Notes to a Software Team Leader

Are you an architect? Scrum Master? team leader? project manager? If you are any of these, you will find that leadership, done right, is a very tough job. This book deals with the hard parts. Not with tools, but with people. Here is the manifesto that drives this book: For us as team leaders, the goal and the way we measure our work is the overall growth in skills of self-organization and self-maintenance in each member of our team and the team as a whole. To that end: • We accept that the team’s needs from us change continuously based on their skills for handling the current reality of work, so we embrace a continuously changing leadership style over a one-style-fits-all leadership approach. • We believe in challenging ourselves and our teams to always get better, so: • * We create slack time for the team to learn and be challenged. • * We embrace taking risks for our team over staying safe. • * We embrace fear and discomfort while learning new skills over keeping people within their comfort zone. • * We embrace experimentation as a constant practice over maintaining the status quo: • * With people • * With tools • * With processes • * With the environment • * We believe our core practice is leading people, not wielding machines, so: • * We embrace spending more time with our team than in meetings. • * We embrace treating software problems as people problems. • * We learn people skills and communication techniques. About the notes The second part of this book allows a peek into the minds of some of the best leaders, consultants, and managers as they give advice to a new team leader. Hear from Johanna Rothman, Kevlin Henney, Dan North, Uncle Bob Martin, and many others about the one thing they would like to teach you if you ever become a team leader, Scrum Master, project manager, or architect.

Table of Contents

Part I – Elastic Leadership
Chapter 1. Striving toward a Team Leader Manifesto
Chapter 2. Elastic Leadership

Part II – The Survival Phase
Chapter 3. Survival mode

Part III – The Learning Phase
Chapter 4. Learning to learn
Chapter 5. Commitment Language
Chapter 6. Growing People

Part IV – The Self-Organization Phase
Chapter 7. Use clearing meetings to advance self-organization
Chapter 8. Influence Patterns

Part V – Notes to a software team leader
Chapter 9. Feeding Back by Kevlin Henney
Chapter 10. Channel conflict into learning by Dan North
Chapter 11. It’s Probably Not a Technical Problem – Bill Walters
Chapter 12. Review the Code by Robert C. Martin (Uncle Bob)
Chapter 13. Document Your Air, Food, and Water by Travis Illig
Chapter 14. Appraisals and Agile Don’t Play Nicely by Gary Reynolds
Chapter 15. Leading Through Learning: The Responsibilities of a Team Leader by Cory Foy
Chapter 16. The Core Protocols Introduction by Yves Hanoulle
Chapter 17. Change your mind: your product is your team – Jose Ramón Diaz
Chapter 18. Leadership and the mature team by Mike Burrows
Chapter 19. Spread your workload – John Hill
Chapter 20. Making your team manage their own work – Lior Friedman
Chapter 21. Go see, ask why, show respect by Horia Slushanschi
Chapter 22. Keep Developers Happy, Reap High-Quality Work by Derek Slawson
Chapter 23. Stop Doing Their Work by Brian Dishaw
Chapter 24. Write code, but not too much by Patrick Kua
Chapter 25. Evolving from Manager to Leader by Tricia Broderick
Chapter 26. Affecting the pace of change by Tom Howlett
Chapter 27. Proximity Management by Jurgen Appelo
Chapter 28. Babel Fish by Gil Zilberfeld
Chapter 29. You are the Lead, Not the Know-It-All by Johanna Rothman
Chapter 30. Actions speak louder than words by Dan North
Chapter 31. Creating Team Trust – Johanna Rothman