Are You a Stable or Volatile?

I've written before on this blog about the different personality traits of software engineers, and how different traits balance each other on a team.

Some of the spectra I came up with were:

• Dreamers ↔ Pragmatists
• Big Picture ↔ Detail-Oriented
• Move Fast & Break Things ↔ Slow & Methodical
• Optimists ↔ Pessimists
• Answerers ↔ Questioners

Recently I read a comment on Hacker News (which I can't find now) that mentioned a blog post from 2012 on Rands In Repose, a blog I've been familiar with for years, but somehow this post had escaped me.

The author, Michael Lopp, introduces the Stables and Volatiles divide, which feels to me like a meta-category that encompasses the ones I listed above.

You can probably guess just from the names, but Stables tend to like having a well-defined plan, are more risk-sensitive, predictable, and reliable. Volatiles are disruptive, like to blaze their own trail, dislike process, and have a strong bias for shipping something (even if it's ugly and unstable).

Lopp says:

Stables will feel like they’re endlessly babysitting and cleaning up Volatiles’ messes, while Volatiles will feel like the Stables’ lack of creativity and risk acceptance is holding back the company and innovation as a whole. Their perspectives, while divergent, are essential to a healthy business.

I believe a healthy company that wants to continue to grow and invent needs to equally invest in both their Stables and their Volatiles.

I think the Stable / Volatile concept feels very true to my experience, and it's one I'll keep with me. Assuming that everyone on a team is equally intelligent, competent, and well-intentioned, you need people of both the Stable and Volatile persuasions. Even though they annoy each other, a project staffed by only one or the other type is doomed.