Consultants & Rockstars, Who Needs 'em? - Madison Ruby

Sound familiar? The Rails ecosystem is growing in leaps and bounds, like the Java ecosystem did in its’ early days. So many languages, frameworks, plugins, engines, libraries and tools. So little time to deliver your new project.

It’s tempting to hire a rock star who knows absolutely everything to get your new project off the ground. You can also hire "consultants" to help fill in the holes in your team when taking your existing product to the next level. Or maybe just hire a whole bunch of people for cheap, and they’ll get the job done... But did you ever consider the untapped wealth of the team you already have?

In this session we’ll explore ways in which the average development team can explore, learn, teach, and grow, until the sum of members of the team is as great as any Consultant or Rockstar.

Transcript

1. Rockstars & Consultants Who needs ‘em? Saturday, August 20, 2011
2. Lori M Olson @wndxlori http://wndx.posterous.com Photo Credit: @etrever Saturday, August 20, 2011
3. So... Who needs them? Saturday, August 20, 2011
4. YOU do. Saturday, August 20, 2011
5. Everyone does Saturday, August 20, 2011 Pretty much everyone does
6. Why? Saturday, August 20, 2011 The real question is why do we think we need a rockstar or a consultant?
7. What makes a rockstar? Saturday, August 20, 2011
8. They know *everything* Saturday, August 20, 2011 But not just that. Rockstars are self-motivated learners. They learn new things, because they enjoy learning new things.
9. http://cascadiarubyconf.com/ Saturday, August 20, 2011 http://cascadiarubyconf.com/
10. They’ve “done it all before” Saturday, August 20, 2011
11. Super productive Saturday, August 20, 2011 They’ll “get ‘er done fast”, and push that critical release out the door
12. http://www.flickr.com/photos/hsinho/345518426/ Saturday, August 20, 2011 http://www.flickr.com/photos/hsinho/345518426/
13. They have no fear Saturday, August 20, 2011 The difficult we do immediately, the impossible could take a little longer.
14. What makes a consultant? Saturday, August 20, 2011 Couple different kinds
15. *knows* one thing very, very well Saturday, August 20, 2011 These would be your experts. They have deep knowledge of a critical piece of technology
16. http://www.flickr.com/photos/cannongod/3749758602/ Saturday, August 20, 2011 http://www.flickr.com/photos/cannongod/3749758602/
17. know *hard* things Saturday, August 20, 2011 Your team thinks a problem is really too hard, then you bring in the expert(s). Things that are hard to learn. Things that are difficult to understand.
18. http://www.globalnerdy.com/2009/09/20/a-pair-programming-articlein-the-new-york-times/ Saturday, August 20, 2011 http://www.globalnerdy.com/2009/09/20/a-pair-programming-articlein-the-new-york- times/
19. deep knowledge pool Saturday, August 20, 2011 Consultancies have a vast pool of knowledge to call upon, from their colleagues.
20. http://thoughtworker.com/fun-thoughtworks Saturday, August 20, 2011 http://thoughtworker.com/fun-thoughtworks
21. Why not? Saturday, August 20, 2011 So, if Rockstars & Consultants are so great, why would you not want to hire them?
22. Risks Saturday, August 20, 2011
23. Boredom Saturday, August 20, 2011 Self motivated learners... once there is nothing new to learn, they get bored, and they run away when the next opportunity to learn presents itself. Or worse, they don’t run away, and start...
24. Photo Credit: I can haz Cheezburger Saturday, August 20, 2011
25. Burnout Saturday, August 20, 2011 Know everything, does everything, works insane hours, burns out...
26. @ezmobius: So don't forget to get up from ur desk and get some exercise. 4 years of 14 hour, red bull fueled days sitting in a chair can kill you! Saturday, August 20, 2011 Ezra (don’t make me say his last name, I’ll screw it up) posted this last week.
27. _why the lucky stiff, @wayneeseguin Saturday, August 20, 2011 Community examples of burnout. Over-reaction to circumstances, amplified by stress. If that’s not burnout...
