 Hi and welcome everyone the humans are hard code is easy session by Mr. Tom Hendixon and we're glad Tom that you could be us or be with us today and without any further delay over to you Tom. All right thank you Malika appreciate the introduction. Like Malika said we're gonna talk about humans are hard code is easy but before we jump in like to get to know you guys a little better see we've got a few people jumping on so if you guys feel free so I want to make this as interactive as possible and feel free as comfortable as you want to be so we have the chat if you want to put things in the chat or feel free to to come off mute and and talk you can do either one so just to kind of get started but let's talk about if you had a question for you guys if you could have one superpower what would it be one superpower so maybe it's time travel you know feel free like I said put that in the chat or come off mute. So I think during the webinar the attendees can't unmute themselves so if you would like to speak just raise your hand and I will do that for you. Yeah thank you Malika. So like I said feel free to share in the chat I guess or raise your hand what if you could have one superpower what would it be? Ah Shwini time travel that would be nice writing bug free code Vikram yes yes that would be good not that I would ever write a bug just kidding of course that's good Vikram very good excellent yeah does anybody else have want to have a superpower making everyone think positively that's good. Fly teleportation Malika yes yes teleportation especially that'd be good now in our time of a pandemic right yes amazing awesome so one couple other questions and we'll jump in but how long if you guys want to share in chat or like I said raise your hand how long have you guys worked in the Agile space because we're here at the Agile India conference so so tell us that and I'll put my answer here in chat 10 yeah Shwini 10 year plus years yeah three plus yeah five months that's good yeah it's good we can have a good range of people here that's excellent excellent awesome 10 plus years Vikram yeah so we have a lot of good experience here two years good all right so one other question and we'll jump in and this is I want I want to constrain you guys so you can come off mute and say this but I want to give you one word answers see if you can do this if you pay extra I'll let you do two words just kidding if you need to do more you can but try to do one so this is the question I want you guys to try to answer what makes people successful in Agile mindset good yeah flexibility Ashwini you know that's funny you said that I was just thinking like what how I would answer and I think I was good thinking flexibility so that's very good but yeah let's see does anybody else have a a word or maybe two words learn from failures yes Vikram that's true adaptability yeah very good very good lots of good stuff well excellent very good well it's good to kind of get to know you guys a little bit so just to kind of give you guys a little overview so I'm going to go into about about 15 minutes of presentation here then we have some more questions and then we'll do a little bit more presentation and we have a few more questions and we'll wrap up from there so just kind of give you guys an overview of what we're going to go over here so like Malika said this is humans are hard code is easy here's a string of thoughts that ran across my mind early in my programming career why can't people just leave me alone and I can do my work I can figure this out myself I don't need others help or any input to turn this thing around why don't people understand me I think it must be they're just dumb they don't recognize genius when they see it perhaps you've been there too a frustrated developer who feels like they know enough however the success you thought you'd have is out of reach you see others who make better strides but why is it a skills gap I want to share with you how I learned about my skills gap Java check Linux check sequel check humans what humans are hard code is easy so I focus on the technology one of my first mentors was a database administrator named Doyle he really knew his stuff but wouldn't say much that can make learning challenging one thing Doyle would do is fix the problem for me Doyle would fix it so quickly and then leave what did you do he was already gone working with Doyle gave me some insight technical people hate explaining basic stuff ask them a simple question and they will flip the bozo bit on you what is the bozo bit you say a few years after working with Doyle I got to work with a software architect named Corey he had many interesting observations one thing Corey would do if you asked him a stupid question you know one that you could have answered by doing some research on your own he wouldn't answer your question or work with you that is the bozo bit bozo of course refers to bozo the clown bit in reference to computer bit or binary storage humans are hard code is easy Corey was a very difficult person to work with but many developers can be that way to gain respect from those developers we need to know the technology humans are hard code is easy so I focused on the coding I learned new technologies I tried to keep my head down and avoid getting the bozo bit flipped on me a few years later I transitioned into a new job technical lead one year during my annual evaluation my leader said to me Tom we think you have solid credentials coding skills got you the job but we need you to develop other skills my leader shared with me where I was failing delegation he shared how I wasn't delegating work to my teammates case in point there was an upgrade that needed to be done I did the work in 10 minutes or so to explain that to a few teammates would have taken twice that amount of time or more another trap I fell into with delegation is the belief in our value we can convince ourselves that we are