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A Tech Lead’s New Project Checklist

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Re: A Tech Lead’s New Project Checklist

#11

Post by nathancahill »

maxxxxx wrote: post #6
Domenic_S wrote: post #2

What’s the budget and the value proposition? should be #1. Projects without a clear purpose (happens way more than you might think) are sinking ships you've got to get away from.

I would add "Make sure every stakeholder has the same idea what the project will be". I have seen a lot of projects where once you talk to all stakeholders it becomes pretty clear that there is no shared understanding of what we are trying to achieve. Especially be wary of senior managers injecting their pet ideas.

This 1000 times. I can't tell you how often I've seen this happen. Many times it's at least a factor in failed projects.

Clues this might be happening: senior managers pulling you aside to discuss their ideas for the project. Getting different questions on project updates than the goals you're building towards in scrum. Constantly changing short term goals.

Re: A Tech Lead’s New Project Checklist

#12

Post by anotherevan »

Unrelated minor rant: Pocket is hopeless when dealing with bullet points. It so often skips list items, especially if they have links in them. I understand that they are trying to avoid including navigation stuff, but overzealous way too often.

I wish I could integrate Instapaper with my Kobo ereader instead.

Re: A Tech Lead’s New Project Checklist

#13

Post by defen »

JackC wrote: post #8

"Understand the importance of the Trinity of delivery: Delivery manager, product owner, tech lead" I'm only familiar with teams too small to have separate roles like this. How does good software planning scale down to smaller teams -- say 5 or 10 people in the whole organization? Ultimately someone has to be responsible for the same concerns, but I wonder how it maps. In general I'd love to see a comparison of softwa…

"Delivery manager" is basically how people say "project manager" now. Their job is to set priorities, triage incoming issues, make sure everyone knows what everyone else is doing (when relevant); coordinate with third parties or external integrations, etc. Product owner is who you're building the product for - in client services it would be your client; for internal projects it would be who is "driving" (more bizspeak) the project - could be the CEO or a marketing person or a VP or whatever. Tech Lead is responsible for making technical decisions, architecture, hopefully writing some code, etc.

Re: A Tech Lead’s New Project Checklist

#14

Post by strken »

throwme_1980 wrote: post #9

here is what i usually do: -identify weak people in the team with a stinky attitude, those who dont learn and are toxic, do your best to get rid of them. -next identify those mediocre people doing 9-5, maximise their output during those hours, don't give them no slack. -finally identify your super stars, cherish them, buy them coffee/lunch and give them a lot of slack. for this is a meritocracy, no damn Disneyland.

God forbid any of them gets home in time to eat dinner with their family! I can't think of anything worse than a sustainable work/life balance and employees who work the hours their contract specifies.

/s

Re: A Tech Lead’s New Project Checklist

#15

Post by okreallywtf »

throwme_1980 wrote: post #9

here is what i usually do: -identify weak people in the team with a stinky attitude, those who dont learn and are toxic, do your best to get rid of them. -next identify those mediocre people doing 9-5, maximise their output during those hours, don't give them no slack. -finally identify your super stars, cherish them, buy them coffee/lunch and give them a lot of slack. for this is a meritocracy, no damn Disneyland.

How do you identify superstars? Do you look at their code or do you simply see the UI when its done? I've seen a couple superstars/JS ninjas that produced unmaintainable crap, but a lot of it, and it took actually looking at their code to see why. They didn't last.

Re: A Tech Lead’s New Project Checklist

#16

Post by maxxxxx »

throwme_1980 wrote: post #9

here is what i usually do: -identify weak people in the team with a stinky attitude, those who dont learn and are toxic, do your best to get rid of them. -next identify those mediocre people doing 9-5, maximise their output during those hours, don't give them no slack. -finally identify your super stars, cherish them, buy them coffee/lunch and give them a lot of slack. for this is a meritocracy, no damn Disneyland.

You seem like a nice guy to work with :)

Re: A Tech Lead’s New Project Checklist

#17

Post by mason55 »

Domenic_S wrote: post #2

What’s the budget and the value proposition? should be #1. Projects without a clear purpose (happens way more than you might think) are sinking ships you've got to get away from.

Super important even if you're doing client based work (whether pure custom development or customizations on top of a platform).

Your customers will each have their own individual pet features that they care about but if you don't drive to business value (meaning you just build whatever random shit the client tells your build) then it will be a failure 100% of the time.

Re: A Tech Lead’s New Project Checklist

#19

Post by TheCowboy »

throwme_1980 wrote: post #9

here is what i usually do: -identify weak people in the team with a stinky attitude, those who dont learn and are toxic, do your best to get rid of them. -next identify those mediocre people doing 9-5, maximise their output during those hours, don't give them no slack. -finally identify your super stars, cherish them, buy them coffee/lunch and give them a lot of slack. for this is a meritocracy, no damn Disneyland.

You might feel like you're providing harsh yet practical advice, but you're not explaining your reasoning which is why you're getting downvoted. If you forced yourself to explain your ideas you might discover some aren't as concrete as you think, and you might strengthen some ideas that work. Posts like this have a "I have it all figured out" attitude that I would argue indicates a lack of interest in learning, and I don't think that's what you want.

Re: A Tech Lead’s New Project Checklist

#20

Post by ryandrake »

JackC wrote: post #8

"Understand the importance of the Trinity of delivery: Delivery manager, product owner, tech lead" I'm only familiar with teams too small to have separate roles like this. How does good software planning scale down to smaller teams -- say 5 or 10 people in the whole organization? Ultimately someone has to be responsible for the same concerns, but I wonder how it maps. In general I'd love to see a comparison of softwa…

They forgot QA lead. I know it's currently posh in some companies to do away with QA (YOLO software development methodology?). I've found successful software delivery without a strong QA lead on equal footing as the tech lead and PM/PJM is a recipe for disaster. QA is often the only source of truth that you can rely on when you want an accurate assessment of where things stand.
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