Correct Incentive Mix For Programmer

According to the book "Discover your Inner Economist" that all people, including programmers, are responsive to both incentive. As the author writes, "incentives matter through the medium of how a person perceives what is at stake in the choice. It is not just getting the mix of incentives right. You also have to know something of the values or cultures of the people...". The main point for a good incentive mix for programmer is that we must know the values and cultures of the programmer. I think the correct incentive mix should contains:

1. A reasonable salary and/or bonus. There are too many employers that think the sentence "Good job. Well done" is equals to salary.
   
2. Meeting is always required by managers that want to show their contribution and involvement in the project. Also meeting is the only way for the managers to understand what have happened in the project. But none of them are incentive to programmer. The best way to provide incentive to programmer is to limit the number and time of all meeting.
3. All human are social animal, including all programmer. No matter how poor a programmer communication skill is, he still need other programmers. An environment that help the programmers socialize easily is a really great incentive.
   
4. All programmer need to have a sense of control on the programmer. A "sense of control" is always within the programmer inner economists. Don't let the "DEVELOPMENT METHODOLOGY" banner overrides all the programmer sense of control.

In summary the correct incentive mix should include reasonable money return, limit number and time meeting, social programmer environment and programmers have a sense of control of their program. Is there any other comments or suggestions?

chris tam
Hong kong