Very often startup founders and CTOs are asking me how and whether it's possible to transition from traditional full-time management to pay-by-result and microtasking, which we practice in Zerocracy. My answer is that it's possible but expensive. It will take time, money, and nerves. Here is a short summary of why it will be so difficult and why you should use Zerocracy instead.

The full video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAgRUtR3LQg

Multitasking is something only senior developers can deal with, because it's stressful, results-focused, and demands a lot of skills, which junior developers simply don't have. However, the question is: What those junior developers should do? How they can contribute to the project? There is a number of possible ways.

The full video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OHfh36zLsk

I know so many testers who think that they are QA engineers. They are so wrong that I decided to record a video about that. Testing is about breaking the software and finding bugs. QA is about watching the entire software development process and improving its quality indicators. They are two absolutely different activities.

The full video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hp4PL0AJAVo

Proper management is very rare, happens only in some companies. Others are treating people like office slaves, expecting them to do stay in the office instead of delivering results. What do you do when you happen to be hired by such a company? How do you change it? How can you improve your team and motivate your management to shift to better management practices, like microtasking, paying by result, etc? You can't! And you shouldn't even try.

The full video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Op3EIwhMxrg

Do you know what micromanagement is? It's when your manager is telling you exactly what you have to do right now in order to achieve the results he or she wants. The micromanager doesn't trust you and that's why wants and needs to control every step you make. It's annoying and unproductive, but it's inevitable unless you have small tasks and a transparent and unambiguous system of rewards and punishment.

The full video is here: https://youtu.be/0Jte_LGR5Zk

The average salary of american workers is growing 1% every year, while the paygap between similar jobs is decreasing. What do I think about this trend? Does it sound like people are getting more every year and it's good? Not at all. This trend is completely against what Zerocracy is fighting for: unequal pay for unequal contribution. We want to work with free people, who get what they deserve because of their work, not because of their place in the company. Meritocracy is yet another name for the movement we are leading now in the industry of software development.

The full video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKZOuJ7AAas

In order to do the project right, you need the right person, right? Wrong! This type of thinking doesn't help at all and only leads to failures. It's the management that needs to be "right," not its people. Watch this morning video about this problem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSZnloEHeOk

Microtasking is a great management method, provided you can break your larger scope into smaller micro-tasks. Who should do this decomposition and how much time will work by itself will take? This question I hear very often when we start talking about paying-by-results and microtasking. We've spent a few years to find the answer and the methodology invented was called Puzzle Driven Development, here is how it works (the full video is there): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmSaC_OjIbQ

You know how much I love microtasking and paying-by-result, but you may wonder how can we estimate the future of our projects if we deal with very small pieces of work. I made an attempt to explain it in the video. Long story short, microtasks not only make estimation easier for computers, but ensure much higher accuracy and preciseness of the result.

The full video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rmZN3r5SWg

How do you protect your business ideas from potential theft by your own programmers? Do you sign NDAs? Do you hire only those who won't steal? Well, I believe you should do the opposite. Don't be scared of theft, just be prepared to prove that the idea was originally yours and share their success, when and if they get it.

The full video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H56jeG_Xi64