worth more when others can't do the same work as us I remember working with Jamie the first time I wasn't quite sure he understood what we were doing he was always done quickly then I finally asked him here he had created a script to deploy changes and update dependencies I was doing this all manually I was worried about delegation and the people I worked with had better ideas perhaps I didn't know everything I thought I did a few years later I got to work with a leader named John we knew each other through a mutual friend I had begun to coach individuals and teams John wanted an outside resource to help him change his team's mindset he shared how most IT people work with others in a transactional fashion we get the requirements and we solve the issue John said Tom my team is like bank tellers they get asked to fix something and they do just like a teller gets a check and deposits a check I want my team to be more like financial planners a financial planner builds a relationship then they can anticipate needs so you're saying John you want your team to have better relationships with their customers John said Tom if they have better relationships they will develop empathy and understanding relationships understanding and empathy huh that won't work that's what I thought at the time but I was wrong John knew his team was in his understanding and is empathetic as he'd hope they'd be he began requiring them to talk to the community directors when they travel these conversations help them empathize instead of just fixing the problem they fostered relationships too each little change John made helped his team understand the community directors had many things on their plate these conversations also worked the other way too the community directors began to give John's team space if something went wrong they trusted them to resolve it John proved me wrong he overcame his deficit by being curious and empathetic he was able to change the way his team interacted with the organization so much so that he has since been given additional responsibilities from bank tellers to financial planners he remained the image of his it team this brings me to my main idea coding skills got you the job influence will get you the career coding skills got you the job influence will get you the career what do I mean developers are focusing on technology skills only if we truly want to set ourselves apart we need to know how to influence and collaborate with teams gone are the days when we could just send in the requirements with pizza and out pops code organizations are looking for more from their developers the problem my problem was I was terrible at relationships I had confirmation I had proof I didn't start out as a developer though my first stop my professional career was quite different my first job out of college it seems like yesterday I started at Wallace what does Wallace you say we sold business forms and office supplies in Des Moines Iowa kind of like Dunder Mifflin armed with a business management degree and no real idea I had three job options when I graduated from college I could sell insurance or I could sell life insurance or I could sell business forms so I did what any sane person would do I sold business forms who wants to call on her friends parents for insurance anyways did I mention that Des Moines Iowa is the insurance capital of the world back to my first day at Wallace can you believe I had to make a few cold calls before lunch let me remind you in college the only time I called my friends was when we were having a kegger getting people to buy business forms is a bit more difficult than getting college dudes to drink beer now I really didn't want to make those calls but lunch was getting close I was given three prospects from another sales representative to call on hello is uh Mike Huff available yeah can you tell him that can you tell him that Tom Henrickson call yeah I'm from I'm from Wallace hello this is Tom Henrickson your new Wallace representative oh sorry Mr. Hagnaya apologize if our labels fall off your product click whoa I guess we got disconnected there okay just one more and we can go to lunch what do we call on gentlemen's clubs my co-workers all die laughing turns out this is their way of initiating new sales representatives my sales career went down in flames pretty quickly similar to Tommy Boy my sales techniques were not appreciated soon after my first day in sales I started to realize this wasn't going anywhere a friend of mine from high school shared with me the opportunity and technology so I began to pursue a different path and get a new degree I left my job in sales and began work as a developer now working as developers quite a bit different than working in sales the sales office I worked in was always full of people talking they would be talking on the phones to customers or talking to each other the developers I worked with well they were a quiet bunch on the whole Friday afternoon in the sales office the newest rep had to go get beer for everyone Friday afternoon with the developers was quiet just like the rest of the week now perhaps it's starting to sound like I didn't want to make this change but that was not the case I slowly began to realize I was more Spock than Jimmy Fallon the quiet contemplative work of a developer suited me more as my software career began I started to work in a lot of different technologies many of them old at the time I wanted to move into something more current I began to hear a lot of buzz around the Java language in my free time and nights and weekends I would read and work through tutorials all this work paid off a few months later when a company leader came to me and said Tom would you be able to help Dave with a new application turned out they needed someone who could write an application using Java I of course agreed like Luke beginning to use the force I was starting with some basics as my Java skills began