How to Motivate Your Developers

With all the pressure on delivery, how can we keep developers motivated? This talk will explain the advantages of motivated developers, how different types of people behave, what they expect, what drives and hinders them. This talks also dives deeper into the mind to see what kind of challenges people seek and how can a manager realistically provide those challenges without sacrificing productivity.

Transcript

1. foolab.ca | @foolabca How to Motivate Your Developers FrOSCon, Sankt Augustin - August 23, 2015
2. Anna Filina • Developer • Problem solver • Teacher • Advisor • FooLab + ConFoo 2
3. Objectives • Increase productivity • Increase happiness • Improve the corporate culture 3
4. Outline • Survival kit • Understanding developers ◦ Beginners ◦ Experts • Things to avoid 4
5. How management sees devs • Hard to hire • Lack of cooperation • Works too slowly • Complains about stuff we don't understand • Quits for no reason 5
6. Survival kit • Good salary • Adapted tools • Grab a drink (or a bite) • Paid training or conference • Share business objectives 6
7. Understanding beginners • Trying to prove themselves ◦ Don't judge ◦ Check progress ◦ Invite to ask questions ◦ Show new tools 7
8. Understanding beginners • Need a list of tasks ◦ Be clear ◦ Do the planning ◦ Appropriate to skill • Need approval ◦ Validate quickly ◦ Help with decisions 8
9. Understanding experts • Want to move fast ◦ Give autonomy ◦ Trust them ◦ Give them a Padawan ◦ Cut on communication intermediaries ◦ Fewer meetings 9
10. Understanding experts • Put out fires ◦ No perpetual emergency state ◦ Don't overwork ◦ Plan your project 10
11. What else drives people?
12. L R E B I N Unscramble
13. Definition • Dictionary:
 Reason to do something. • Wikipedia:
 Psychological feature that arouses an organism to act towards a desired goal. 13
14. Motivation = why • Because of... • In order to... 14
15. Clearly defined goals • Measurable • Achievable • Share with everyone • Small wins 15
16. What else drives people? • Gratification • Talent • Recognition 16
17. Things to avoid • Unclear objectives • Last-minute changes • Arbitrary deadlines ◦ Check with team lead • Overtime • Weekend social events • Bad chairs 17
18. IKEA 18
19. Gadgets • Cool name badge • Nerf guns • Big screen retro gaming • thinkgeek.com 19
20. Anna Filina • Development: PHP, JS, etc. • Fix problems: bugs, performance, etc. • Workshops: testing, Symfony, AngularJS, API, etc. • Advisor: testing strategy, legacy code, etc. 20
21. @afilina afilina.com