Managing developers has a lot in common with managing anyone else. Most want a manager who will help them solve business problems, protect them from office politics, and help achieve their personal career goals. However, developers also require a few special management techniques to encourage their productivity.Zach Holman nails it:There are only two hard problems in computer science:1. People— Zach Holman (@holman)At GitPrime, we want to help you be great at managing software development teams, which means knowing how to lead a technical team effectively. Here are seven tips specific to managing a team of software engineers: 1. Allow Developers to Do Their JobsOne of the most common desires among developers is a manager who will and trust they’ll get their work done.
Allow developers to write code – they love doing it.You just need to find a way for developers to do this in a way that benefits the company.Part of trusting is giving developers time to think outside of coding. By giving developers an opportunity to develop solutions on their own will help them to stay creative. Handle Non-development WorkActivities that don’t involve writing code are. Your most important job for many developers is to protect them from time sinks such as non-technical meetings and administrative paperwork.Developers want a manager to provide them with a list of prioritized tasks with meaningful priorities. No developer enjoys an unrealistic deadline, and one of the only ways to mitigate this is to really drill out requirements beforehand. Be militant about good requirements.
It’s the only way to truly understand the scope and manage expectations around deliverable dates in a way that’s reasonable. When deliverables are significantly different from expectations, this creates operational load. The best time to solve this is by investing effort up front and making sure stakeholders are asking for work in a responsible way. Listen and RespondNo matter how well you think you may have communicated the specifications, developers will still have questions. Development is an iterative process.This is another place where upfront effort pays dividends: once you’ve gathered requirements that make sense, get developers involved before starting work. Engineers should have the opportunity to critique, extend, or outright reject the requirements if they don’t make sense.Once work has started, the same logic applies: the best requirements are essentially a sort of living document which evolves during development. Just as “no battle plan survives first contact with the enemy,” no set of requirements should be expected to survive implementation without a little bit of flex.
Encourage ProgressThe best developers are continually trying to improve their skills. The most successful managers facilitate growth. To do this, find one specific, actionable thing for them to focus on.That might sound like: “Focus on breaking your work into smaller pieces,” or, “I’d like to see you step up and take on more refactoring legacy code.”Use a personal development plan to suggest areas of research the developer can conduct during downtime. Taking an interest in your engineers’ professional development will help you refine your technical direction, ultimately benefiting your company. Offer guidance for their projects, even when it isn’t directly related to their work.
Emphasize Quality over QuantityAn inexperienced manager may believe that throwing more developers on a project will increase productivity. This practice is since new developers will slow down development until they get up to speed on a project.A better solution to improving your developers’ productivity is to reorganize your team to perform small tasks, typically those that can be done within a few days or week. Assign each team member specific roles such as coding, testing and implementation. Ensure that the developers in each team have a variety of experience levels, including journeymen, mid-level, and senior developers. Review the Right MetricsPerformance reviews provide the most appropriate opportunity to measure a developer’s performance. However, it’s vital to select only those metrics that are applicable, as many managers collect all available metrics just to show that the project is still under development. Check out our for more information on the best metrics to use in periodic feedback.Ask a developer directly about the problems they see in the project and the metrics they believe best reflect the project’s actual status.
Review the project’s open tickets on a weekly basis, but don’t focus solely on closing them out. It may be better to leave a ticket open for a while to ensure the associated bug fix. Avoid Task SwitchingMany jobs require multi-tasking, but this practice is a detriment to effective software development. Your team spends their attention juggling tedious conceptual problems in their head. Any disruption to this comes at a tremendous cost—one untimely interruption could set someone back half a day.Context switching is expensive and the cognitive overload from multi-tasking results in poor performance. When working on multiple projects, some managers require their developers to work on one project in the morning and another project in the afternoon. To handling multiple projects is often to redistribute your developers into small groups dedicated to a particular project.The key to retaining top developers is to treat them well and manage them fairly.
They’ll adjust if you miss one of the above points occasionally, but they’ll begin searching for better opportunities if you consistently miss one for too long.Do you have a management tip or two to share? We’d love to hear what has worked for you.
