We are often asked to argue for projects and headcount in terms of value to the business, while our most critical systems are often multiple degrees removed from a revenue stream. In this talk I will cover the best practices I have found that bridge the gap between how business leaders talk about value vs how software development teams tend to.
In this talk Michael will talk through lessons and tips he's learnt when working on a project that pushed him outside of his comfort zone, and how you can effectively utilise the skills and knowledge of those around you to build alignment when leading across a broad set of teams who are often using very different technologies.
In this talk, Hywel will discuss the skills needed as engineers progress on different career paths (both technical leadership and people management), and how they can be learned outside the ‘production environment’ of the team.
In my talk I will explain that this is generally a pretty bad idea; it won’t surface the best ideas and it doesn’t let more junior engineers develop their skills. Instead, I introduce some steps you can take to make sure that the idea adopted to solve a problem is the best idea available, even if you aren’t the one who came up with it. Perhaps counter-intuitively I will show how this increases your influence in your organisation and sets everyone up for success.
But as is often the case in business, priorities constantly shift and where you focus your efforts will too. So how do you strike the right balance between working on the technical direction of the business and those tasks that require you to put your leadership hat on?
