Lead Dev 2016 London: Leadership by the numbers

• Micheal Lopp / @rands / randsinrepose.com
• slack

Books to read (by Micheal Lopp):

• managing humans
• being geek

Your job is to inspire your team. Being busy is a bug, not a feature.

Your job is information gathering, abstraction, filtering and delivery

• it is all about communication
• do 1 to 1’s:
  • every week, no matter what
  • start with (choose):
    • 3 prepared points
    • a performance review
    • “my current disaster”
  • it is not about what you can find by yourself on jira or trello
• staff meetings: every week, once a week
  • if you can’t fill an hour, something is wrong
  • this is investment in the future
  • it sets the tone for the week

You are underestimating the long term cost of not saying the hard things

The obvious cost:

• work isn’t getting done
• team morale is low
• your sanity

Non obvious costs:

• your credibility
• impact on folks you don’t know
• their sanity

-> everyone is replaceable. You have to imagine the world without this person. It will create a void that will be easily filled by someone else in a way that couldn’t exist before.

-> say the hard things as soon as possible, don’t let them rot.

You probably will hire someone like you

• diversity is a no brainer. It brings other perspectives, background, ideas
• be a diversity ally

You set the tone and cadence, all the time

• start and finish meetings on time (otherwise, this is disrespect and inefficiency)
• start acting and it will follow you

You are horrifically bad at something

(or require more work to do so)

When doing an interview, ask/look the candidate for:

• vision: where is it going ? can you describe a feature ?
• execution:
  • strategy: the way to the vision (a picture)
  • execution: how to achieve the vision
• judgement: does he have a good judgement ? How do they apply their values in their work ?

-> delegate as much as possible, even the skills you already have. It is a great way to build a team.

Contantly reacting is bad, it shows you don’t have a plan, that you are not strategic.

Always be unfailingly kind.