Mistakes Were Made (By Me)

A talk at the Cape Town Creative Academy (http://ctca.co.za/) I gave about the many mistakes I have made (and a few things I have learned from them) over my career as a Front-end Developer and UX person.

Transcript

1. Mistakes Were Made (By Me)
2. Agenda My career path My career patterns (mostly a bit )
3. Steve Barnett FEDUX Consultant @maxbarners
4. What does a Front-end developer do all day?
6. What does a UX designer do all day?
8. Maths Degree Sussex University, UK
9. Employee Benefits Consultant a.k.a. Spreadsheet
10. Web Developer Freelance (a.k.a. Code )
11. Mistakes Were Made
12. Mistake bucket 1: Time
13. Mistake bucket 2: Scope
14. Mistake bucket 3: Money
15. Mistake bucket 4: Flexibility (a.k.a. Fast, Good, Cheap: pick two)
16. ! I should get a day job
17. Meetups and stuff
18. Front-end Developer Unboxed
19. Team: All devs Me: FED Style: Dev Shop
20. ➡ Bigger projects ! Death March project ! Not saying when I was unhappy
21. ! Say I’m unhappy, and details of why ! Inspect and adapt a Death March
22. Front-end Development Lead Flow
23. Team: Designers, Consultants Me: FED, UX Style: Agency
24. ➡ Famous UX place ! Agency style work ! Being a perfectionist
25. ! I don’t like “churning out” stuff ! Done is better than perfect
26. Front-end Developer Praekelt
27. Team: Engineers, PMs, Designers Me: UX, bit of FED Style: NGO
28. ➡ Good Work ™ (saving babies with JavaScript) ! Culture like a Corporate ! Fast exit
29. ! Be more empathetic ! Big impact means slow (and low visibility)
30. Code Mentor Project codeX
31. Team: Mentors, Coders, a Social Worker Me: Coaching (BED, FED, UX) Style: Not-a-school
32. ➡ Teaching! Meeting the people I’m helping ! Got fired ! No balance between brain and heart
33. ! I tend to swing to one end (bidniz in this case) ! Scaling stuff is difficult
34. Front-end Developer and UX person Consultant
35. Team: One (1) Me: FEDUX Style: Coach
36. Fewer Mistakes Attack Plan Use old mistakes as red flags Reflect early and often
37. Still a Work In Progress Daily facepalms occur
38. Fewer mistakes bucket 1: Time
39. Fewer mistakes bucket 2: Scope
40. Fewer mistakes bucket 3: Money
41. Fewer mistakes bucket 4: Flexibility
42. Mistakes Were Made (By Me) (But I Learned Some Stuff)
43. Thank you! Steve Barnett @maxbarners
44. It depends ¯\_(ϑ)_/¯