yegor256 podcast

You can acquire a new team member by making a better offer. I mean money. But you can't keep them with money. To keep someone in the team, especially if this is a top performer, you need two things: 1) challenging tasks, and 2) objective appraisal. Both of them are only available to good and strong managers. Video is here: https://youtu.be/bRXaMOJMJYk

Just working for a product, creating a product, and making your customers happy doesn't mean being good. It only means being successful, rich, or effective. It's a pretty selfish strategy. If you consider yourself as a "good" person (whatever it means), you should think about giving something to the community, for free. The video is here: https://youtu.be/TM7RodFnRr4

Our special guest is Pim de Morree from https://corporate-rebels.com/ More about Pim: https://corporate-rebels.com/rebel/pim Twitter: https://twitter.com/pim_de_morree LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pimdemorree/ The video is here: https://youtu.be/VXbi5TXMsrY

If you outsource part of your software development project to a third-party, you may think that the best type of contract to sign is Fixed-Price: you set the scope, they promise the time and price, they deliver, you check the quality, and you pay. It sounds right, but in reality, it'll be a disaster. Instead, always sign Time&Material contracts: you tell them how much resources you need, they give...

It's your job as a manager in a software team — to identify wrong behavior and find ways to punish it. The best manager, of course, will configure the management system so that it will enforce the punishment. Average managers use guilt and emotions as tools for that. Bad managers are scared to even think about punishment. The video is here: https://youtu.be/2lyz-CRGBwk

Most of us are so scared now of the word "punishment" that all types of mistakes made by programmers remain unnoticed, very often. I believe, there are many types of mistakes that have to be punished. Everybody will win: the project, the people, and our customers. The video is here: https://youtu.be/zJ_PqlMcYcE

Many of us believe that competition is not something a software team may need. Moreover, competition may destroy a team killing morale and promoting conflicts. This may happen, but not because the competition is a bad idea, but due to the misconfiguration of its rules. The video is here: https://youtu.be/TyHCjKOFsBo

The video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2vUKqEgdys

Traditionally, you tell your team what needs to be done and then force them (or motivate) to do it. You basically try to make your plans their plans. It works sometimes in some industries, but doesn't work with us programmers: we are too spoiled and lazy. I suggest a better planning principle: you let your people decide how many awards they are going to earn and then build your plans on top of the...

Competition in a team works only if are ready to lose some part of your team, and very soon. If you don't want that to happen and your main objective is to keep the team intact and alive — competition will only do you a bad favor.

Video is here: https://youtu.be/nenmlYhNM50

Measuring the productivity of programmers to many of us seems like a dangerous process, which leads to a lack of value delivered. This is true, but only if you use the wrong metrics to do your measurements. Use the right ones and everything will be fine. Video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZcNHZ_FJco

Many management experts believe that competition kills collaboration and that's why a software team must not encourage their people to compete. Instead, they should collaborate and help each other. I don't see a contradiction here. Moreover, I don't think that a fully altruistic collaboration is at all possible and/or productive. I argue with Allen Holub in this video. The video is here: https://w...

It's a well-known "fact": best programmers are 30x times more effective than their average colleagues. How do you reward them? You pay them 30x salaries. Of course, you don't. However, they do deserve such a reward and won't work hard, if you don't give them something of this size. The only replacement of money is recognition, which you can give them only through fair competition. The video is her...

If there is no competition in your team, everybody will soon be interested in making deals and cheating. The only simple rule that may prevent this from happening: when I win, you lose. If such a rule exists there, your team members will always be interested in achieving more instead of compromising the system. The video is here: https://youtu.be/pgwVAaV0tRw

Shift-M podcast: https://www.yegor256.com/shift-m.html Allen Holub personal website: https://holub.com/ Allen's Twitter: https://twitter.com/allenholub Video is here: https://youtu.be/8OKdilyNOIg

I think there is a simple metric we all can use to understand who the minds of managers in teal organizations work. Just count the amount of message they send you every day and you will understand where you are standing compared to others in your team. No sarcasm. The video is here: https://youtu.be/TmAJPeM4UlE

Video is here: https://youtu.be/ECu4kXLYrD4

A famous book "Reinventing Organizations" suggests a new model of management, where people are not personally responsible for mistakes, but everybody altogether share responsibility and avoid hierarchies. I don't understand how this can work. It can't. Video is here: https://youtu.be/WZlIb5oxDBQ

If you are a teacher, a mentor, or a team leader, your job is not to give your people the final opinion about their results. This would be a terrible mistake. Instead, you should make sure they work for the market and the market evaluates their performance. Best team leaders know how to do that.

If we reward programmers for each pull request they merge or for each ticket they submit and we don't control the quality of PRs and tickets, what will happen? Nothing good. They will easily abuse the system and there will be tons of low-quality tickets and PRs (or classes, or lines of code). However, if we do have strong quality control, everything will be just great. Thus, when someone says that...

Most of us don't feel comfortable asking a manager for a raise. And it's only natural. I suggest you don't do it. Instead, you approach them with a question about the system your company has for promotion and salary increases. Moreover, you don't ask because you need this, but you ask because you care about others. Should work! :) The video is here: https://youtu.be/rvhI6m95Qxo

Video is here: https://youtu.be/5sTTHU0rJL8

We do code reviews in order to control the quality of code programmers write. However, the question is: how can we control the quality of the code review process? The only objective metric that comes to my mind is the frequency of rejections. If a reviewer rejects too little, there is something wrong with the process or the reviewer. The video is here: https://youtu.be/fbBotuMol6Q

They say that "collaboration" and "teamwork" are very important in software teams. I don't think so. I think that they are valued where the management and weak and information flow is chaotic. This is where you need collaboration. In perfect teams, people have individual tasks and personal appraisal of results. The video is here: https://youtu.be/7xeQLtDZLYQ