4/12/2014

A Year at the Com:A developers journey into leadership

What’s this talk about?

*(#*%@ I wish I knew before becoming a manager.

What Four Kitchens is

Big ideas for the web.

WEB CHEFS ➜ CIRCA 2006

WEB CHEFS ➜ TODAY

Our clients

Values driven company.

Mission

To change the world by setting

knowledge free.

Way of the Web Chef

• Exemplify transparency and honesty

• Create solutions with people and goals in mind

• Embrace change

• Lead and contribute to open-source communities

• Collaborate

Who Am I

Michal MineckiDirector of Technology• Started working in web development about 7 years ago

• Worked almost exclusively in design and development shops.

• Started at Four Kitchens 2.25 years ago

• Became the director of technology 1.25 years ago

Michal Minecki

• @mirzu

• https://drupal.org/user/7710

• https://github.com/mirzu

• http://mirzu.com

Managers Vs Individual Contributors.

Job Description

• Monitor professional health and guide professional development.

• Coach the team.

• Advocate for the team.

• Manage resources.

• Find, select, and onboard new talent.

• Improve our design and development workflows.

What Individual Contributors Do• Build things with your own two hands

• Have a strong sense of control over your end product

• Work long blocks of time on a singular task or goal

• Learning and investing in skills, and your craft

• Working together but fully own a part of the solution

What I thought I would doBuild a bigger project.

Day to Day

• Meetings

• Lots of little things, many of them sudden, all of them seemingly important

• Hiring

• Sales

• Lots to do at the beginning and end of things

• Problems.

Why I was lost.

• Impostor syndrome.

• It’s closer to a career change than a promotion

• Your old skills are still relevant, but they are not leveraged in the same way.

• The reason you a leader on a project is nearly the opposite of what makes you a good manager

Ego.

Qualities of a good manager• Listens

• Facilitates

• Communicates

• Context switches

• Own but doesn’t control

Unmitigated Failure at first.• Listen Only heard the words.

• Facilitate Architected.

• Communicate It’s not just the bad stuff.

• Context switch Didn’t understand priorities, got too involved.

• Own but don’t control. Tried to control and didn’t own.

How I got it right(er).

Know Thyself. Learn. Laugh.

Lesson 1: Listen

• Get the whole story before making a decision

• Ask questions

• Don’t judge

• Don’t provide solutions, provide frameworks

• Be available

Lesson 2: Facilitate

• Don’t be a hero. Find and make heroes.

• Different problems have different solutions.

• Goals over rules.

• Build frameworks don’t provide solutions.

• Question more decide less.

• Code review and attending a demo is more important than helping with architecture.

Lesson 3: Communicate• Feedback is hard. Learn how to give it effectively.

• Positive feedback is 10x more important than negative.

• Don’t wait.

• Writing and speaking are skills that are learned.

• Change is hard.

Lesson 4: Context Switch• Unblock first.

• Own your schedule.

• Don’t slow down.

• Rest.

Lesson 5: Own don’t Control• Trust.

• Communicate trust and confidence.

• Absorb, don’t transfer stress.

• Embrace and don’t hide failure.

You learned how to code you can learn this shit.

Why it’s Rewarding

Success is making awesome people more awesome.

No Thanks.Now that you’ve spelling it out I’d rather be an individual contributor.

well. . .

These things make you a better contributor.• Listens

• Facilitates

• Communicates

• Context switches

• Own but doesn’t control

ResourcesA few places to start.

Resources• Manager’s Manifesto

https://medium.com/the-year-of-the-looking-glass/be5f6b118084

• So You Think You Want to Manage? https://medium.com/p/1229723a4501

• Becoming a Technical Leaderhttp://www.amazon.com/Becoming-Technical-Leader-Gerald-Weinberg-ebook/dp/B004J4VV3I/

• Behind Closed Doors: Secrets of Great Management

http://www.amazon.com/Behind-Closed-Doors-Management-Programmers-ebook/dp/B00A4OA6UQ/

Thank you!All content in this presentation, except where noted otherwise, is Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 licensed and copyright Four Kitchens, LLC.