Happy Developers and the ROTI Meeting

Hi alltogether,

As this i my first post in 2010, I wish you all a great start and all the best!
My holiday is over and project work has started.
Before continuing with more Java EE 6 examples, I want to tell you about two really great articles about the motivation of developers and the ROTI Meeting.
I really don't like any stereotype thinking, but as it exists I think it is very important for all the non developers to realize what developers really want....

1) Being Set up to Succeed
- Good requirements
- Realistic Deadlines
"Being forced to build crap is one of the worst things you can do to a craftsman"
2) Having Excellent Management
3) Learning New Things
4) Exercising Creativity and Solving the right kind of problems
5) Having a voice
"When a developer speaks, someone should listen. When several developers are saying the same thing, someone should listen and act . . .quickly"
6) Being Recognized for Hard Work
7) Building Something that Matters
8) Building Software without an Act of Congress
9) Having Few Legacy Constraints
(this is taken from the following article at DZONE)

As a consultant who has a strong focus on developing applications I completely agree with all these points. It is often very hard to have no influence in the decision making process (developers.getProjectRoles().contains(ProjectRoles.DECISION_MAKER)==false). I also sometimes ask myself whether developing software is the main goal of some (software) projects, it could also be attending as many meetings as possible. What I care most about is point 5. Agile Processes, where problems can be solved quickly when several developers try to change something, is a very important part. It's so frustrating if your voice is ignored, especially when you have the whole team behind you. So if the goal is writing software and you really want to do it in time with a certain quality, every project definitly needs happy developers.

For all of you who don't like those "mandatory no result meetings", have you ever heard of the ROTI Meeting?
The following part is just an extract from the link above, so if you want to read more about it, follow the link.

After every meeting, on the way out the door, draw a diagonal line on the whiteboard with the labels 0, 2, and 4.
Each person in turn gives a number on how the meeting performed as a "Return on Time Invested" and the person with the marker draws in the rating. Here is the rating scale we used:

0 = "I'd have been better off making a Starbuck's run. Complete waste of time"
1 = "You really should have let me stay at my desk and code"
2 = "This was an OK meeting. About as valuable as if I'd been coding"
3 = "Surprisingly, this was more valuable than if I'd been writing code"
4 = "Wow, this meeting saved me tons of time. Thank goodness I didn't skip it to code"

Are you asking yourself about the benefit. It's about retrospective, optimizing your productivity and keeping the motivation at a good level. I am a big supporter of retrospective and I can handle criticism (as long as it is goal-oriented), so I would give the ROTI Meeting a try. What do you think?