28. the big payoff Saturday, August 20, 2011 Some of your rockstars are just looking for the what I like to call the illusion of the big payoff. If you don’t produce that, they’ll move on for another try. You do? then they retire.
29. Hit by a bus Saturday, August 20, 2011
30. Looney Tunes: Fast & Furryous Saturday, August 20, 2011
31. Prima Donna Saturday, August 20, 2011 someone who behaves in demanding, often temperamental, fashion revealing an inflated view of themselves, their talent, and their importance What if they are hard to work with? They can be mono-focused and not open to new, alternative ideas.
32. Don’t come cheap Saturday, August 20, 2011
33. Wildly expensive Saturday, August 20, 2011 Consultants on the other hand...
34. Impedance Mismatch Saturday, August 20, 2011 Communications issues
35. Bait & switch Saturday, August 20, 2011 The ole bait & switch. You hire them for their expertise, and they send in the B-team.
36. http://kaufmanpost.com/2009/11/no-bait-and-switch-permitted-here/ Saturday, August 20, 2011 http://kaufmanpost.com/2009/11/no-bait-and-switch-permitted-here/
37. Knowledge walking out the door Saturday, August 20, 2011 All that knowledge that they came in with? Most of it walks out the door with them, when the contract ends
38. Saturday, August 20, 2011
39. Alternatives? Saturday, August 20, 2011 So what *are* your alternatives
40. GROW your TEAM Saturday, August 20, 2011 How about you spend some time and grow your own team. Grow is such an interesting word. We’ll come back to it, and reflect on the many aspects of grow.
41. KNOW your team Saturday, August 20, 2011 You won’t be able to effectively grow your team, unless you know your team. single? workaholic? married? kids? pets? aging parents? illnesses? These are never things to be discriminated about, just ... knowing enough about your people to apply them to the problems at hand in the most effective way.
42. KNOW your ecosystem Saturday, August 20, 2011
43. Identify core technologies Saturday, August 20, 2011 everything involved in the devops of your application or project development
44. Dev Saturday, August 20, 2011
45. Basics Saturday, August 20, 2011
46. Ruby Saturday, August 20, 2011 MRI or JRuby? 1.8 or 1.9?
47. Rails or Sinatra or... Saturday, August 20, 2011 Node.js or Backbone.js
48. HTML or HAML Saturday, August 20, 2011
49. CSS or SASS or SCSS Saturday, August 20, 2011
50. JavaScript or CoffeeScript Saturday, August 20, 2011
51. Testing Saturday, August 20, 2011
52. Test::Unit or RSpec Saturday, August 20, 2011
53. Mocking framework Saturday, August 20, 2011 Mocha, Flexmock, Factory Girl
54. Integration or Acceptance testing Saturday, August 20, 2011 Cucumber
55. Client side testing Saturday, August 20, 2011 Jasmine
56. Toolset Saturday, August 20, 2011 OS, Editor(s), VCS, debuggers, profilers, CI
57. Ops Saturday, August 20, 2011
58. OS, DB Saturday, August 20, 2011 Not just from the user side, but the configuration and customization side of things
59. Deploy Saturday, August 20, 2011 Linux, Hardware, memory, RAID, firewalls, etc Cloud, EC2, S3 Capistrano, SSH Apache, Nginx, Passenger, Load Balancer
60. Manage Saturday, August 20, 2011 Backups, Monitoring
61. HOW? Saturday, August 20, 2011 How does any one person keep on top of all of that? Poorly, at best. What to do? There’s got to be an alternative...
62. http://www.flickr.com/photos/divadivadina/2726296562/ Saturday, August 20, 2011 http://www.flickr.com/photos/divadivadina/2726296562/ Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones in the early days Dina Regine
63. http://johnnynotsid.buzznet.com/user/journal/1333031/favorite-musician-quotes/ Saturday, August 20, 2011 http://johnnynotsid.buzznet.com/user/journal/1333031/favorite-musician-quotes/
64. Training Saturday, August 20, 2011
65. TIME Saturday, August 20, 2011 Training is as much about time, as it is about money
66. Learn, absorb, try Saturday, August 20, 2011
67. Self Learning Saturday, August 20, 2011
68. web based Saturday, August 20, 2011
69. screencasts Saturday, August 20, 2011
70. read books Saturday, August 20, 2011
71. Formal Saturday, August 20, 2011
72. courses Saturday, August 20, 2011
73. certifications Saturday, August 20, 2011
