Manifesto for Banana Software Development

We are uncovering better ways of scamming people by pretending to know what we're doing and pressuring others to do the same.

Through this work, we have come to value:

• Fantasies and wishful thinking over evidence and facts.
• Broken processes over critical examination.
• Blaming others over taking responsibility.
• Blind adherence to dogma over responding to reality.

That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more.

Principles Behind the Banana Manifesto

We follow these principles:

1. Our highest priority is to satisfy our egos through early and continuous bullshit about fundamentally broken ideas.
2. Welcome changing requirements, provided they come with authority but without accountability, even when imposed by another team of equally unqualified individuals. Never let a lack of expertise or responsibility stand in the way of exercising authority.
3. Deliver something frequently, preferably with impressive demonstrations and carefully crafted status reports. Whether it works, solves a problem, or should have been built in the first place is a matter for future generations.
4. Doers must surrender to fake expert opinions daily throughout the lifetime of the employment.
5. Build processes around the most dysfunctional individuals. Give them the authority to create bottlenecks, and call the resulting paralysis governance. Provide them with all the empowerment they need to prevent actual work from getting done.
6. The most effective way to advance your career is to make yourself visible to management while keeping the people doing the actual work invisible.
7. Endless meetings, ceremonies, and status reports are the primary measure of progress. The absence of measurable results is proof that the process is working. Actual progress is optional.
8. Banana processes promote sustainable rituals. The scammers, talkers, and management should be able to maintain a death march for doers indefinitely.
9. Continuous attention-seeking from management, combined with good acting skills and carefully managed visibility, enhances the appearance of competence.
10. Bullshitting — the ability to convincingly explain why someone else's work was actually your strategic contribution — is a core professional competency.
11. The best career scammers emerge from keeping doers permanently subordinate while establishing themselves as indispensable leaders.
12. At regular intervals, we pretend to reflect on how to become more effective. We then identify the people who raised uncomfortable questions and remove them to ensure continuous improvement.