Debug Your Relationships with Dev Best Practices

Valerie Kraucunas

Who Am I? 

• Prototyper
• Co-Business Owner
• Lefty
• INFJ, Enneagram 9, Leo

Why is this interesting to me?

• Learning to code rewired my brain
• Relationship behavior is intriguing
• Developers !== bad social skills
• IDEO Design Thinking workshop

What kinds of relationships is this advice covering?

• Peer relationships (friends, spouses, colleagues)
• Not manager-direct reports relationships 
• Not parental-child relationships

Separation of Concerns

• Divide up tasks and trust
• Do not micromanage or meddle
• Communicate your bandwidth

Bus Factor

• Talk about what you do
• Document when necessary
• Meta conversations are fun!

Rule of Three

• DRY: Don't Repeat Yourself
• Emotional labor is real
• If they, or you, forget something 3 times, it is time for a new solution

Don't Deploy on Fridays

Don't share important information when:

• You aren't available to discuss it appropriately
• It is too late
• While the other person is
  distracted

Acceptance Criteria (AC)

• Clearly communicated expectations
• Tasks that have an obvious "done" state
• If an AC is not met, don't avoid conversation about it!

Retro

• Best ceremony
• Opportunity to share feedback and feelings
• Prevents resentment if used effectively

Summary

• Communicate early, communicate often.
• Put organization tools to work for you to reduce bad feelings in your relationship. 
• Maintaining the harmony is valuable!

Thank you!

Resources

• ENIAC Programmers
• Agile Manifesto
• Retro Question Formats
• Running Agile Scrum on Our Relationship