Adam Howitt's Blog

Jul 29
2007

What Gordon Ramsay taught me about Programming

At : 11:35 AM | Link | Coldfusion | Comments (2) | Send | 862 Views |

If you haven't had the good fortune to watch Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares (BBC America shows it here in the states), you should hunt it down and watch at least one episode.  Each week he comes into a different failing restaurant and convinces the chef or owner to make big changes to stand a chance of surviving.  So far as I have seen, every one of the businesses has turned business around by following some simple principles that translate well to programming.  

Buy locally grown produce

  • Supporting other software companies in your neighborhood is good for business
  • Easy to get support
  • Word of mouth business
Reduce the number of options on the menu

  • If you give people too many options they will get confused
  • Limit your offering to what you do best
Simplify each dish

  • Don't throw extra things into your code your customers don't need now
Sell against your particular niche

  • Businesses thrive if they can command a specific niche, be it type of work or industry
Make sure your maitre'd knows the ingredients of everything on the menu

  • Salesmen can't sell if they don't know what you are capable of building
  • Keep them in the loop
Get the food out of the kitchen and on to the table fast

  • Shorten the time taken to deliver pieces of each project
  • Break the project into phased delivery
Sell to your customer, not your ego

  • Just because you built an AJAX whatsit that was a huge hit last year, don't throw it into every project
  • Just because you have succeeded in the past, be humble with new customers and accept that they don't trust you yet
The chef runs the kitchen

  • A kitchen without a chef taking control of activity will fail
  • Make sure you have a lead developer with the experience to make decisions
The waiters don't control the kitchen - they control the flow of the orders

  • Waiters communicate the customers needs to the kitchen, make sure the order is right when it comes out and controls the number of orders coming in
  • Project managers interface with the customers and communicate requirements to the programmers

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  1. This is exactly why I like Ramsay! I posted about this show last summer:

    http://www.darbymedia.com/blog/?p=379

    Cheers, Brent

    Posted By Brent Bonet : Posted At 7/29/07 10:04 AM
  2. Good post Adam! As a Brit I see Gordon on the telly (TV) all the time, and while he may be obnoxious he's an excellent businessman. I'm currently reading "Getting Real" by 37signals, and it's interesting to note that the points that you have highlighted here (in reference to Gordon Ramsey) are key points covered by the book.

    Posted By James Marshall : Posted At 8/1/07 4:38 AM
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