On one hand, a "you broke the build dunce cap" isn't the worst of ideas. (Although by far I prefer a check-in system that doesn't allow the build to be broken for everyone...)
I've been shamed, and semi-publically (within the team) shamed others, for not having written any unit tests before check-in.
I'm also a big fan of publically celebrating successes. When a tester writes up a good bug, I'll have it sent around to everyone as an example of what a good bug report looks like!
Teasing, shaming and other forms of negative humor are very hard to do with a positive result. People are astonishingly different in what they can tolerate and how they respond. I suppose, with the right people, and the right team dynamics it can be OK.
But as a manager, I would strongly advise you to steer clear of that tactic. Even if you've got awesome emotional intelligence (and I don't) it's easy to screw up. It's not worth it.
Really, don't do it. Because when you screw up, it hurts real people.
There are better ways to encourage people - for example, the positve feedback to the tester you described.
> Teasing, shaming and other forms of negative humor are
very hard to do with a positive result. People are
astonishingly different in what they can tolerate and
how they respond. I suppose, with the right people, and
the right team dynamics it can be OK.
So true. I've had great managers that had great rapport with the team and everyone was tight knit enough that the manager could stand in the hall and say "hey, come over here and look at the ridiculous code Bill wrote" and it would all be in good fun, even for the person who was being mocked (being able to laugh at your own mistakes is important, IMO). And on the other hand, I've had terrible managers who aren't able to do it in a good-natured manner and it ends up being mean-spirited, condescending, and morale-killing. There's a surprisingly fine line between "lol, Bill, what were you thinking?" and "Bill wrote bad code and I'm going to call him on it, making everyone on the team uncomfortable, and thus cultivating an environment where everyone lives in fear of making a mistake."
Appropriate versus inappropriate is irrelevant, in my opinion. Can it work? Yes. Is it more likely to backfire and make your team miserable? Yes. Is it something that creates a hostile work environment? Debatable, and definitely situational.
I would actually argue that when done right, this sort of smack-talk can be healthy and reassuring to the recipient. It's a bit perverse, but I like a situation where my coworkers respect me enough to make fun of my mistakes without me or them worrying that it actually calls my competence into question. I've worked with people who you can't poke fun at, and it's usually because they actually are somewhat incompetent and making fun of their errors would be cruel.
Some industries seem to have a culture of harsh negative feedback given publicly and it seems to work ok, but then people have an expectation of that going in to the industry.
There is a difference between being shamed for breaking the build because you didn't run the test suite (and well knew that you should run the test suite) and being shamed for making an innocent mistake because you didn't know better.
I can see the rationale for a dunce cap in an equitable organization answerable to no one but itself. Like, say, a founding team of four engineers each with 25% equity.
On one hand, a "you broke the build dunce cap" isn't the worst of ideas. (Although by far I prefer a check-in system that doesn't allow the build to be broken for everyone...)
I've been shamed, and semi-publically (within the team) shamed others, for not having written any unit tests before check-in.
I'm also a big fan of publically celebrating successes. When a tester writes up a good bug, I'll have it sent around to everyone as an example of what a good bug report looks like!