Building Great Software Teams and Devs

Or

Non-Coding things you can do and promote so your work and life doesn't suck.

Ryan Hayes

TriJS

7/11/2017

You can buy a man's time, you can buy a man's physical presence at a certain place, you can even buy a measured number of skilled muscular motions per hour or day. But you cannot buy enthusiasm, you cannot buy initiative, you cannot buy loyalty; you cannot buy the devotion of hearts, minds, and souls. You have to earn these things.

- Clarence Francis

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

Physiological

Physiological

• GET SLEEP
• Spend 2% of code research on fitness research
• Ask work about health stipends/office allowances
• Check your posture
• Take your sick days
• Know market value and ask for a raise
• YNAB

Safety and Security

Safety and Security

• Is your organization stable?
• Is your department stable?
• Is Home Life stable?
• Take your PTO
• No, Actually take your PTO
• **Staying late will not make or break your company's existence.**
• Accountability is essential for predictibility

Love and Belonging

Love and Belonging

• Incredibly important for remote teams
• Team outings/bonding
  • Conferences
  • Invite even if you know the answer
• Communication Tools
  • Video
  • Chat
  • Email

Self Esteem

Self-Esteem

• Shipping goes a long way
• Feedback should be more positive than critical
• How does your feature make a difference?
• Celebrate team wins

Self-Actualization

Self-Actualization

• Have developers working on features that they're passionate about
• Allow for creative implementations within constraints
• 20% time
• Hackathons

Other Tips

• Clear Vision and Common Goal
• Clear roles and responsibilities
• Allow experimentation and feedback channels
• Mix the right personalities
  • DISC
  • Myers-Briggs
• Knowledge Sharing culture
• Diversity
• Code so you don't need comments
• Software is to support people, not the other way around