to improve from experience I learned a few other things too I began to work with someone who is quite sharp from a technical perspective but Eric wasn't easy to get along with he would yell at people he worked with you might say he was a complete jerk sometimes the managers and team allowed this to happen in a large part because he was productive I could still see it now when I close my eyes Eric was a smoker and he was trying to quit which made him even test here Eric and Sri were working together on some files when I came walking down a row of cubes and I could see Eric in Sri's cube yelling you know how people get mad and their veins look like they're gonna pop out of their head Eric's veins were about ready to explode then he ran out the door I guess he needed a smoke I asked Sri if he was okay he said he was okay and then looked at me and said but no one should have to put up with him Sri couldn't have been more correct Eric was a tyrant who ran around like Darth Vader intimidating people and we all put up with this terrible treatment just because he was able to code a lot even though developers act like Spock we have feelings too I would like to tell you that Eric was let go and the team was able to move on the company did nothing to him his behavior was left on handle if you work with a coding hero like Eric they might take all the tough work and make it easier for others but this can stunt the overall growth of the group if you work with a coding hero and they take vacation things can fall apart let me tell you a story about a leader who dealt with a similar issue now Ben was a leader that I worked with and he had a coding hero we'll call him Dave Dave would code solutions that were more complex than others could understand Dave was coming up on a milestone birthday to celebrate he was going to bike across multiple states with all his gear so he took off three weeks now Ben knew this was going to be an issue so he met with the team and they discussed the challenges the team decided to begin to have knowledge transfer sessions with Dave Ben helped foster this collaboration this also enabled the team to become more resilient Ben helped foster this collaboration with the team and the team was able to solely chip away at the knowledge gap my next stop I began to master my skills in Java I was responsible for a new application that required me to learn some new technologies software development can be a bit like trending song sales on iTunes one day something's hot the next day it's out of date during this time my criminy open source tool became popular mastery for Luke Skywalker came after a battle with Darth Vader programmers have small battles each day software development is a lot like writing as the author Stephen Pressfield says the amateur tweets the pro works professional programmers show up every day and slay small demons now the first skill I needed to master as a developer was debugging of course today the tools are much more mature one of the first applications I had to debug didn't have any such tools I was armed with print statements in a log file quite primitive by today's standards all right let's see where is that value being set all right let's add a print statement recompile compile error I forgot the semicolon all right recompile run the report no the database isn't set up right okay let me update that table run the report tail the lock now that looks better of course debugging is so much easier today but we still need to use the old beam as Steve McConnell points out in his book code complete we need to learn the types of mistakes we make early in my job career I made the same mistake time and again I would forget to initialize my variables I can still hear my coworker Ken laughing at me when he would look at my code and point out my obvious error we need to take a step back and reflect on how we are doing how can I improve my coding debugging and testing software developers like to impress each other I had to use a singleton pattern to fix that don't worry most developers don't know what that means either in the book essentialism Craig McEwen shares how important editing is to journalism in the journalists bring the ideas and write up the stories but the editor has the important job they review the piece and rework it over my years I've mentored many developers but one sticks out he began reading about code basics this made him add unnecessary code from time to time I remember debugging an error he was getting together when I asked him why why is this loop here he looked at me unsure and then said uh I don't know I thought it would help he thought it would help once we removed his unnecessary loop we resolved his error adding code is easy knowing what to keep is hard now it's not that I'm saying computer science basics are not important we need to master these two however we put our soul focus on them our careers will falter I spoke before about Eric he had mastered computer science basics his teammates though couldn't stand him we need to be good at our work and get along with our team if we do just one of these we aren't doing our job all right that is part one of humans are hard code is easy I'm going to pause see if there's any if anybody has any questions feel free to share them in the chat so we spoke a little bit about professional relationships there now you heard early in the presentation there I talked about John now he talked to kind of look helped me learn about the importance of relationships and how important they are that it's not just the code or you know some of the agile techniques we know but we have to really pay attention to those relationships they're very important so if you guys want to share in the chatter if you want to raise your hand Malika can let you come off but I want you to help me help answer this question how have you fostered professional relationships in your career so feel free to share that or in chat