Building a development culture
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The document discusses the importance of social media tools in enhancing collaboration among software development teams, which often face challenges due to the personalities of team members. It emphasizes the need for balanced team profiles measured by the DISC model and highlights the benefits of using various online tools to facilitate communication and problem-solving. The text also warns about potential pitfalls such as over-reliance on social media, HR policy violations, and the necessity for structured team-building approaches to foster trust and collaboration.
Building a development culture
- 1. Building a development culture Using social media tools for development collaboration
- 2. Why social media tools Collaboration on software projects improves both quality and productivity By their nature, software engineers, and QA tend to be less comfortable in collaborative environments By providing tools to enhance collaboration, companies will help their bottom line Social media tools assist technical users in overcoming comfort barriers
- 3. What makes a good development team? The DISC model for personality profiles The Skunkworks model for development team roles DISC profiles for each role, while not set in stone, tend to be good predictors of performance What makes a well rounded skunkworks style development team?
- 4. What is DISC D – Decision making or Leader/Follower I – Inspiration or the “Gift of gab” – social quotient S – The “worker bee” factor – how much you can tolerate doing the same thing repetitively C – Calculator mode – are you a detail person or a big picture person
- 5. How the scores work Everyone has the same total score Scores are allocated over DISC with some scores being positive, others negative There is NOTHING WRONG with a negative score – everyone has usually 2 positive and 2 negative scores Scores can be illustrated as a radar chart showing the score in each category, by role
- 6. A balanced team profile Lee - Samantha - Back Eloise - Design Helen - Customer manager John - QA Joe - PM end Developer engineer advocate D 6 3 5 3 6 2 I 7 2 7 2 1 6 S 1 6 2 3 4 7 C 2 7 3 6 7 4 sum 16 18 17 14 18 19 Inspiration Perfectionist Persuader Objective Thinker Investigator Agent
- 7. A well balanced team D 7 6 5 4 3 Lee - manager 2 John - QA 1 Joe - PM C 0 I Samantha - Back end Developer Eloise - Design engineer Helen - Customer advocate S
- 8. Unbalanced team profile Lee - Samantha - Eloise - Helen - manag John - Joe - Back end Design Customer er QA PM Developer engineer advocate D 6 3 3 3 3 3 I 7 2 2 2 2 2 S 1 6 6 3 3 3 C 2 7 7 6 6 6 sum 16 18 18 14 14 14 Inspira Perfecti Perfecti Objective Objective Objective tion onist onist Thinker Thinker Thinker
- 9. An unblanced team D 7 6 5 4 3 Lee - manager 2 John - QA 1 Joe - PM C 0 I Samantha - Back end Developer Eloise - Design engineer Helen - Customer advocate S
- 10. Good developer tendencies Developers and QA people tend to be Objective thinkers, investigators and perfectionists – All these personality types have low I scores – making socialization more difficult This proves the “geek factor” to some extent – people who are good at software development tend not to be as facile with their social skills.
- 11. Programmers hiring programmers dilemma When we hire programmers, we mostly hire for skills, not for personality profiles. A well rounded team is frequently not the goal – people tend to hire others like themselves, without a plan in place otherwise As a result programming teams – without outside intervention – tend to be less collaborative than other types of teams
- 12. How can social media tools help Technology geeks love their toys The very act of creative problem solving requires taking your mind off the problem from time to time Interacting with other like-minded team members introduces new perspectives on perplexing problems Development teams frequently find that interacting electronically is less distracting than face to face conversations
- 13. Teambuilding Companies spend thousands on “organized” team building activities Trust evolves not from an organized activity but from building personal relationships – if you care about what happens to someone else – you end up trusting them Being able to rely on a team member to respond to a suggestion or provide an alternative makes for the best teams
- 14. Specific tools Facebook/LinkedIn Use private groups and pages to communicate among the team Allow team members to participate without having to “friend” each other – but don’t discourage friending teammates From an HR perspective have policies in place to control the interaction between superiors and their employees.
- 15. Specific tools Wikis/Microsoft OneNote/Sharepoint/Microsoft Teams Create centralized repositories for notes, project progress updates, etc. Open editing allows members to contribute at their own level of comfort Create standards for reporting various types of things Weekly standup meetings to review blockages Use Wiki-like tools to track specs and scope
- 16. Specific tools Instant messaging Yes I know that your employees frequently sit side by side Yes I know it seems silly to provide them with secure instant messaging OTOH – allows quick and easy exchange of info, questions, and is semi-interrupt driven (IE you can respond when you have time) Encourages interaction, overcoming the “cube boundaries”
- 17. Specific tools Cloud or locally based shared document repositories Sharepoint, google docs, office365 – all provide a way for documents to be shared among a number of users Document sharing makes information accessible to all
- 18. Specific tools Linked in groups Allow professionals to interact together to solve problems Many programmers motivated by “geek one-upmanship” - allowing them to crow about achievements improves morale International interaction improves the caliber of your employees, and the reputation of your company.
- 19. Specific tools Twitter/G+ - Short message tools allow “crowd-sourcing” answers Providing answers to questions online improves your companies reputation and used properly can become a source of leads A programmer is only as powerful as the network they can leverage when they need an answer Why reinvent the wheel when someone else has invented it.
- 20. “old” tools Search and forums Search makes forums so much more useful Forums allow “niche” users to discuss specific issues in an environment filled with only other niche users Finding the answers to problems and helping debug thorny issues is especially effective if you can target the correct forum
- 21. Dangers and pitfalls Social media time sink – how much is too much? HR policy violations – when are you mixing work and home too much Monitoring your reputation online Creating private workspaces and keeping them private
- 22. OS-Cubed can help Provide personality profile analysis Full 360 degree team assessment Help and advice on setting up productivity and social tools Gather professionals in HR to assist in policy Coaching, goal setting, agile implementations
- 23. OS-Cubed contact info www.os-cubed.com Lee Drake: ldrake@os-cubed.com
Editor's Notes
- #3: According tothe National Staff Development Council – providing tools to enhance social connections in users improves collaborationImproved collaboration also improves productivity results. http://www.learningforward.org/standards/collaborationskills.cfm