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One of the toughest tasks in project management is by far handling conflicts among team members. This is because for success of a project of any magnitude, staff cohesion is an integral factor. When members don’t like each other it is your role as a project leader to foster unity through team building.To do this effectively you need to appreciate basic types of conflicts that can develop during the project. These include:. Opposing points of views: Everyone is entitled to an opinion but there are members who are unable to compromise leading to toxic relationships in the team.
Dealing With Teammates That Don't Work As A Team Software Engineering Free
Clashing personalities: Some members never seem to get along especially when they are supposed to share accolades. In highly specialized professions such as running software projects, you can expect clashing personalities, which must be resolved. Emotional outbursts: Based on how your team members relate, there might be tension simmering under the surface due to various reasons. These can lead to outbursts that can ruin your project.Other reasons why members will dislike each other include limited resources, varying goals and expectations, attitudes of members, interdependency and increased interaction among others. The Importance of Team ChemistryIn a seminal study published in their book argue that team building is one of the major roles for you as the leader. It is your duty to ensure that despite existence of rivalry your juniors work together to achieve the same goals and objectives.The main goal of team building is to make these members know each other well enough in order to work cohesively even though they may not like each other. Achieving harmony or team chemistry according to a study by can be done through a double-pronged general approach:.
Assigning team members with the right competencies to carry out tasks where their skills are most applicable. Ensuring everyone works together to achieve synergies.In essence, you might have a team of highly qualified individuals but if their skills are not applied in the right tasks there will always be lack of team chemistry.
Unproductive conflicts are the first step in an avalanche of missteps that will ultimately consign your project to oblivion. Toxic Working EnvironmentWhen your team members don’t get along the entire project is in jeopardy, which again highlights the need for enhanced team functionality. A toxic working environment develops gradually when simmering tensions between members are allowed to grow. In such a situation, members will insubordinate each other in their small battles, which will eventually bring down the whole team.If you don’t resolve conflict early enough you will be facing failure directly on. Furthermore, it is impossible to meet deadlines when members are keen to sabotage each other without recognizing the fact that they are jeopardizing the entire project.Also, it’s important to consider that a toxic environment directly impacts the morale of other members. Their motivation to work diligently to achieve success will be diminished, which again reduces productivity. Dealing with Conflicts Among Team MembersAn effective team leader should be able to mediate and resolve any type of conflict before it exacerbates to a point of compromising the project.
In a situation where you are dealing with highly skilled individuals, conflict is inevitable but then again there are techniques of dealing with it. Here are tips on how to handle team members’ conflict: 1. Acknowledge the ConflictAs a team leader you need to constantly feel the pulse of the project in order to recognize tension early enough. In most cases, staff members will rarely report to your office especially where emotional issues are involved in a conflict. It is up to you to be on the lookout and face conflict head-on to avoid anger build up over time.
Leverage Constant CommunicationThere is no denying the impact of communication in keeping things calm and smooth in the office. Regular meetings and briefings can be used effectively to sort things out and also reemphasize a project’s goals. During these meetings it is important to allow free sharing of ideas without victimization. Clarify Goals and RolesAs a project proceeds and deadlines loom, there will be tension among members and this can lead to personal conflict.
How to change gmod spray. May 23, 2017 For instance I will be using this image as an example. Since the image is a static format such as.jpg or.png you will need to go to the website www.imgur.com and click the big green button at the top named 'New Post' and paste in the link of the image. Now right click on the image and press 'Open image in new tab'. Dec 24, 2004 For Garry's Mod on the PC, a GameFAQs Answers question titled 'How do you spray your symbol thingy?' Jun 29, 2013 A small tutorial on how to get your own image as a spray in Garry's Mod. If you have any further questions, don't hesitate to fire away in the comments. Jan 17, 2013 A lot of people are saying that they are not able to put a spray in the game after by doing what you suppose to do above. This is due to the server variables not allowing sprays to be imported by users. You may need to go on another server that does allow sprays. 'G' is the default key to spray. After creating your own GMod spray, you will be able to place a picture on the walls of the Garry's Mod, or GMod, map you are currently playing on. Every game that uses the Source engine from Valve Corporation, such as Half-Life, Team Fortress 2 or GMod, allows players to import custom spray.
