Essentials for Building and Leading Highly Effective Development Teams

DevConf 2018 (Krakow, Poland)

Individually creating software to get the tasks done is the easier part of the whole story compared to doing it as a development team. From conflict resolution between the team members to deciding what features goes into the product, the team needs to make countless of decisions everyday and I bet you want to do this fast in order to hold on to your business’ competitive advantage.

As being a Technical Lead to a software development team, I’ll share my experience in this talk on what the essential principles are for building and leading a fast-paced, customer-centric and effective software development team. By the end of the talk, I hope to leave you with a few ideas that you can experiment within your own teams.

Transcript

1. Essentials for Building and Leading
   Highly Effective Development Teams
   Tugberk Ugurlu
   @tourismgeek
   tugberkugurlu.com
   #DevConfPL
   Platinum Sponsor
   26-28 September 2018, Kraków, Poland
   

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2. Cześć!
   I’m Tugberk !
   I love creating products
   and making an impact
   on people’s lives ❤
   You can !nd me at
   @tourismgeek #
   3
   

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3. 4
   I work at Redgate as a
   Technical Lead as part
   of a software
   development team !
   

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4. 287
   Redgaters and counting
   18
   years old
   202,000
   customers
   100,000
   cups of coffee each year
   91%
   of the Fortune 100 use
   our tools
   4m
   website visits each year
   1147
   product releases last
   year
   68
   User Groups sponsored
   About Redgate
   

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5. 6
   The Goal of the
   development team?
   https://flic.kr/p/38vYmN
   

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6. 7
   Solve the right problems
   for the business and
   users
   https://flic.kr/p/38vYmN
   

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7. “
   effectiveness (n)
   the degree to which
   something is successful
   in producing a desired
   result
   8
   

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8. 9 https://flic.kr/p/53Aj6D
   Effectiveness !== Efficiency
   

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9. “
   efficiency (n)
   Act of performing or
   functioning in the best
   possible manner with the
   least waste of time and
   effort.
   10
   

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10. “
    TL;DR;
    Being effective is about
    doing the right things,
    while being efficient is
    about doing things right.
    11 https://bit.ly/2jk5MPw
    

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11. How do we
    know that we
    are doing the
    right thing?
    For our users and
    business
    12
    

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12. There are two
    aspects here
    

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13. Objective setting
    https://flic.kr/p/pXTZRB
    

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14. Execution
    https://flic.kr/p/kpEQBi
    

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15. Objective
    setting
    

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16. TODO: Add
    purpose, team
    picture here
    Sense of purpose
    https://flic.kr/p/h39XM8
    

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17. Where do we go from here?
    https://flic.kr/p/6itRpW
    

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18. https://a.lupu.pro/612/the-art-of-assumption-making/
    Humans make assumptions
    

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19. Assumption Mapping
    

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20. Assumption Mapping
    

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21. How does this
    have an
    impact on the
    effectiveness?
    

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22. Validation
    techniques 23
    

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23. Qualitative
    Information that can't actually be
    measured
    

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24. 25
    Talking to Users
    https://flic.kr/p/UD5grg
    

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25. “
    If I had asked people
    what they wanted, they
    would have said faster
    horses.
    - Henry Ford (maybe?)
    

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26. The Mom Test
    http://momtestbook.com/
    

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27. JTBD (Jobs-to-Be-Done)
    People buy products and services to
    get a “job” done.
    https://www.intercom.com/books/jobs-to-be-done
    

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28. Quantitative
    Information that can be measured
    and written down with numbers
    

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29. Hypothesis
    Driven
    Development 30
    

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30. A User Story
    As a student or professional, I want
    to search for language schools so
    that I can find the best school
    suited to my needs based on
    schools’ price, location and other
    criteria.
    31
    

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31. What’s wrong
    here?
    

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32. 33 https://flic.kr/p/8ZBm3K
    https://flic.kr/p/8s1FYZ
    Confident Statement!
    

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33. “
    Hypothesis:
    A supposition or
    proposed explanation
    made on the basis of
    limited evidence as a
    starting point for further
    investigation.
    

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34. Hypothesis
    We believe that a language school
    search capability will result in users
    engaging with the search form to find
    language schools based on their
    criteria. We’ll know that we have
    succeeded when 40% of users use the
    search, out of at least 50 unique users.
    35
    https://www.thoughtworks.com/insights/blog/how-implement-hypothesis-driven-development
    

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35. Would users
    engage with the
    search
    functionality on the
    site?
    36
    

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36. 54 Unique Users
    2 days experiment
    ~5 Searches
    Per session
    37% Searched
    Out of unique number of users
    37
    

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37. Heatmap view of
    the users engaging
    with the site
    38
    

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38. “
    Would users engage with
    the search functionality
    on the site?
    39
    

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39. YES!
    

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40. Let the
    Uncertainty be
    Your Friend:
    Finding Your Path
    in a Wiggly Road
    https://vimeo.com/275529797
    41
    

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41. Execution
    

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42. Again:
    How do we know
    that we are doing
    the right thing?
    For our users and
    business
    43
    

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43. You know only if you have an empowered
    and caring team!
    https://flic.kr/p/qM2oUL
    

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44. The Five
    Dysfunctions of a
    Team
    https://amzn.to/2DAb048
    45
    

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45. You as the
    leader !
    Your impact is amplified as
    a leader
    

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46. Let’s do an exercise…
    https://flic.kr/p/9ih49W
    

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47. The leader is an enabler!
    

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48. Your life as a software developer
    

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49. Technical
    leadership is so
    much different
    http://bit.ly/2KxsBsi
    50
    https://flic.kr/p/s6fgYK
    

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50. Shared ownership within the team
    http://bit.ly/2y2tJRf
    

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51. Opinions vs. principals
    

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52. Opinions vs. principals
    

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53. How do you scale
    leadership?
    https://bit.ly/2N6itr5
    54
    

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54. Keep Talking to your team
    https://flic.kr/p/nbM2uu
    

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55. Seek First to
    Understand,
    Then to be
    Understood
    https://amzn.to/2R5fG51
    

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56. Flexibility
    matters! 57
    

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57. Situational
    leadership
    (SL2)
    There isn’t one cookie-cutter
    approach to leadership
    

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58. Know the
    rules of the
    game
    https://flic.kr/p/f5Hq
    

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59. Understand
    your domain
    and embrace
    the business
    as a whole
    http://amzn.to/2EhtzKB
    

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60. Strive for
    Understanding
    the impact:
    Measure!
    http://amzn.to/2nZkydV
    

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61. Lead by example
    https://flic.kr/p/ed4NcB
    

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62. Balance is the key
    

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63. Again, your
    impact is
    amplified as
    a leader!
    http://amzn.to/2o0yR2a
    

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64. THANKS!
    Any questions?
    You can reach me at:
    @tourismgeek
    tugberk@outlook.com
    Presentation template by SlidesCarnival
    

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