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Mentoring Teams

Page history last edited by ericajanine 15 years ago

Raw video stream (1 of 2)

Raw video stream (2 of 2)

 

The discussion is broken down by high level topics.

 

Key for Team Success is to Establish Values and a Culture

 

  • Practice the values. example Standups
  • Jeffery Palermo : establish a culture of excellence. 'don't tolerate B players'
  • Steve Donie : bring new guys into a team room to absorb the culture
  • code reviews
    • code reviews as training, teaching, and learning
  • pairing
  • weed out people who won't change
  • make sure D players don't affect the entire team
  • use round table discussion to induce solution oriented conversation
  • create opportunities to have people speak up using markers at design discussions, encourage developers to lead discussion to minimize org-chart laden influence
    • Note: Provide additional writing materials for devs that are more introverted or do not like standups to record their thoughts. Will allow for them to write down their ideas and submit them and to be included.
  • developer-led training
  • celebrate little wins (adding testing, adding pairing etc) with legacy code and a difficult culture
  • Friday lunch and learn, brown bags
  • Roundtables and Code Reviews: focus on technology (don't make it personal) 

 

Pairing / Agile

 

  • when it makes sense.. which ends up being most of the time
  • 2 keyboards, 2 mice, on same computer
  • also can use remote pairing
  • stories translate into tasks
  • tasks are 1-2 days of work
  • label tasks as single or pairing
  • Jeff uses planning poker and fib sequence for estimating
  • change sitting arrangements to ensure constant flow of sharing
  • if no sharing, then hi-risk if person leaves or is sick
  • Steve Donie shared his macro on excel for agile burndown
  • strive to limit the burden on the developers for making timesheet / task management
  • Use Mountain Goat Software Project Planning Poker Cards: Linky

 

How to learn in small biz?

  • user groups
  • open source
  • blogs
  • volunteer for non-profits
  • Zach Young's virtual alt .net

 

Books Mentioned

 

Podcasts Mentioned

 

Other Valuable Links

 

Comments (3)

Ryan Riley said

at 6:44 pm on Apr 4, 2009

I like Jeffrey's point about establishing a culture of excellence. I don't know exactly what a "B" player is, but the fact that later "D" players are mentioned seems strange. Also, from all studies ever taken of team dynamics, the entire team <em>is always</em> affected by the weak players. Not tolerating such attitudes is really the only way to ensure strong teams.

I liked the opportunities for getting involved, though I was surprised a list of blogs was not also listed. CodeBetter.com and LosTechies.com are great places to start. I also recommend Twine.com for some really good bookmarks, notes, and discussions (see <a href="http://wizardsofsmart.net/uncategorized/for-those-of-you-not-already-enjoying" title="recommended Twines">my post on recommended Twines</a>; sorry for the mess as I'm cleaning up from the removal of Textile).

ericajanine said

at 2:04 pm on Apr 6, 2009

I also like Jeffrey's point about establishing a culture of excellence. I think tolerating a mediocre behavior does spread throughout a group and it does need to be addressed quickly and directly.

However, I disagree with public admonition of a non-performer for the sake of 'letting the team know what will not be tolerated' overall. I think Hell's Kitchen approaches may cause immediate return on behavior improvement, but, in my experience, it also shows the members of a group how much you really don't respect them individually. Long term, I believe and I've seen where that is destructive.

Cedric Yao said

at 9:32 pm on Apr 6, 2009

Just some food for thought. This culture of excellence was preached and bragged about when I worked at Enron. They had a quarterly grading system where if you scored below a "C" in two consecutive quarters you were let go. While personally, I agree with a culture of excellence in the workplace, I think it has to be balanced by highly moral and an even greater standard of excellence in the leadership.

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