or like like said you can raise your hand I think Malika can let you come off mute so the question is how have you fostered professional relationships so we learned a little bit about John he kind of helped me understand the importance of those relationships especially in the agile world that you guys all operate in those relationships are very important so what are some things that you guys do to help foster those relationships so for instance you guys are here at the agile India conference a great way to you know interact with people outside of your company and work and find new relationships or maybe there's somebody here at the conference that you've worked with before great to kind of reconnect and talk to them especially you know living in our remote world where we're all on Zoom or WebEx so what are some things you guys have done to help foster those professional relationships network with teams outside the org understand their style of working challenges yes that's good Ashwini so like you mentioned there understand their style of working that's important isn't it we need to know that we're all kind of you know we all have a little different personalities and preferences don't we that's good keeping pace with tech comes challenge relationships really get difficult yeah they can get difficult can't they but there's there's ways we can we can get around that though I think especially like like Moal said the meetups we have different things we can do like come into a conference like this so now you guys heard earlier there I talked about going through a career transition as you heard I started in sales and kind of transferred into technology have you guys I guess I want to ask you guys maybe some of you have been in the same career path the whole time but what sort of career transitions have you made have you made any I know Malika and I were talking earlier that Malika has started in quality assurance you know I talked to different people who kind of make those different transitions understandable not like a puzzle vignette that's that's a good question how can we inspire a developer to write code understandable not like a puzzle yes that's a good question so I think that's that's a really good thing I guess one of the things I would ask you vignette is how how do you guys how do you guys mentor developers I think that would be the the question I ask you know as we think about how we think about what type of code are you doing anything like a pair programming do you do code reviews I guess those are the questions I would ask there vignette but maybe some other people have some ideas or or questions to inspire understandable code I guess and that's another thing vignette we're going to talk a little bit about this here in a little bit but clarity and communication is important so understandable code to you might be different things than say me or some other technology people so it's it's important to be clear in that communication so Malika you have they're talking about my experiences and listening to other people's experience to learn more about about them as people yeah that's important isn't it kind of understand what what people like what they you know what their preferences are what maybe what their what their you know personal life is like maybe they're going through they're having a tough time maybe they have some sick family or something that we can kind of have that understanding so that's important so maybe vignette we can talk more about that if you have some other questions but I think that's like I said being clear with the communication and then yeah conversations outside of meeting to bond that's really good because a lot of times we get into meetings we just want to talk business don't we but if we can have that time outside to just have kind of a chat you know something a little informal and I think a lot of times that's tough isn't it with our our personal world where we're in the pandemic where we just want to we just want to do our meetings and then you know we don't interact like we do like if we'd be in an office together we might oh we just might have a chat or talk about oh what's what are you doing this weekend or we're just to kind of get to know people question here that we can so one of the things I think it's very important to do especially in your agile journey is how do you mentor people other agile people so I put that question in the chat feel free to chat share that in the chat or you can raise your hand and come off mute but I think those are important things that we we need to have mentors when we go across or along our agile journey but then we too also need to always kind of look back and mentor people who are coming up in the agile space and and help them so what are some things you know obviously there's probably things here I'm guessing you can do at the agile India conference to help mentor some other people but what are some things you guys do so I can maybe talk about this one thing my team does so every time so since it's a small team we have we have a lot of people coming in and leaving a lot so every time a new person joins the team the last person to have joined the team trains them on everything that this team does so that's very good that's like the last person that joins since they're not yet very new still they join they learn a lot as well with that process so that's something I've learned is something that can be done yeah that's really good that's really good Malika because I think like just that whole idea of learning and then teaching I know in Stephen Covey's book Seven Habits for Highly Effective People he talks about how you learn something but the best way to master it is to teach it so to kind of reinforce what you're talking about Malika is it okay I know this team I just joined I'm going to teach it to maybe it's Malika you're the new person I teach it to you that reinforces my learning doesn't it