Drupalcamp London 2018

Growing developers with Drupal

Fran García-Linares

March 2018

Agenda (45min)

1

2

3

4

5

Intro (5 min)

The role of a team leader (10 ~ 15 min)

How Drupal helps with all the above points (10 min)

Real-life examples (10 min)

Wrap up / Q & A (5 min)

Intro

• This talk is about:

  • Team leader(ship)

  • Developers

  • Drupal

• Why am I giving this talk?

  • I like sharing
  • I find other experiences useful
  • Constant learning
  • And...

• A bit (more) about myself:

  • Teaching
  • Developer
    • Drupal
  • Team leader
  • Senior developer

Team Leader

• The role

  • Management <> PM/PO <> Team leader <> Team
  • Management vs leadership
  • Usually developer
  • Lead by example
  • Mentoring / coaching
  • Skills:

• Do you need to be an expert developer?

• Challenges?

  • Management <> PM/PO <> Team leader <> Team
  • Pressure
    • Performance (own and team) - KPI vs gut feeling
    • Accountability (own and team)
    • Time
    • Budget
  • Bad days
  • Keeps developers engaged
  • Career progression (own and team)

• Approach to projects? Think of...

  • Skills of the team (front-end, back-end, site building... none!)
  • Experience of the team
    • Graduate developers
    • Junior / mid-level developers
    • Experienced developers

• Communication
• Organisation
• Approachable
• Confidence
• Respectful
• Fair
• Integrity
• Influential
• Delegation
• Facilitator
• Negotiation

(Team leader) Drupal

• The tool

  • Why Drupal and not other?
    • Great foundation
    • Extensibility
    • Community
    • ...
  • As MD/PO/PM - when dealing with (potential) clients:
    • Open source
    • Loads of information, tutorials...
    • "Easy" to move between agencies
  • As team leader, when using Drupal:
    • Mentoring / coaching
      • Easy to find resources for team
      • Architectural decisions guidance
    • Lead by example
  • As developer, when using Drupal:
    • Initial learning curve
    • Flexible (front-end vs back-end vs site-building)
    • Number of modules
    • Community

• Do you need to be an expert developer?

• Challenges?

  • Time ==> custom?
  • Budget ==> custom?
  • Keeps developers engaged ==> custom?
  • Career progression ==> custom?

• Approach to projects?

  • Skills of the team (front-end, back-end, site building... none!)
  • Experience of the team
    • Graduate developers ==> Site building
    • Junior / mid-level developers ==> Building and coding
    • Experienced developers ==> Custom coding

Real-life examples (aka "The developers")

• Background

  • PHP Developer

• ​Started as

  • ​Junior Drupal developer

• Struggles?

  • Wanting to understand all the layers!

• ​Drupal helped

  • ​Trust other code, good patterns...

• ​Improved in

  • ​Practicality

• ​Where he is now

  • UI Technical Lead

• Background

  • Sound engineering, no programming

• ​Started as

  • ​Intern developer

• Struggles?

  • Backend, servers...

• ​Drupal helped

  • ​Separation of front-end vs back-end

• ​Improved in

  • ​Theming, styling and JS!

• ​Where she is now

  • ​Drupal Front-end developer

• Background

  • Computer Science, first job. Good base.

• ​Started as

  • ​Junior Drupal developer

• Struggles?

  • Budget :-)

• ​Drupal helped

  • ​Simple approach to some projects

• ​Improved in

  • ​Knowing complexity of tasks, specially when coding is involved

• ​Where he is now

  • ​Digital consultant > Drupal developer

Wrap up

• Team leader main skills aren't technical.
• In order to make developers grow you need to know them.
• Drupal's flexibility allows multiple approaches to projects.
• Drupal's community allows developers to grow in different areas.
• The path of each person is unique, people and technology can help them shape it.
• I'm not team leader now... what's different?
  • I'm a senior developer in my team.
  • No hierarchies within the team.
  • I still mentor.
  • I still (try to) lead by example.
  • I encourage others to find their path.
  • I still use Drupal everyday.
  • ...
  • Nothing has really changed, I'm just part of another community :-)

Q & A

https://slides.com/fjgarlin