Professional Development – 2019 – Week 3

Image Credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/54585499@N04/

Dates covered: January 14-20, 2019 (week 3 of 52)

Business

Customer Surveys Are No Substitute for Actually Talking to Customers (via Harvard Business Review)

The logistically simple approach to understanding customers is surveys; however, the quantity doesn’t match the quality of actually talking to customers. This article poses that the insight you’ll get by customer questions may run counter to what you know (or what surveys tell you). The sample size doesn’t need to be large either. Once you start hearing the same answers (e.g., about characteristics that are important to your customers), additional data points aren’t helpful.

Career

Return On Investment (ROI) as a community-involved software developer (via The Software Mentor)

Dan Oliver shares his experience of community involvement (and the flavors that comes in) and reflect on how that’s benefited his career. Personally, there’s a lot to unpack here. My suspicion is that many folks are looking for a blazed trail to follow to grant them success, safety, or whatever measure is important to them. Much of this sounds like the tail wagging the dog — “If I do these things, I’ll be ___,” rather than “Some people have ___ and they do these things.” Also, what works for everyone won’t work for you, and some of these areas (conference talks, blogging, etc.) are easy to get into but difficult to stand out; there’s probably a power law or Pareto distribution working against you.

The Difference Between Innovators and Entrepreneurs (via The Software Mentor)

My thoughts are that education (or vocational training in general) will have to shift to something else. There doesn’t seem to be any clear correlation between many of the variables as most people would like — technical skill, business skill, creativity. There have been companies seemingly lacking a key ingredient than end up being successful; likewise, there have been the right people with the right skills that have companies that flop. I agree that “resiliency, curiosity, agility, resourcefulness, pattern recognition” and a coaching mindset may be what’s next.

Engineering Management: The Pendulum or the Ladder (via Software Lead Weekly)

This is recommended reading for anyone entering (or better yet, considering entering) management from a technical track. It addresses some of the one-way streets and downsides that get omitted from similar write-ups. In short, if you’re not sure what your path is, maximize your options.

I Didn’t Want to Be a Manager Anymore—and the World Didn’t End (via Software Lead Weekly)

There are many hats to wear depending on where you are in your career and if you’re transitioning to another career. Let people know what you’re thinking and where you’d like to head — it takes time for those things to materialize. This post has several good questions for you to ask yourself so that you are continually heading in the right direction.

Communication

End-user Communications for Better IT (via Communication for Technologists skills path)

When crafting text, in-person presentations, or videos, you’ll be informing, instructing, persuading, or moving them. This course covers how to handle each of those styles in each of the media. The example used throughout the course is a company switching from Google Apps to Office 365 and the various types of communications required to make that successful. (Tip: Watch at 1.5x speed as the narrator speaks slowly.)

How to Debate Ideas Productively at Work (via Harvard Business Review)

For most, arguing is about winning, not finding the best solution.

  1. We’re all on the same team
  2. Keep it about facts, logic, and the topic at hand
  3. Don’t make it personal
  4. Be intellectually humble

Writing Better Technical Reports (via Communication for Technologists skills path)

A 1-hour course on the basic writing principles to consider when writing technical reports — audience considerations, word choice, sentence structure, document organization, use of style, management of jargon and ambiguity, and special considerations for electronic documents.

Culture

Why Open Secrets Exist in Organizations (via Harvard Business Review)

Sometimes there are problems that many know about but don’t speak up because of the bystander effect (e.g., Harvey Weinstein’s pattern of abuse was well-known to Hollywood insiders). This leads to diffusion of responsibility — i.e., someone else will do something about it. Leaders should tell employees to speak up and share opinions even if others have the same information

The Hard Truth about Innovative Cultures (via Harvard Business Review)

There’s too much in this article to cover all of the useful points in one paragraph. Typical traits of innovative companies need to be balanced — tolerance for failure with no tolerance for incompetence, willingness to experiment with discipline, psychologically safe with brutal candor, collaboration with individual accountability, flat but strong leadership. The article has many examples of each of those five areas, and some advice for leaders trying to build this culture in their companies.

Leadership

Leaders, doing what you’re good at hurts your team. (via Signal v Noise)

I value challenging/testing my held beliefs. This post says if you’re only doing the things you’re good at (your strengths), no one else can learn to do those things. That’s not a bad idea on its own; however, it does fall short in a few areas. It assumes those that would be doing the work you’re good at it would do well, which it may not because it doesn’t play to their strengths. (I actually saw this on my team last month!) It also assumes you can delegate that work to others and that you have other work you could be doing instead. (This doesn’t hold for me at my current position.) An interesting counter-argument to consider, nonetheless.

Make Sure Morale Doesn’t Suffer When a Favorite Team Member Leaves (via Harvard Business Review)

  • Show appreciation for the person leaving, no matter the circumstance
  • Answer questions with transparency and respect
  • Invest in the health of the team

Are Your High Expectations Hurting Your Team? (via Harvard Business Review)

Sometimes pushing people to be their best sets people to fail, which can have unintended side effects.

  • Check the standard you hold yourself to; look for narratives of inadequacy or not taking pride in your accomplishments
  • Watch for others losing their self-confidence; if they can never do anything right by you, they’ll stop trying
  • If you don’t have organizational resilience, people will be less inclined to take risks

Research: When Being Close to Your Employees Backfires (via Harvard Business Review)

Social exchange theory suggests that there’s a transactional nature between managers and employees. If there is a close, positive relationship, there may be more leeway on being responsive to certain activities that are urgent. The author isn’t proposing that managers be distant for continued short-term performance; the solution is to build rapport and solid relationships while managing expectations when different behavior is needed (e.g., urgent tasks).

Software development

How to Slow Down to Go Faster Than Ever in Software Development (via The Software Mentor)

The title summarizes the main point, and the article lists several things to consider as you choose your approach. A few things came to mind while reading…

  • What if our customer’s (or our own internally-driven) demand for speed and quality has become unsustainable? What if no amount of process/tooling/etc. will fix that?
  • About complete rewrites… What if it wasn’t a quality issue, but “the technology or thought process or tooling evolved” issue? Sometimes what got us here won’t get us there, and it’s not a quality problem.
  • Many of the approaches the author puts forth make sense if your team/organization owns most or all of the process. If your timelines, budget, or choice of tools is limited by forces outside your control, process tuning or culture shifts may not save you.
  • Personal note: My radar starts beeping when I see advice posts with “never” or “don’t”; our problems and their contexts are too complex to be reduced to binary decisions.

AgilePM (R) Project Management (via Understanding DevOps Path on Pluralsight)

This course’s presentation style is very different than other Pluralsight courses; it was probably purchased through some agreement with another company. This is “corporate Agile” and looks like a test-prep course for an Agile certification. Those already familiar with Agile software development probably won’t learn much, as the course seems geared toward business managers who need convincing that Agile is the way of the future. (Aside: I love process, but this Agile to an extreme that makes me question the content. One of the diagrams list 13 distinct roles!)

Technology

The Future of AI Will Be About Less Data, Not More (via Harvard Business Review)

Current AI is driven by bottom-up learning fed by large quantities of data, the acquisition of which is worrisome to consumers. Some different approaches are considering how robots can be enabled to make decisions with generalized examples (as humans do), training models based on experts instead of just raw data, codifying “common sense” principles (e.g., if I put my socks in a drawer, will they still be there tomorrow”, and using Gaussian processes to make bets with little prior experience.