“As he started out into the maze, Haw looked back to where he had come from and felt its comfort. He could feel himself being drawn back into familiar territory, even though he hadn’t found cheese there in some time. Haw became more anxious and wondered if he really wanted to go out into the… Continue reading Pretend you’re not afraid
Posts
Face the Uneven Dozen
After a couple of months as a manager I had my feet under me enough to look forward to the annual review cycle. The department had raises tied to the review cycle. Deciding how to portion out raises is critical. My time as a developer had done little to prepare me for it. I anticipated that at… Continue reading Face the Uneven Dozen
quitting often better than heroics
A lot of times it’s better to be a quitter than a hero. “For example, let’s say you think a task can be done in two hours. But four hours into it you’re still only a quarter of the way done. The natural instinct is to think, ‘but I can’t give up now! I’ve already spent… Continue reading quitting often better than heroics
Keeping Your Team from Burnout
An intern at Novell my first manager told me stories of his experiences with burn-out as an intern for IBM. He loved his work and put in extreme hours. Then one day couldn’t put his hands on a keyboard.
Allison Davis’ article How to Keep You and Your Team from Burning Out gives 6 actionable recommendations for protecting your team.
I’ve experienced burn out. Coworkers I respect have, too. Yet, I hesitate to write about it. It’s squishy. But it is real.
I’m not alone. At NGConf Igor Minar (Angular core team) spoke tentatively about his own struggles with burnout. His talk about mindfulness came just after my own exposure to it in a lecture series on the workings of the brain. Mindfulness is a great tool that studies have shown effective at managing stress and improving mental wellbeing.
Read Davis’ article.
My quick advice is:
Remove heroics from your list of options
Get it done in normal time with normal effort. Don’t do heroics. Don’t ask for it from your team.
innovations rarely have but one parent
Most of the innovations of the digital age were done collaboratively. Walter Isaacson, The Innovators. Chapter 1, 1m 0s
I’m Always Recruiting
To keep important positions filled with talented developers you need to be constantly recruiting.
Lessons from Yahoo News’ Failures
Chris Lehmann’s Purple Reign gives an inside view into the demise of the Yahoo News machine. Weighing in at nearly 9 thousand words it might take you a while to get through it. I’ve snipped out some of my favorite passages from my own perspective. The original article is a much better read than my uneven summary.
Beg, Borrow, Steal
Lehmann relates how one of his reporters acted to get his job done without overdue concern to corporate support:
My reporting team did important and groundbreaking work on … the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill—our reporter moved down to New Orleans from New York, on his own dime, to cover it.
Often we have to get things done without all the support we would like–without all the resources we think we need. I like this example of dedication from this reporter who moved to the site of a big story to cover it.
Branding is a mistrusted craft
Appreciate other disciplines as having their own craft.
http2 is coming
Web Components are a huge step forward, but will pressure developers to make more small files. This performs poorly. Luckily HTTP 2 will help fix that. Now, Akamai is teasing us with their HTTP 2 demo. Read up and prepare. You’re going to need to use these new technologies soon just to keep up.
results only exist on the outside
Quote: The single most important thing to remember about any enterprise is that results exist only on the outside.