$1000 per hour

Let's imagine that you are a manager of a development team. You hire (and fire) members of the team, set goals, review performance, and negotiate deliverables with your fellow managers.

Now let's imagine that the cost of developers is significantly higher than it is today. Instead of paying the $50,000 to $120,000 per year, you must pay $1000 per hour, or $2,000,000 per year. (That's two million dollars per year.) Let's also imagine that you cannot reduce this cost through outsourcing or internships.

What would you do?

Here is what I would do:

• I would pick the best of my developers and fire the others. A smaller team of top-notch developers is  more productive than a large team of mediocre developers.
• I would provide my developers with tools and procedures to let them be the most productive. I would weigh the cost of development tools against the time that they would save.
• I would use automated testing as much as possible, to reduce the time developers spend on manual testing. If possible, I would automate all testing.
• I would provide books, web resources, online training, and conferences to the developers, to give them the best information and techniques on programming.

In other words, I would do everything in my power to make them productive. When their time costs money, saving their time saves me money. Sensible, right?

But the current situation is the same. Developers cost me money. Saving their time saves me money.

So why aren't you doing what you can to save them time?