When you note a problem between two or more members it is time to call a meeting and reemphasize the need for everyone to cool off and work together. This reduces tension and helps everyone relax. Listen ActivelyAn effective leader must be a keen listener. When a problem is reported to you make sure you listen actively to all parties involved. Talk to each member alone and then call all parties together in order to come up with a consensus on the way forward. Act on the ConflictIn order to create an enabling work environment, it is important to act on conflict when it arises.
However, before acting you need to consider the action you will take and the affects it may cause for future relationships in your team. The best action must:. Help people change and. Increase input of these affected by the conflict.
Give a workable solutionAt times you will have to compromise and reassign a member to another area of the project if you realize they can’t work with others. More importantly, you must ensure affected members are fully involved in resolving the issues between themselves.It is also crucial to avoid falling into group thinking only to appease the larger number in the team because an affected party will feel spited and can even sabotage the project. Other factors to consider when coming with a way forward include:.
Make compromise a goal. Need for openness and honesty as the leader. Focusing on actionable solutions. Encouraging different points of view. Demonstrating respect for members who don’t get along.Final WordIt is not easy to handle team members who don’t get along in a project but using these tips it is easy to nip the conflict in the butt. The most important fact to remember is that conflicts are inevitable as everyone has a unique personality. When these personalities clash there might be issues that will make your members hate each other.
However, through open conflict solving, communication and participatory solutions to mend tensions your team will become a cohesive unit once again and enjoy.How do you resolve conflicts in your team?Let us know in the comments below.Image.
One of the hardest parts of any job is working with difficult people. No matter how much we wish they would just change and make our lives easier, that’s just not the most effective strategy for getting things done in the face of a difficult coworker.Last time, we tackled. This time, it’s your pesky peers. What can you do when someone on your team is making it difficult for you to succeed?gndivider top=”0″We’ve all had coworkers we just could not get along with.Handling a difficult coworker can often feel even more challenging than dealing with a tough boss.
At least with your manager, you have a prescribed channel of communication and you each know where the other one stands. You likely have 1:1 meetings where you can communicate issues, and their role and your role and your whole work relationship are pretty strictly defined.With peers, there are no such rules.
Dealing With Teammates That Don't Work As A Team Software Engineering Video
Neither one of you is “in charge of” the other, and there’s no established space for you to discuss your issues, so when problems arise, it’s not clear how best to deal with them and still be professional. And unfortunately, problems with coworkers are all too common.Many people are difficult to work with – some intentionally so and some not – and it’s important for your career success and your general sense of well-being at work (where we spend so much time) that you be able to make these situations better. So what do you do if someone on your team is making is hard for you to succeed, or even do the basic functions of your job?The competitorI wrote a blog post recently about learning to, which is something I have struggled with in my own career. Unfortunately it’s very common at a lot of companies for people to see their immediate coworkers or teammates as their competition, which means that when you get the feeling someone is trying to make it harder for you to do your job, it may be because that’s exactly what they’re doing!Working in a competitive environment makes some people think it’s in their best interest to hold their peers back and make sure they always have the upper hand. When you’re trying to do your best work and make the whole team successful for the good of the company, it can be so frustrating to have to deal with someone who’s trying to keep you down. But here’s what you can do: Stay the course.As frustrating as it might be, you cannot retaliate with the same behavior in return.
It’s always best to continue doing your own great work and let their destructive behavior run its course than to try to fight fire with fire. Trying to undermine a team member usually takes so much time and energy that they can’t keep it up for long and keep contributing high-quality work, so just keep doing your best and try to be distracted by them as little as possible. “Kill ‘em with kindness.”It’s one of my favorite techniques for dealing with difficult people, which is a strategy I embraced from my friend. If you’ve got someone on your team who seems to always have a problem with you the best you can do is to spend time with them. Lots of time. While it may seem counterintuitive, if you go back to the analogy that, the only way to fix it is going to involve adding more frames to that filmstrip to make the bad frames less noticeable. Make a point not to avoid them, but to actually spend more time getting to know them.
