Building A Software Team

How to build an awesome software team. What should you care about in managing developers.

Transcript

1. Building A Software Team Leong Hean Hong hong@mrleong.net
2. About I manage a team of software developers, and enjoy growing with them. Today I am sharing some of things I learn from managing a team of awesome developers.
3. Agenda • Hiring • Communication • Learning • Motivation • Team Building
4. Hiring
5. What I Look Out For • Passion ◦ Side projects ◦ Attending events. E.g. (Un)conferences, workshop, meetups ◦ Contribution to opensource projects ◦ Blog, forum ◦ Freelance work
6. What I Look Out For • Self Improvement (learning) ◦ E.g. Learn something not taught in school ◦ E.g. Learn something not used in previous company • Attitude
7. Communication (Teamwork)
8. Tools • Task management -> Trello • Documentation -> MediaWiki/DokuWiki ◦ Developers don’t like documentation ◦ Documentations reduces communication overhead, reduces miscommunication • Communication -> Hangout, Whatsapp, email
9. Tools Usage • Task Management ◦ Clarity in definition of tasks ◦ Communicate priorities ◦ Timely update ◦ Review & feedbacks • Documentation ◦ Do the minimal ◦ Write things that developers need to read
10. Tools Usage • Communication ◦ Words are not enough. A picture paints a thousand words. ◦ Daily chat with remote team
11. Learning
12. Facilitate Learning Many employers said they encourage continuous learning. What have they done so far? • Lead by example • Facilitate learning • Share what you learn
13. Learning • Weekly sharing session ◦ Talk about features/techniques/methods ◦ New tool/library/framework/language • Books • Hackathon, workshop/seminar, (un) conferences • Teaching/talks
14. Apply Learning • Use new/unfamiliar tool/library/framework/language in project • Side projects • Teach/coach
15. Motivation
16. Motivations Some of the things I practice • Tell her what she did right • Praise/complement ◦ Showcase her projects/features/code • Challenge her ◦ Use new, unfamiliar tool/library/framework/language ◦ Reduce boring work (e.g implement login, deployment)
17. Team Building
18. Teamwork Get developers to work together, understand one another better. Have fun while doing it. Some developers are resistant to it, use “fun” to change them.
19. Teamwork Techie • Hackathon, (un)conference, seminar/workshop Non-techie • Sports • Escape room • Movies • Food, ...
20. Share your experience...