People The Missing Ingredient

People, The Missing Ingredient

Joe O'Brien @objo

Introduction

People, Process, Technology

People are more important!

I've never seen a project succeed for technical reason.
Its always the people on the project that make it or break it.

Pay attention to your brain! Break it down and understand it.

People Patterns

Read the Pragmatic Programmer one chapter at a time
No more than a chapter a week
Digest!

People Patterns are a series of solutions that can be applied:

1. Conversation Rolodex

   Meet twenty new people you've never met before
   To be successful at this, keep a set of conversation starters in your Conversation Rolodex

   Have another question! Always be interested in their answers.

2. Voices In Your Head: They Don't Go Away

   Psychological protection mechanisms
   Brain puts up barriers to make sure you don't get hurt
   Don't listen to the voices
   Once you get passed them, you'll be successful

3. What Do They See?

   Purposely pick a different angle to your own opinions

   Arguments and conflicts almost always come down to what you see

   Understand what other people are seeing at that moment

4. The Three Realities

   1. One you see
   2. The one he/she sees
   3. Actual reality

   With reflection, you can see the actual reality
   Remove your cognitive biases
   Look without emotion

5. Listen Without Agenda

   Accomplish The Three Realities by Listening Without Agenda

   Everyone has an agenda
   Your brain is always going and not allowing you to listen

6. Reveal Bad News Quickly

   Bad news is an acid that sits on your brain

   "Project is delayed because we forgot to implement a key component"

   What do you do? We sit and digest and try to fix.

   We never think about corollary and just get it out there!

   Agile development exists to catch mistakes early!

   Take ownership of a mistake

   Good news:

   • Weight will be lifted when Bad News is released
   • PM won't be happy if you sit on the news
   • Sitting on problem says you don't trust other stakeholders to help/fix

   Always close the loop!
   Make sure to communicate you've finished

7. Consistent Uncompromising Honesty

   Absolutely no reason to be dishonest

8. Listen Between The Lines

   "How is George doing?"

9. Positivity Moves Forward

   Two most important words from Improv:

   1. Yes
   2. And

   Understand that people can have ideas that might be different

10. Assume The Positive

Always be an optimist!

Pessimism is a defense mechanism

Things move forward faster when you believe a situation will be positive

Coming into a transaction with a negative outlook pollutes transaction