Offer to help them with things, say a friendly “hello” every morning, ask them to eat lunch with you. Anything you can do to wiggle your way into their heart will help.If someone is a P-I-T-A (pain in the ass – for those not familiar with the acronym) chances are that it isn’t you, but them. Chances are they are acting out of fear, insecurity, or another emotion. So the key to really resolving the situation is to remove that emotion in their interactions with you. Spend time with them. Let me get to know you and see your motivations.
If you can make them feel safe and remove whatever emotions is causing them to act out, then you will be amazed at how your interactions can improve.It’s a lot harder to undermine or be competitive with someone you see as a friend, so do your best to make them see you as a friend (or as close as you can get!). The more they see you as a real person and someone who can help them succeed, the better off you’ll be.The un-team-playerPeers who don’t meet the expectations set for them can have a huge impact on their team and cause divisions and frustrations that make everyone less effective. Especially if you’re working on a group project where everyone is expected to contribute certain parts, it can be a huge problem for morale and productivity when someone either doesn’t do enough work or tries to do work for other people.Usually this problem stems from either simple miscommunication or more complicated feelings about team dynamics. As with most things, always try tackling the simple solution first:Make sure expectations are clear.When you’re dealing with someone who disrupts your team flow, its best to talk with them directly about expectations and how things will get done. You might learn that they were doing extra work or less work simply because they made incorrect assumptions about whose responsibilities were whose. A quick conversation can clarify what’s expected of everyone and make sure tasks are completed on time by the right people.That’s the ideal resolution to the situation. You may find, however, that they felt they needed to do extra work because they knew the rest of the team would mess it up, or that they felt like they weren’t getting due credit for their contributions so they gave up on trying to do anything.
When this is the case, there are some small actions you can take to bring them back onboard.Give credit whenever possible.If you have a coworker who’s slacking or showing off because they feel their regular work isn’t acknowledged, make sure to tell your manager (or theirs) about everyone’s contributions. If you’re in a position to call out great work in meetings, do that. Otherwise look for opportunities like status email’s that everyone on your team is included on to report awesome contributions by specific people. And you can always walk by their desk and tell them they did a good job too – most people don’t get enough praise at work.Stay connected to the whole team.It’s harder for people to do other people’s work or skip assignments if it’s made explicitly clear who’s doing what. Don’t be afraid to overdo it on discussing who is doing what on a project, or ask clarifying questions throughout the process to make sure responsibilities are clear. Resist the urge to just shut them out because they’re frustrating you; instead, be extra-communicative.
Better to be overly specific and have everything accomplished, than to be vague and have things not completed (or completed by two people).The bad attitudeBad coworkers don’t even have to be impacting your work to make it harder for you to do your job. Someone with a bad attitude – who’s passive-aggressive in meetings, complains about group work, or talks negatively about other people in the office – can make everyone on the team feel worse and be less productive.Don’t engage.Your parents probably told you the best way to deal with a bully was just to ignore them. Well that’s the case here too! If someone is gossiping about other team members or trying to start a conflict in a meeting, don’t give them what they’re looking for.
Divert negativity into productive conversations, and respond by asking them to get back on track or bring up a positive to focus on.Commiserating is one of the worst things you can do for your career, actually. Talking badly about others and joining the pity party only undermines the whole team. It is always better to take the high road and.Listen actively, and look for ways to help.Bad attitudes can bubble up when people feel they’re not being listened to or taken seriously by other people.
Star Wars Battlefront II is a video game created by Electronic Arts and developed by DICE, Motive Studios and Criterion Games. It was released on November 17, 2017. The game is a sequel to the 2015's Star Wars Battlefront and includes content from all three trilogies, and has three times as much.
