When I walk the dog in the morning I walk past a sign that says "Do not dump trash here." I always wonder what the point of that sign is. Do people who throw their trash on the sidewalk look at signs like that and then find an appropriate place to dump their trash? Do they dump the trash around the corner where there is no sign? Or perhaps they just dump their trash, right there, possibly slightly confused why someone would post a stupid sign like that.
In your development organization, do you have the equivalent of stupid signs? Do you have rules that state the obvious like "don't check code into main that doesn't compile." or "Don't mark bugs as 'cannot reproduce' without attempting to reproduce it?" If you have rules like these, you have a problem. Either you have a conscientious team that is insulted by these rules, or you have people that need rules like these and shouldn't be on your team. Software is hard and you need smart, conscientious people that think about the big picture. Rules like these, are an ineffective attempt to avoid the uncomfortable fact that you have the wrong people on your team or the wrong people managing your team. ]]>