Who is worth following, and how do you know?

– Who is saying original things?
– Curators are still valuable as navigators
– People who rephrase and clarify can be valuable too
– similar problem to cites in academia

What non-tech skills make a team work well?  How can you encourage them?

– Some people seem to “smooth out” the team
– Can you self-disclose?
– Know when to trust
– Responsiveness

Having a concrete job offer vs deciding to wait for better?

– Are you finding your next job, or are you finding the last job you will ever have?
– Define “good enough”
– Know where you want to improve
– Will this job help you achieve a goal?
– Geography?
– Hiring bonus?
– research on glassdoor, etc

Organizational Antibodies

– Sometimes people resist change as a defensive measure
– Sometimes people are upset because their cheese is being moved
– Some antibodies are appropriate
– Governance is a common antibody to resist agile

Hiring senior vs jr developers

– Fresh blood
– fresh perspective
– can help in succession planning
– Give people responsibility then live with them.  Struggles and failure are great teaching and learning opportunities
– “Junior” is not “cheap”.

AgilePDX community building

– How do we build a community?
– Why do we build a community?
– networking
– meet outsiders
– movers & shakers vs watchers
– The “in” group is it’s own worst enemy.

Balancing Creators & Elaborators

– Code that shows an idea vs code that we can depend on
– Deleting code can be a great embellishment
– Pair a creator with an Elaborator, can enrich both
– TDD can help to creators to work together

Architecture and Culture

– Conway’s Law
– Can you use architecture to drive cultural change
– sometimes you need to hire a contractor who is expert in where you want to be

Working with allies outside of IT (HR, Facilities, etc)

– Go to them early, establish communication
– People don’t know everything that others do, don’t know how their needs impact other departments
(Facilities will have time & budgets, HR doesn’t realize how long it takes to do pert reviews, etc)
– See what other’s objectives are, see you your needs can help them achieve their objectives

How many reverts is too many?

– Be bold
– Knowledge emerges
– What moves you forward?
– What gets in your way?
– Tolerance of mistakes
– Maybe too many things are in flight
– responsiveness
– service recovery vs service consistency