marcuscreo

This resonates with me so much!

The only thing that has worked for me to overcome my crippling fear of writing shitty blogs on the Internet, is to write more shitty blog posts.

I write every day, publish every day, send them to my email list, every day.

90% of them are crap. Next year I hope 80% of them will be crap. And so on.

I have also noticed that when I send a particularly crappy one, I don’t get a lot of unsubscribe or hate, because people just wait for the next one. I’m guessing the 3500 people on my list generally want to receive them, or they would leave.

Most of them are crappy in particular ways: two personal, too broad, too vague, too long, Too $hort, two philosophical, two tactical… You get the idea.

Publishing often allows me to try a wide variety of approaches, lengths, styles, tones, topics, without fear that I am doing “wrong.“

If you want to connect, drop me a line at marcus@marcusblankenship.com. Always happy to support a fellow writer.

I interviewed Michael Lopp a few months ago. You can watch it here. https://www.crowdcast.io/e/michael-lopp-engineering-culture

A few articles I've written on this topic:

1. https://hackernoon.com/the-wrong-section-of-the-bookstore-96...

2. https://hackernoon.com/the-real-work-of-software-management-...

3. https://hackernoon.com/i-started-wondering-if-being-a-team-l...

4. https://hackernoon.com/joyful-technical-leadership-6f4fb8bd7...

+100 on that book.

I've written hundreds of articles on this very topic - it can be a tough transition. #ShamelessPlug - Join my list to become as good a manager as you are a coder.

https://marcusblankenship.com/

Boy, you hit the nail on the head! I was really afraid folks would feel that I should know what they meant if I was a "real professional programmer", so it was tough for me to learn to push back. ;)

Ya, even 1 hours is better than answering in the moment.

No, agile doesn't. It's not a process problem, it's a people problem. People still overcommit in agile, or commit for the wrong reasons.

Learn not to answer in the moment, and commit to always give yourself time to think alone about the request and respond in 24 hours.

When you do that, you remove the immediate pressure to please the person with a YES answer.

You also give the (honest) impression that your answer has thought and weight behind it, and is the measured response of a professional.

Publish it, and post the URL! I want to read it!

First, you need to learn the skills and work of managing a software team. I just wrote about it here:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/real-work-management-marcus-b...

Second, the best thing you can do for your career is the hard work of turning your team of "mediocre programmers with broken culture" into something great. It's hard work, but it can be done, I promise. I write more about this as well at..

http://marcusblankenship.com/become-a-great-manager/

Not trying to toot my own horn here, but it is completely achievable.

Yes, that's what spawned my question. It's a great thread.

Great question! I just wrote an article on this very topic here...

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/real-work-management-marcus-b...

If you're looking for books, I recommend Johanna Rothman's "Behind Closed Doors" as a great book about leading software teams.

Good luck!

I suggest the book "Land of Lisp" It assumes no prior knowledge, and is a lot of fun to work through!

Check out what Brennan Dunn @ doubleyourfreelancingrate.com says about these topics, you'll find them useful.

PS - I'm not Brennan, and don't get any money from sending you over there.

Ah, true!

Hmm... what did you expect?

That sounds really smart. Even as an 11 person agency, we took on work which required 90% of our folks to participate, because we always wanted to do bigger things. Didn't really work out, as I may have mentioned. ;-)

Hmm, interesting point that there are people who prefer doing maintenance. I know of some large companies (PivotalLabs, Carbon Five) who avoid this problem by not doing maintenance, but there probably is a nice market niche for teams who love to do it.

I didn't know I was at that step until I'd had clients in "Phase 4" for a year or more, and one of them said, "I feel like I'm getting your left over hours". At that point I admitted she was, and suggested that I help find her another team to work with.

I think Patrick's advice is key here: plan for how you're going to handle it. You may not be at that step yet, but you will, I promise. Intentionally planning to handle it will prevent serving left-overs. ;-)

Thanks, Patrick. Great advice! You captured the essence of the deal perfectly, with all its subtleties. (the "dribs and drabs", etc.)

Thanks!

Wow, I haven't thought of Bill since I read "Hackers"...

In more formal organizations, leadership is connected to title, from a "Formal authority" perspective. I can't imagine trying to be great at both cutting code and managing coders, so for me making the choice was necessary.

I understand completely. I was actually quite sad at first, and it took me about 9 months to make the mental transition.

I also appreciated that being a Team Lead gave my design ideas a larger voice, and more credibility, than it had before. I spent time learning how to better sell my ideas, which ended up being a valuable skill as well.

I'm glad you found it useful!

Thanks, and Fixed! I wasn't intending to crowd-edit, but appreciate the feedback!

GabrielF00, err... thanks. I clearly rushed to publish too soon.. ;-(

Summary: If you're leading a development team, stop coding and focus on being a great boss!

Great point. When I was in IT, I said these things. Yet when I left there, I heard people complaining about getting these responses. I believe the chasm is great, and most non-IT folks feel 100% of the fault lies with IT.

;limasdfo;ijasd .asdfn

lol ;-)

Thanks. My next post is on the "Joy of Being Small". Most people have goals to get HUGE, but there's huge freedom in doing your startup as a "second job", and keeping it small. ;-)