Dead Sea Effect

As the CTO, I want us to get better at something. How? Do I need to hire an expert? If I cannot hire an expert, how do I make my team members better themselves. How do we improve talent throughout the organization? This session explores theories, stories and experiences.

User Stories

Mentoring/Coaching --someone was not a coder, this person wanted to learn and he ended up with a dev position -gave the book to someone and it worked well. another person read the same book and did not do well. must be intrinsic. --start slow - gave a java book, learned basic concepts, code reviews, small projects,

Worked with good people, hired awesome people, hired awesome interns

• Coaching and mentoring
• Need the right mindset

Hands Off Managers

• Doesn't tell you what to do
• Says he knew someone else who had a similar problem: try this...

Good interview questions

• What do you do to learn?
• What was the last tech book you read?

Relevant Reading

• Code complete
• Rapid development
• software as a profession. For example, you can't have engineer in your title unless you're licensed. Constructs - what different levels of engineers should be. 10-15% ever read a tech book, journal articles, conferences, speak at conferences, write an article,

Things we tried: Encourage systems thinking and architecture Risk analysis (think of each component in the system and what overall effect failure of that component would cause)

Don't hire better people. Hire someone with the ability to make someone better. But what if they can't do it themselves?

Org Pushing for Features -Didn't explore new ways -More about not being noticed -Just getting things done and not caring

Another Team was given more freedom - Did better

How do you define what "better" is?

Send people to other companies and learn processes. Send their developers to clients and to other companies and see how they work. -collect disaster stories, failure stats

==Characteristics Needed to Grow==

• Focus -
• Slack - You need to give your employee the freedom and access to change processes and make improvements.
• Belief - The person must be self motivated and believe
• Humility

Sometimes, people can have these three