42.   Compensate success
Problem How do you best provide appropriate motivation for success?

Context The organization consists of a group of developers meeting tight schedules in a high-payoff market.

Forces Schedule motivations tend to be self-fulfilling: a wide range of schedules may be perceived as equally applicable for a given task. Schedules are therefore poor motivators in general.

Altruism and egoless teams are quaint, Victorian notions.

Companies often embark on make-or-break projects; such projects should be managed differently from others.

Disparate individual rewards motivate those who receive them, but they may frustrate their peers.

Solution Establish lavish rewards for individuals contributing to successful make-or-break projects. The entire team (social unit) should receive comparable rewards, to avoid demoralizing individuals who might assess their value by their salary relative to their peers'.

"Very special" individuals might receive exceptional awards that are tied less strongly to team performance. A celebration is a particularly effective reward [Zuckerman and Hatala 1992].

Resulting
context
The result is an organization that focuses less on schedules and more on customer satisfaction and systemic success. Such high rewards may cause individuals to overextend themselves, leading to personal stress and potential risks to the project.

Rationale There is a strong correlation between wildly successful software projects and a very lucrative reward structure. But, most American reward mechanisms are geared more toward weeding out problems than toward encouraging solutions. A good working model is that of groups of doctors and lawyers, where managers are paid less than the employees. [DeBruler]