The Code Location War

There’s a repository that contains basic UI controls owned by Team A.

Team B have some specialised controls and suggested that the more complex controls in Team A’s repository are moved over to Team B’s repository instead. Both teams were happy and agreed on when to do this.

However, a Manager from Team C stated that he didn’t believe this was the right thing to do. So much so; that he has then had a meeting with some other Managers who also agree with his viewpoint.

So let’s recap here. Numerous developers in two teams have agreed who should own some code. A Manager from a completely different team, and has no reason to care where this code is located; only that it works – is unhappy. Not only that, but he has also gone out of his way to drum up support from two higher-ranking Managers who have even less reason to care.

Why is this even a thing?

So an hour long debate was arranged and the decision was that the code should be owned by the original creators; Team A. I didn’t know the outcome of the meeting at this time. However, no one actually did anything after the meeting. There again, it wasn’t even handed over properly in the first place.

I found this out when I heard one of the members of Team A talk about how they are gonna address one of the Bugs in one of these controls. If this was handed over properly, those Bugs would have transferred over to Team B. I pointed out that Team B should be doing this work, and one of the members of Team A agreed with me. However, the manager of Team A, who was on the debate and should know the outcome of the meeting – was confused why Team B had “moved” (well, duplicated) the code into their repository. (The code was moved after Team A and Team B had agreed to do so, and it was this that triggered the meeting to discuss it. The manager of Team A should have also known this).

She then had to ask the manager of Team C what the outcome of the meeting was, and he confirmed Team A should own the code, and he also seemed unaware that Team B had taken the code. He then said he is going to organise another meeting with Team B to discuss the outcome.

How many meetings do we need? Why wasn’t the outcome of the debate passed on to Team A and B? Why are two managers who were involved in the debate confused about the original situation?

Another meeting happened at the request of Team B. This meeting was hosted as a conference call on Slack, and as I always rant; there’s a 15 person limit. This shouldn’t be a problem, because why would 15 people be invited to this meeting? Well, we don’t live in a normal world. The funny thing is, the Team B member that requested the meeting couldn’t even join due to hitting the limit. Brilliant.