be given tasks in their area of skill. Are they acceptable for a startup? Probably not. But in the SME context that's fine because collaboration fills the gap.
Also, while there is a lot to be said for T- and V-Shaped engineers, I-Shaped engineers are much more common and that's not a bad thing because – if one can get a designer, fe, be, and operator collaborating _effectively_ – you can still get good results.
Agree with: people are employed to do a job, they should be empowered to get on and do it with minimal supervision, escalation, and distraction (particularly from "PR Theatre"). Also agree that sometimes unity of vision and focus time can yield exceptional results.
However, this doesn't work unless you can work every part of a system with a high-level of alignment with vision and commercial context to make good decisions and you test mercilessly. I know, have worked with, and still work with, an "entrepreneurial developer" type who can do that, but over time their "isolationist" approach leads to misaligned features that are usually anathema to good by the end of the startup phase.
Additionally, the ability to work with that level of alignment and autonomy simply doesn't describe the majority of the developers on the market and who really just want to be given tasks in their area of skill. Are they acceptable for a startup? Probably not. But in the SME context that's fine because collaboration fills the gap.
Also, while there is a lot to be said for T- and V-Shaped engineers, I-Shaped engineers are much more common and that's not a bad thing because – if one can get a designer, fe, be, and operator collaborating _effectively_ – you can still get good results.