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If you really listen to what someone’s saying (like if they say they’re not getting enough credit for work or they think a project isn’t going well) you can often glean to root of their problem – and you may be able to take steps to fix it. Big problems usually start as small ones, so pay attention to what started their issues and see if you can do anything to help alleviate their stress.Set limits.If you’ve got a complainer who always wants to spend lunch griping about the boss or who stays at your desk telling you about all the problems they’re having on the current project, you can be a compassionate listener but also let them know that’s not how you want to spend your time. We all need to vent sometimes. If it goes on too long, though, politely tell them you’ve got to get back to work or that you want to talk about something else.Should I tell my boss?When you have a problem or question at work, one of the fastest ways to handle it usually is to bring it to your leadership.
Unfortunately, doing this with a negative coworker almost never works the way you hope it will and should usually be avoided.A lot of coworker bad behavior is best left to itself or handled directly with the person. Taking performance issues to someone’s boss can appear a bit presumptuous, and may send the message that you think they’re not aware of problems on their own team. After all, you don’t know what’s going on in the mind of the boss.They may be completely aware of your coworker’s issues and – especially if they’re handling it tactfully – they may already be taking action to improve the situation by coaching or intervening with your coworker behind closed doors.But those reasons aside, good bosses will almost always reply with something along the lines of “Have you talked to them about it?” And you don’t want that answer to be no, so it is usually the best place to start. Most bosses want people to take control and handle their own problems, so show your mad leadership skills and take steps to rectify the situation.It’s different, of course, if a coworker is making your feel threatened or uncomfortable at work – you should always report situations that you think could get out of hand and affect workplace safety or people’s ability to get their jobs done.Whenever possible, though, do your best to repair the relationship and encourage good behavior on your own. You’ll be surprised how many situations can be resolved with a conversation or increased team communication.
Give it a try with your most difficult coworker this week, and let me know how it went in the comments! Hi Bambii, thanks for your comment!That is a tough situation, but I would suggest first connecting with that employee and seeing what their big goals are and what is motivating their actions. Sometimes all you have to do is ask, so it is good to start there. I would also try to help put this employee’s work in context of the bigger picture at the company; they are likely trying to do more managerial work because they want to have a more meaningful impact and don’t see their current assignments as vital.
If you can help that person see how their normal assignments really matter, though, they may devote more energy to completing them well.From there, just be sure you are clarifying roles and responsibilities regularly. Try to provide context and reasons whenever possible, so people understand what is and isn’t expected of them.Hope that helps! Hi Fred,Thanks for the comment! That sounds like a tricky situation at your work; without knowing more about it, though, it is a bit tricky to give advice. My suggestions would be: is it something you could talk to your boss about? There may be reasons/circumstances causing this behavior that you otherwise don’t have insight into, and you are right that stepping in yourself may not be the right move. I’d suggest trying to discuss it with your manager to see what may be causing it or what can be done.Good luck, and thanks again for the comment!
Kate is known as one of the top technology leaders and CTOs. Her technical background is in creating and operating large-scale web applications. Her focus has primarily rested on SaaS applications and big data.
She has extensive experience building and managing high-performance teams, and considers herself a fan of agile development practices and the lean startup movement. She is currently founding her own startup, popforms, but has held roles as developer, project manager, product manager, and people manager at great companies including Amazon and Microsoft. The last seven years she has been a VP of Engineering/CTO for companies like Moz, Decide (acquired by eBay), and Delve Networks (acquired by Limelight).Kate is a keynote speaker, and she is also the curator of the Technology and Leadership Newsletter (TLN - www.techleadershipnews.com) and has a personal blog at katemats.com.Personal Links.
