Ionel Condor - Lessons Learned in Agile Career Development

Lessons

Learned In

Agile Career

Development

Ionel D. CONDOR

Engineering Manager

@SDL, Cluj-Napoca

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04/07/2023 Ionel Condor – Lessons Learned in Agile Career Development

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Agenda

• About me• The story• Career Development – where we are, how we

arrived here• Setting the stage for Career Development• A model of learning • Dilemmas and false friends along the way • Examples, examples, more examples • Accountability & Metrics • Reading recommendations

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3About me

• Started to work in 1998 as a Jr Developer • Continued my Dev Career as Sr Dev, later

as a Lead• Switched to a Jr Project Manager position

and later Jr Dev Manager • Continued as a Mid Dev Manager …and

the journey continues…(to a Sr Manager?, back to Dev?, back to Project Management?)

• Married, 1 daughter

• My Career? Your Career?

The story 4

Source: http://getcareerlinks.blogspot.co.uk

Ionel Condor – Lessons Learned in Agile Career Development

5Career Development – where we are, how we arrived here

• No career development; we pay you to work

• It’s not my job as your Manager, better ask HR ….

• Yes, but only on soft skills; technical career? …you have Internet and you have free access to our (e)library

• One plain rigid career development for all

• Where you will be in 10 years if you stay with “us” ? …


6Career Development – where we are, how we arrived here

• Individual or group pattern career plan, but no one to measure and give feedback and follow up

• “We are Agile, so you need to be Agile ”… No more Career Paths (see Craig Larman)

• “There Is No Career Ladder” – a recent HBR

• “Career Plans Are Dangerous” – an even more recent HBR

http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/02/there_is_no_career_ladder.html

http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/02/there_is_no_career_ladder.html

http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/03/career_plans_are_dangerous.html




7Setting the stage for Career Development

Setting the stage for Career Development

Factors for success: •Drive & Passion•Leadership•Networking• Integrity•Luck & Timing• Intellect•Taking risks•Planning

Inhibitors: •Lack of belief in self•Fear of Risk•Poor Communication•Procrastination •Lack of passion •Greed and ego

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9A model of learning

NoviceNeeds recipes , monitoring and first successes

Advanced BeginnerNeeds simple, controlled simulations

Competent Needs real world exposure, Process Oriented

Proficient Needs unhindered practice and the big general picture, System Oriented

ExpertNeeds to be put in a context that favors his intuition and creativity

Dreyfus modelA model of skill acquisition

So you want to be an expert…

BAD NEWSYou need to budget 10 years of effort in the same subject area AND practice in an environment where: - Tasks are well defined (for your level of expertise)- Tasks are challenging & doable - The environment (context) gives you feedback that you

can use- The environment provides opportunities for repetition and

correction

GOOD NEWSOnce you become an expert in one field, it becomes much easier to gain experience in another (acquisition skills, model-building abilities

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Recommendations for Developers/Testers 11

1. Winners do not carry losers

2. Keep practice: “if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall!”

3. Watch out: Most people are and will remain as Advanced Beginners

4. Skills and abilities we constantly use/practice will begin to dominate and more of our brain will become wired for these purposes

5. “use it or loose it”: want to be a better task estimator? Practice more task estimations and retrospectives

Recommendations for Managers

1. Favor rules for Novices and Intuition plus Creativity for Experts

2. Do not create general rules and ask the experts to follow them, so do not alienate experienced practitioners in favor of novices

3. There is no substitute (rule, tool, standard, methodology) for thinking and communication

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13A model of learning

Source: http://www.coderfriendly.com


14Dilemmas and false friends along the way

• specialist/generalist• architect/manager/project manager/business roles • Peter’s principle• layer vs feature• career aspirations vs skills forecasting

• career path anti patterns: sheep dip, time constraints, lack of smart objectives, lack of coaches and mentors, inadequate learning, inadequate reading, memory/brain bugs , risk vs benefits


15Examples, examples


16Examples, examples


17Accountability and metrics

Accountability and metrics 18

Accountability and metrics

• Does your company offer you also the time to study ? Should it ?–Monday morning

we work, but the project is called “Career Plan”

– Friday in the afternoon we work, but the project is called “Ad-hoc

presentations”

• Are you doing your part ? 40-20 rule

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Accountability and metrics• Every day: thousands of new books available to our Engineers, practically we can

provide anything they ask for their training, in a legal way• New hire: assign a coach and encourage to find a mentor

• Weekly: Study group/self-study every Monday morning; mandatory• Weekly: Self study or open sessions (ad-hoc subjects) every Friday evening• Weekly: Group of ….

• Monthly: Technical presentations – tech & findings in our projects• Monthly: Enlightening talk and a session of pair programming (usually one of the

Monday morning)

• 3- 6 months: Review all our career plans, re-evaluate, re-start • 3-6 months: Identify/review key areas where we need to grow our staff, on both

Generalist path and Specialist path• 6-12 months: Identify Coaches in each area (es. Performance testing, UI Dev,

Messaging, etc, etc)

• Yearly: Certification plan & Fundamental skills for Jr/Mids• Yearly: Grow tech skills for Mid/Sr/leads – conferences, leadership trainings

• Decide & Inspect & Adapt

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Recomandations• Books• Podcasts

• User Groups• Public or Private/In house Conferences • RSS Readers for Blogs • Group study / group presentations / group

practice • Daily Code Kata s • It’s about….. THE JOURNEY

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Some book recommendations

Change Management

Being effective in attaining goals

Good teams

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move that tasks out of the your mind by

recording it externally

Good Development Style never gets old

The big picture of Software

Development

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Description of a complete job life

cycle

Good practices never gets old

A masterpiece !!! A must read !!!

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A strategy for planning and creating a successful

life in software development

How they work

Samples of elegant solutions

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Attitudes and techniques of a

software craftsmanship

Back to the basics

Wisdom from relevant people

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If you have need of changing your organization

How to prioritize, organize and act

Learn how the brain learns and learn

how to learn

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Technical wisdom

A good one to read in a vacation with plenty of time

If you are no more an apprentice then you will learn how to be a

master and validate your advices according to this book

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So you decided to move to management …OK, this is the first book you need

to read

How brain works and why you need to sleep …for

general audience

If you feel you need and can change your org but

not sure about the patterns

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The right skills in the right place at

the right time

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Interviews with Experts

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A Good Career 32

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Thank you!

Blog: http://ionelcondor.wordpress.com/

Twitter: @ionel_condorhttps://twitter.com/#!/ionel_condor

Email: [email protected]

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