74. conferences Saturday, August 20, 2011 Conferences are great <wink, wink> learning experiences.
75. Share Saturday, August 20, 2011 If you spend money, as well as time, on all this training, make certain it’s shared.
76. lunch & learn Saturday, August 20, 2011
77. bar camp Saturday, August 20, 2011 Back to “know your team”. If they are all married with kids, Bar Camp = bad idea. Lunch & Learn = good idea. Bunch of single workaholics? Bar Camp all the way.
78. But? Saturday, August 20, 2011 What if they take all that training and leave?
79. Replacement costs Saturday, August 20, 2011 Replacing an unhappy developer who walks away is almost always going to cost you more than doing what’s necessary to keep them. Not just in terms of finders fees, but time. Lots and lots of time.
80. Valued people, stay. Saturday, August 20, 2011 If you prove to people that they are valued, they will be more likely to stay, than those who think that they are just another warm body, down in the trenches.
81. Engage Saturday, August 20, 2011 Make certain that every person on the team is engaged, and feels ownership.
82. Split Responsibilities Saturday, August 20, 2011 Collective code ownership is great, but as we’ve just demonstrated, not everyone can be an expert in every piece of the puzzle. For each core technology, you need to identify a primary and secondary point person
83. The Primary Saturday, August 20, 2011 The go-to person for that piece of the puzzle.
84. The Secondary Saturday, August 20, 2011 Remember when we talked about that “hit by a bus” thing? How about vacations? Sick Leave, Mat leave?
85. Not enough? Saturday, August 20, 2011 Just declaring primary and secondary point person is not enough. You need more.
86. Par-ti-ci-pa-tion Saturday, August 20, 2011 I guess given that so many developers are introverts, it shouldn’t be surprising, but... you can’t just sit back, you need to step up and participate.
87. Resources Saturday, August 20, 2011 There are hundreds of resources out on the web, USE THEM.
88. mailing lists Saturday, August 20, 2011
89. blogs Saturday, August 20, 2011
90. twitter Saturday, August 20, 2011
91. irc Saturday, August 20, 2011
92. forums Saturday, August 20, 2011
93. lurk Saturday, August 20, 2011
94. ask questions Saturday, August 20, 2011
95. answer questions Saturday, August 20, 2011
96. Stay on Top Saturday, August 20, 2011 Everyone has to start somewhere. The point is to make the effort to stay on top of at least one thing
97. know the issues Saturday, August 20, 2011 What are the bugs? Incompatibilities? Stability issues?
98. Plan for upgrades Saturday, August 20, 2011 Unless your tool is stagnant and never changes (code smell! run away!), you’ll need to manage your updates
99. beta tests Saturday, August 20, 2011 Participate. Don’t have to inflict on your team, but try it out, get an idea of what the impact will be. If you need a second opinion, that’s why you’ve got a secondary.
100. release candidates Saturday, August 20, 2011 Use them.
101. release ATFT! Saturday, August 20, 2011
102. contribute Saturday, August 20, 2011 And, as my PSA of the presentation, if it’s open source, then for gawd’s sake contribute!
103. TIME Saturday, August 20, 2011 Did I mention that this takes time? Corey Haines posted an great link the other day on Twitter that talks about technical debt, and the perils of working at an unsustainable pace. Make sure that your real pace includes the time for people to do their jobs, develop their expertise, and and have a life, too.
104. So, what does “GROW your TEAM” mean? Saturday, August 20, 2011
105. Training Saturday, August 20, 2011
106. Participation Saturday, August 20, 2011
107. Develop Expertise Saturday, August 20, 2011
108. Training Participation Develop Expertise Saturday, August 20, 2011
109. Continuous Improvement! Saturday, August 20, 2011 Training, Participation, Developing Expertise... All these things combine into a continuous improvement process for your team. And that is better than all the Rockstars & Consultants out there.
110. Thanks! Lori M Olson @wndxlori http://wndx.posterous.com Saturday, August 20, 2011