Prescription for Success
Matthew Heusser
Employer: Priority Health (a Michigan HMO)
Job: Senior Programmer Analyst
DDJ: What exactly do you do at Priority?
MH: Our programmers walk through the whole lifecycle. So I might get involved during the requirements phase of a project and then see it through implementation and postimplementation support.
DDJ: What do you particularly like about your job?
MH: When I was in third or fourth grade, I just loved to hack on Basic. I still get to do that now, only I mostly do it in Perl and SQL. It's a pleasure to create software and to deliver that to people who use it everyday.
DDJ: What's the most challenging aspect of your job?
MH: I think the real challenge of software development is always about the people. It's never the technology—you can always go learn some new language.
DDJ: What have you found makes your job easier?
MH: I'm a big fan of collocated project teams. I find that on projects you always have a "them"—sometimes it's the customer, maybe it's your tester, maybe it's your manager. But "they" are the problem because "they" aren't working right, "they" don't get it. And when you're collocated, which we do on big projects, you're all in the same room, and there's nobody to [blame] because everyone is there. Instead of pointing fingers at imaginary people, you have to concentrate on solving the problem. That's one of the easiest ways I think companies can improve performance on software teams.
