Not every developer can run an IT company

Don’t confuse software development and programming, don’t confuse house building and construction, don’t confuse writing books and writing …

Maksym Prokhorov, founder and managing partner PM PARTNERS

Due to my business activity, I regularly come across such questions — objections:

1) Why is it so expensive with you, outsourcers will make it 2 times cheaper?

2) You are programmers, why do you need before designing?

3) How can you run an IT company without being a programmer?

The answers are really simple:

1) Outsourcers are not directly responsible for the result.

2) An incorrectly described and set task will increase the cost of the project several times.

3) Being a programmer is harder to manage a company, because more often there is a desire to do everything yourself.

Not every developer can run an IT company, but every developer can program, but not every programmer can develop.

Super analogy — everyone can sing in the shower for their own entertainment, but you don’t put on tracks with recordings of this singing at a party — you are referring to the works of professional musicians. To become a developer, it is not enough to be able to program.

It’s easy to start programming. Almost anyone can write simple programs that work, but no one can guarantee that the same programs will work under different conditions.

Programming in its simplest form is the transmission of instructions to the computer to perform some action with some input data in order to obtain some output.

Software development, on the other hand, is the design, writing, testing and support of computer programs in order to solve problems for many users; it is about creating robust, secure solutions that will stand the test of time and cope with some unknown in advance problems lying in the area close to the obvious original problems.

Smart people solve problems — geniuses prevent them

Albert Einstein

Before making a project, the manager will ask the following questions:

- What tasks am I trying to solve?

- How can you solve the problem without programming?

- What can be done to make it easier to write code to solve the problem?

- What ready-made solutions do you already have?

In most cases, the developer can solve the problem quickly. If it seems to you that attracting an experienced and not cheap it company is expensive, think about it: the more experience an it company has, the faster it will create a functional, accurate, reliable solution that will be easy to maintain. And this is a lower cost in the long run.

The Eternal Struggle of Entities: Cost and Efficiency …

Software development is not for everyone, but everyone must learn how to solve their own problems using computers. If you can learn how to write simple programs, do it. If you can learn to use simple software services, do it. If you can learn to use open source software, you have powerful tools at your fingertips.

One of the key tasks of a manager is to grow people. And this is not just altruism or a contribution to new generations, but a specific business task. It helps to grow the business you are in charge of and grow further, higher on your own. Forward and upward!

The IT industry in Ukraine continues to gain momentum, let’s hope that the trend will gain momentum!