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