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The Human Dimension of Software Engineering

The Human Dimension of Software Engineering

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How to Lead Change, a Primer

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On Change

Leo Tolstoy famously said, “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.” Tolstoy’s words are true today as much as they were true in his time. Life in the 1800s was very different, but people were not.

Today’s tech industry, populated by smart people pushing hard to innovate one line of code at the time, is no exception. Intelligence comes with strong opinions and personalities. If you’ve worked in teams for a while, at some point, you probably wished that somebody could be more pleasant or reasonable. ... 

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Visualizing Company Culture And Cultural Change

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Company culture is an important parameter in the success of a business, especially in the tech space. It represents the environment and character where employees generate ideas and produce value. It is the personality of a company and it regulates the heartbeat of a functioning organization.

Despite our desire to be in control of our environment, we are often unable to do so. Many things occur naturally, pushed by forces governed by the result of a myriad of factors that are too complex to study, understand and predict. ... 

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How to Coach People Into Leadership Roles

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You Need a Balance of Doers And Leaders

Every software engineering team requires doers and leaders. In my experience, for every five or six doers, you need a leader.

Engineering teams with too many leaders tend to fight about direction, vision, and control; as a result, they get very little done. The work environment is crippled by turf wars and constant attempts to reach consensus. Whatever they ship, ships late and looks and feels bland and designed by committee. Thankfully, having too many leaders is not a common situation.

Engineering teams with too many doers can’t stay on track and spend much of their time in technical disagreements, sidetracks, distractions and misalignment problems. Everyone makes decisions in isolations, and chaos reigns. The resulting software products feel like a collection of features stuck together with no vision and significant integration and usability issues. ... 

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11 Top Responsibilities and 10 Common Mistakes of a Technical Leader

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On Leadership

Leadership is an art; this is not only a statement that I genuinely believe to be true, but it is also the title of an excellent book written by Max Depree. In his book, Depree gives us the following description of the responsibilities of a leader:

The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between, the leader is a servant.

These words echo in my mind quite often during the day. They have guided me time and time again when I felt unsure of how to add value. They also hold a profound message that can easily be missed: Reality doesn’t just “exist,” it is something that needs to be defined. ... 

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Interviewing Engineers, Patterns and Common Behaviors

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Interviewing engineers is a normal part of the life of a developer. Most software engineers sooner or later are asked to do it, but there is rarely any formal training that teaches them how to be effective interviewers.

Interviewing is an art; not everyone is good at it. With experience, you get better, and you start observing recurring patterns. In this post, I am going to describe some typical behavioral patterns you’ll encounter when interviewing engineers and some suggestions on how to interpret them. ... 

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