Motivation is possibly the most important factor for the success of any software project. The book "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" by Robert Pirsig introduces the idea of Gumption Traps; things that sap motivation, such as not having the correct tools. In this workshop, you will use techniques from Systems Thinking to identify and understand Gumption Traps that face you so that you can determine how to avoid or combat them. This session is for software developers, managers and coaches who would like to identify and avoid gumptions traps for themselves and their teams thus leading to improvements in productivity and the well-being of team members.
Workshop preparation:Before the workshop, participants should familiarize themselves with influence chart notation. A reading list will be posted here soon. In the meantime, key books are "The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization" by Peter Senge, 1990 and "An Introduction to General Systems Thinking" by Gerald Weinberg, 1975.
Post-workshop activities:The preliminary work at this workshop is to be displayed at the OOPSLA '04 poster session. Following the workshop the charts and stories from the workshop will be made available here. The presenters goal is to produce material for a book on motivation in software development teams, workshop participants will be acknowlegded for their input on publication.