Software Development is Dancing

Software development is a dance.

Developers and managers could learn a lot from partner dancing (actual dancing, not the choreographed Dancing with the Stars stuff). I know this can be a loaded topic because of how incompetent men twist around the lead-follow concept, but the fact that you see exactly the same dynamic in incompetent managers calling themselves “leaders” makes my point.

To some, lead and follow implies a power dynamic. That’s not how it works in dance or in business. The word “partner” in “dance partner” is critical. Dragging somebody around the floor is not dancing; it’s a slog. A dance is—well—a dance. It takes two, as they say. There’s no skill difference (”Don’t forget that Ginger Rogers did everything [Fred Astair] did, but backwards and in high heels”), but the partners are doing different things—have different roles. In fact, the role of the “leader” is often not to lead at all, but to provide a stable platform around which the “follower” can move. The creativity is in the “follower’s” camp. The main job of the “leader” in a turn is to get out of the way. All of this is exactly like competent management.

Dance is fundamentally improvisational, but somebody has to decide what to do next—without that, you’re just memorizing steps, not dancing. The leader’s main job is to communicate intent. That’s it. The better the leader, the clearer the communication. The partners then work together to make the idea happen. In some situations (a skilled leader and a less-skilled follower), the leader must communicate intent so unambiguously that it’s not possible to “do it wrong.” This is an exact parallel with management clearly communicating a strategic vision, and then working in partnership with the developers to make that vision real.

One clue that the leader is more interested in power than dancing is they blame their partner when something goes wrong. It is never the follower’s “fault.” However, even the best leader cannot communicate intent sometimes, so when things go sideways (maybe literally 😄), everybody compensates by changing the steps to go sideways. No good dancer memorizes steps and forces their partner to go along. It’s more about improvisation within a framework that both dancers understand, just like good management. It’s a dance.

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