yeah yeah that's really good sure great as with my earlier organization one initiative that we had named as coding kata so wherein we used to have a common problem statement given to multiple developers every developer not every developer should say it used to be a pair programming kind of activity wherein people used to develop different solutions in pairs and at the end of the program we used to share the solutions with each other and it was kind of a presentation wherein we used to talk about what are what all different solutions are possible for the same problem statement and then you know based on that you would see how differently people are thinking what different design patterns evolving from the same problem statement so I think that was a good way of learning by discussing with other mates also yeah that's really good Ashwini and I think part of that you talk about these code katas might help for a person like like was it was it vignette who talked about understandable code so I think Ashwini as you have like something like a code kata maybe those can lead to conversations around oh you know these are our coding practices you know maybe the team has an agreement that you know this is how you know certain things that they look for in their code before it's checked in or before you know it has to be uh peer reviewed or or pair programmed or maybe that you guys do mop you know just but those are good questions that kind of help start you know okay I see this part here it's not really understandable could you maybe rework this so it's clear or you know that's really good yeah thank you thank you excellent excellent all right anyone else I think we just have one more comment in the Q&A section would you like me to read it out yeah most of the developers right go to interest try to use other things uh the try to use those things others cannot understand even I follow the same for some time from when I started as from master I understand the pain so that's yeah somewhat it says anonymous attendee I'm not sure so can you repeat the question it was hard to hear you there uh it's not a question it was uh just a comment yeah okay got you okay very good very good all right well I think we're right at the point so I'm going to jump back into the second part it's going to take a few minutes and then we'll wrap it up with a few more questions um to kind of keep us going so so I'm good Malika excellent all right so this is part two humans are hard code is easy as I learned more about soft skills my career progressed starting out as a developer then I moved into a senior developer role next I became a technical lead and finally I moved into manager of software development I was really feeling good about my career progression I remember it like it was yesterday it was a Friday morning in May I came in to work at my normal time a little before 8 a.m oddly enough my boss was in he usually came in at nine or after anyways I sat down and unpacked my things then Scott my boss came to my desk and said Tom can I talk with you I said sure and I followed him to his office although when he took him to his office he took a right instead hmm that's strange as I thought as I followed Scott down the hallway then he took a left into Sandy's office who is Sandy you ask well she was the director of human resources we sat down and then Scott looked at me and said Tom this is your last day here if you ever had that said to you at work or in a relationship you know what it feels like the rest was strange as I felt a calm come over me I knew something was going to happen although as I looked across the table I could tell Scott and Sandy felt terrible they discussed the next steps I packed my things and left getting fired gives us a good chance to reflect what did we do wrong how could this been avoided as I looked back I realized one lesson first what led to this was a lack of clarity I didn't execute accordingly and my therefore the team I led didn't execute properly I needed to ask better questions this helped me move forward but we can get frustrated and want to blame others the second lesson I learned was the importance of relationship management as I began to reach out to my connections the opportunities were plentiful so even in a trying time like getting fired can be a moment for learning those painful times can be full of wisdom if we take the time to unpack it mastering basic skills requires guidance early in my career I worked with Wei he instilled in me a systemic approach that I still use today software development is essentially problem solving Wei saw though oftentimes I was trying to solve five things at once Wei's guidance was brought clear to me a few years later when I attended a seminar at Michael Hyatt's best year ever conference he discussed goal setting Michael said detailed plans are great if you're building a nuclear submarine he continued for everything else just focus on the next step Wei and Michael agreed on this point don't overthink it in proverbs it is said in the multitude of counselors there is safety Luke's journey first brought him to Obi-Wan Kenobi where he learned some basics similar to what I learned from Wei he kept learning and so have I reflection doesn't come easy for me I want to move on to the next thing and David Marquis book leadership is language he details the red work the doing and the blue work the thinking in the book he discusses how important they both are to making progress the workers in the he talks about how the industrial revolution where the workers did the red work and the managers did the blue work today knowledge workers must do both a simple pause can give us a chance to step back and reflect how can I or we do this better think apply reflect by now you're starting to think Tom I'm a developer I don't need no stinking soft skills of course if you don't want your career to get better keep on keep it on my career path has changed