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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04/07/2023 Ionel Condor – Lessons Learned in Agile Career Development
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” ? …
04/07/2023 Ionel Condor – Lessons Learned in Agile Career Development
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
04/07/2023 Ionel Condor – Lessons Learned in Agile Career Development
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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04/07/2023 Ionel Condor – Lessons Learned in Agile Career Development
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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04/07/2023 Ionel Condor – Lessons Learned in Agile Career Development
13A model of learning
Source: http://www.coderfriendly.com
04/07/2023 Ionel Condor – Lessons Learned in Agile Career Development
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
04/07/2023 Ionel Condor – Lessons Learned in Agile Career Development
15Examples, examples
04/07/2023 Ionel Condor – Lessons Learned in Agile Career Development
16Examples, examples
04/07/2023 Ionel Condor – Lessons Learned in Agile Career Development
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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Some book recommendations
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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Some book recommendations
Description of a complete job life
cycle
Good practices never gets old
A masterpiece !!! A must read !!!
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Some book recommendations
A strategy for planning and creating a successful
life in software development
How they work
Samples of elegant solutions
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Some book recommendations
Attitudes and techniques of a
software craftsmanship
Back to the basics
Wisdom from relevant people
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Some book recommendations
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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Some book recommendations
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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Some book recommendations
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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Some book recommendations
The right skills in the right place at
the right time
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Some book recommendations
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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