Demos over deadlines

October 04, 2021

#57 – October 04, 2021

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As an engineer, I served on many teams: some very efficient and functional, some less so. One predictive factor in the health of the development teams was time pressure. Too much time pressure inevitably led to burnout, poor morale, poor employee retention, and poor team performance.

Many of us are paralyzed by the fear of having these awkward conversations. We actively avoid asking for feedback because it’s just so painful sometimes, and often we receive nonspecific, general feedback from others. I wrote a whole chapter in that book about feedback, because I so deeply want folks to learn how to deliver (and request!) better feedback at work.

Meanwhile, the value to the business depends on value to the customers, or to people or software who in turn provide value to customers. And when value comes as software, its magic is what it lets people do that they couldn’t otherwise.

When Julie Zhuo asked over 120,000 twitter followers about the best thing their manager had ever done for them, she got over 500 responses. We’ve categorised and analysed the replies, and the findings are great reminders of what our teams are really looking for from their managers.

A collection of codebase onboarding stories from real developers.

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