Collaborate, reflect, and turn up the good — developer advice from Woody Zuill
Build trust to create collaboration for your team
“Developers are all introverts. There is no way to get them to work together.”
This is still a popular belief.
Yes, developers can be shy. There are ways to get them to come out of their shell.
Woody Zuill is best known for Mob Programming. Similar to pair programming with more people.
Asking him about developer habits he went to collaboration first.
Collaboration
I’d say my most useful programming habit is to collaborate and to become an expert at collaboration. Become a team member everyone wishes to be working with.
Not a surprise to those who know Woody. He is a gentle guide who helps teams work together.
Part of the success of Mob Programming can be attributed to his kind demeanor. He is the “Mr. Rogers of Programmers”.
Safety
Part of good collaboration is safety. Psychological safety to be exact. This is a big topic. Here is a nice definition from the Center for Creative Leadership.
Psychological safety is the belief that you won’t be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes.
Many teams create norms to facilitate safety. For instance, they spell out how they would handle conflict.
Take some time to foster a safe environment. Your team will be enhanced.
Team Player
In Patrick Lencioni’s book The Ideal Team Player he outlines three virtues. They are humble, smart, and hungry.
A humble is a person that focuses on the team instead of themself.
In this case, smart is referring to working with people. Similar to having a high Emotional Intelligence or EQ.
Hungry people want to learn more and give more.
These are the types of people Woody wants to work with. Not people who only care about their contribution.
Retrospect
Working on agile teams has taught me the importance of reflection. Taking a pause. Asking how is it going. Similar to the retrospective. Woody asks us to do the same.
The second is to do frequent retrospectives (at least daily). In my daily retrospectives, I focus on “turning up the good”. We ask: What went well today, and how can we get more of that tomorrow? Literally, how can we get more of that the very next day?
Don’t rush to the next day until you learn the lessons from today. My son’s basketball coach is fond of saying, “Don’t lose the game and the lesson.” We don’t want history to repeat itself.
Turn it up
When Woody says to turn up the good I think of Nigel Tufnel. In This is Spinal Tap he shares how their amplifiers go to 11.
Think of ways to amplify your teams' greatness. Help them do more. Perhaps that might be removing roadblocks.
Reflect
Time for team reflection in a retrospective is helpful. Do the same on an individual level too. Consider your level of collaboration.
“All men’s miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone.” –Blaise Pascal
I find journaling helpful for this. Take time and run through some journaling prompts.
Woody’s advice is timeless. Teams need to focus on collaboration. That is the secret sauce of groups.
Turn up the good on your team. Periodically inspect with a retrospective. Your team will thank you!