Check out the official EngineeringStudents Discord!:This is a place for engineering students of any discipline to discuss study methods, get, get job search advice, and find a compassionate ear when you get a 40% on your midterm after studying all night.RULES.If the topic of your post is currently covered in one of the megathreads/stickied posts at the top of the page, please put your content as a comment there instead. Otherwise your post may get deleted. (Laptop questions belong in Simple Questions).Please do not trade pirated materials or ask for PDFs. Talking about the subject is fine, but do not actually share any links.Racism, sexism or any other kind of intolerance or discrimination will not be tolerated.Trolling, posts intentionally inciting conflict, personal attacks, and spam will be removed.Avoid posting blogspam, blog self-promotion, or personally monetized links. You can be an account with a website, but not a website with an account.When posting homework questions, follow the, otherwise your post is liable to be removed.No sexually explicit material. Do not post pornographic material.Meme posts are allowed only Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. Meme posts made outside this time will be removed.RESOURCESGeneralBest of ThreadsMathElectronicsProgrammingMechanics and MaterialsChemEngOther Subreddits.
This is a non-engineering class though many of us are in a STEM program of some sort.It's an online class, and the group project is a 10 page paper that is due the last week of term. Part of the grade is the paper itself, and another part of the grade is posting on the discussion board to coordinate and cooperate. Another piece is that we aren't permitted to 'simply divide up the sections'.
We must in some way all cooperate on all sections.A discussion with the professor revealed that doesn't mean we all must write a portion of each section, only that we must contribute in some way - suggest resources or topics or whatever.We had to elect a group leader, which was easy because only one person was at all interested in having that role. That person is not me. They (the leader) told everyone to write an outline for the introduction (which is to be 1 - 2 pages) given specific sections. I didn't complete that (because honestly, I could write the whole damn thing in the amount of time it takes to do the outline the way they wanted) and since there were only 4 sections for the intro anyway they assigned the others to each write a paragraph for the intro in one of the sections.
Since I didn't have a section for the intro, I set up the account online for us to collaborate on the paper and wrote a tutorial for how to request an invite and use the tool, as well as being available to provide direct individual assistance with any part of the tech stuff.That was 2 -3 weeks ago. One week ago I suggested that we do something different and everyone get their assignments for the entire paper so we could all be working on that. Also suggested that one person, instead of a writing assignment, be responsible for editing/proofreading and making sure all the paragraphs fit together to flow well and any repeated info is taken out and anything that was was required that is missing gets put back in, as well as organizing the appendix/references and double-checking citations. I know that takes more work/time than just doing one section, so said I'd be happy to take that on.The leader responded and nixed that idea, saying we need to all write parts of all the sections. However, they didn't do anything to move us forward from the Introduction. So now another week has passed - one paragraph of the intro is completed and another group member posted their notes (which includes plagiarized and uncited material).Everyone seems pretty apathetic about the whole thing and since half the grade is based on cooperating to complete the paper, it won't do much good to just write the damn thing myself.Any ideas, suggestions, kicks in the ass?TL:DR Apathetic unproductive team members on a group project are driving me nuts, and may result in the project not being completed and thus my grade suffering. That's normally how I handle similar situations - this time it's trickier because the professor looks in on our discussions and the collaborating folder - which has a viewable record of who does what.Honestly, I don't care who does what.
It's an assignment I'd love to do on my own because I think it'd be fun and interesting.I ended up emailing the prof and asking what the fuck he wants, given the situation. Except I worded it better.I think if leadership were on top of it, things would be fine. I think everyone is willing to do what they're told - just not taking any initiative on their own and the leader is having difficulty in that role.This could be an opportunity for me to learn how to encourage/support a supervisor in taking positive action. Actually, it would have been better for me to take that approach a couple weeks ago.Usually group things are fine. Occasionally there's awesome cooperation and camaraderie, often either I or whoever is bossier than I ends up leading and getting it done, and sometimes there's a Type A'er on board who ends up happily yet angrily doing all the work before anyone else gets past the first step lol.This is a group of mostly 'mature' students. Four of us are older than 25 and have jobs/kids/spouses and the other is a traditional student.
The traditional student is the leader. It could be that they find it intimidating to tell a bunch of old people what to do, especially old people who are content to do nothing until they're told.Now I'm deep into speculation lake and rambling.
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