Question

Probably an easy one:

Are there any rules of thumb or pointers that could help recognise political requirements?

Let’s say one of stakeholders (your boss, a head of another department or an actual user) asks for a feature or particular characteristic of software being developed by yourself or your team. Is there a litmus test to determine whether requirement is political?

This question is really simple and is not about how to deal with political requirements or whether they are bad or good for software. How do you tell that whatever you have been asked to do is to pursue someone’s tacit or actually openly stated political agenda?

Answer 1

I would say that you should assume that all requirements are political.

If you are in a situation where more than one person is responsible for determining the set of features you implement, then every feature is effectively a negotiation between those people. That negotiation makes those features political.

However, even if there is only person deciding what features ship, there is still a pretty strong chance that those decisions are political. In any organization of reasonable size (say more than ten people), you are going to have politics. The politics in that situation will differ than the ‘design by committee situation’. They will focus on currying the favor of the person who decides which features ship, rather than on ‘if you support my feature, I’ll support yours’ that exists in the committee scenario. That process, however, is still political.

I’m not trying to say that it’s not possible to have a development environment free of politics. It is. However, I would say that to pull of it off that you need:

1. A small, tightly knit team
2. A boss that focuses on creating an environment that fosters creativity, and delegating creative ownership, rather than focusing on control over the creative process.
3. Smart, highly talented and creative people that share a strong sense of purpose and aesthetic values.

Missing any one of those things, you are doomed to a repetitive deluge of office politics.