Category: leadership

"Is everything OK for you?" - the question you should never ask your developers

August 14, 2008 by Przemysław Bielicki

picture courtesy of xurble@Flickr

I've talked with my friend recently and he complained about his team leader (actually he was explaining me why his team leader sucks). It's not about her personality or attitude but my friend's biggest complaint was questions his team leader asks him e.g.:

- Is everything OK for you?

Well... How can you answer this question. Is she asking about my private life, my development environment, my current assignments? What answer does she expect? If almost everything is OK for me but I have some ideas how to improve team's performance should I answer "Yes", "Yes, but..." or "No"? This is a wrong question IMHO - it shows lack of respect because team leader doesn't really care about the answer, it's like "How are you?".

If you are Team/Project Lead and you lead development team you should read this post and get to know engineer's point of view.

Christopher Evatt tells how one man made his city boom

September 20, 2007 by Artem Marchenko

An exciting story on how a person in the deepest regret, having no faith in himself can find its predestination and joy in life by having a close look on what really motivates him, not on what he thinks motivates him.