dramatically as I've learned the importance of communication relationships and influence let's explore three core soft skills these will set the stage for a career transformation so remember coding skills got you the job influence will get you the career number one communication listen to what is being said ask good questions and seek clarity developers who do this write better code they don't assume they know the answer in the book the pragmatic programmer Andy Hunt and Dave Thomas talk about the importance of digging for requirements we need to look between the lines part of communication is knowing your message I've opened my mouth too many times in my career just started talking talking talking know what you want to say and say it number two influence in how to win friends and influence people Dale Carnegie describes how we need to talk in terms of the other person's interest now I have to confess I once tried to convince a corporate vice president we should use a new technology but he wasn't interested at all however the next time I spoke to him I aligned a technical change with a corporate objective the outcome of that conversation was quite different number three of the three core soft skills is leading change when we want to lead a change we need to share the vision a few years ago I was fortunate to work with a sharp product owner named Nikia we began working together in an application for customer service representatives as we began our team really struggled with understanding the vision that's when Nikia decided we needed a field trip she had the entire team spend a day with those customer service representatives we got to see their struggles Nikia was able to lead a change by connecting and sharing the vision with the team and the team came back energized with a better understanding these three core soft skills can change your career let me share a quick story about how you can use them yourself in my first role as a manager I tried to get to know the team this can help build trust and influence with them but perhaps you're starting to think Tom this won't work for me let me tell you about AJ his path was a rocky one AJ was a strong developer but he rarely talked he worked in a slow methodical fashion and always kept his emotions in check over time his teammates became irritated with his style I tried to get to know him for instance we connected on a few things AJ traveled to Germany to pick up his new BMW he was quite excited about that still his unwillingness to communicate with others and especially the product owner was wearing thin that's when my manager came to me and said Tom it is time for AJ to decide if he wants to be part of the team my manager asked me to put AJ on a PIP or performance improvement plan I had 60 days to help him improve or else despite AJ's strong coding skills his career was on a downward trajectory when I met with AJ and explained the situation he began yelling at me and stormed out of the meeting the first two weeks after this incident were really scary I kept checking in with AJ daily I knew he was an introvert and he needed his space and time eventually AJ and I sat down and discussed the PIP and how it made him feel that's when I got AJ to agree to try some experiments we met as a team and created some working agreements these clarified everyone's role also it stated how we would work together I got the product donor to give AJ one final shot in the end we're able to give AJ the space he needed through coaching him and his teammates we work through it AJ was able to develop the soft skills he needed to change his career direction I was able to communicate and influence the team using the three core soft skills I learned how to help AJ myself and others you can do this too coding is important but it's not enough we can keep our head down and bozo it through our career but that won't get us where we want to go relationships matter empathy and understanding matter communication matters practicing these soft skills give you more influence better collaboration with your coworkers people seeking out your opinion as an expert managers choosing you for the most exciting projects practicing soft skills is how you code the future of your dreams all right that is the end of our presentation any questions and I see a minute Mahesh has one there what are the three soft skills communication relationships and influence those are the three that we covered there so you bet you bet so as you heard in there I had a little bit and I think we just have a few minutes left so we'll just maybe do one we'll do one quick kind of wrap up question here so so as you hear in there we've talked a little bit about some soft skills so so if you guys want to share in the chat or feel free to raise your hand what are some things you've done to help work on your soft skills so I know there's a lot of different things you can do to do that but if there's anything you guys want to share like I said share in the chat or raise your hand and then Malika can let you come off mute self-awareness yes that is very good isn't it that's a good place to start yeah sometimes we can we can think we're one way but if it's not aligned with reality Mahesh that's that's so true so very good point feedback from you know years and years and well wish it very yeah that's good yeah it's good that feedback from we have to get it from the right people don't we that's true very good stuff all right well I think we're about ready to end it here I know you guys probably want to get to the other sessions this is so good I really appreciate the chance to be here thank you for Malika for kind of assisting here and doing this so appreciate it's great to be here at the Agile India India conference and I really appreciate everyone coming to visit thank you so much Don that was extremely interesting session yeah thanks everyone for being here and thank you so much Don for sharing your experience