2. 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 2
examples Learned in AgileLessons
4/5/2012
Ionel Condor –
Career
Development

3. About 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?)
Ionel Condor – Lessons
• Married, 1 daughterAgile Career
4/5/2012 Learned in
Development

4. The story
Source: http://getcareerlinks.blogspot.co.uk

5. Career 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 Condor – Lessons
Ionel
Learned in Agile Career
Development

6. Career 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
Ionel Condor – Lessons
4/5/2012 Learned in Agile Career
Development

7. Setting the stage for
Career Development
Ionel Condor – Lessons
4/5/2012 Learned in Agile Career
Development

8. Setting the stage for
Career Development
Factors for Inhibitors:
success: • Lack of belief
• Drive & in self
Passion • Fear of Risk
• Leadership • Poor
• Networking Communication
• Integrity • Procrastinatio
• Luck & n
Timing • Lack of
• Intellect passion
• Taking risks • Greed and ego
• Planning

9. A model of learning
Dreyfus model
A model of skill acquisition Expert
Needs to be
Proficient put in a
Needs context that
Competent unhindered favors his
Needs real practice and intuition and
Advanced the big
world creativity
Beginner exposure, Pro general
Novice Needs cess Oriented picture,
simple, contro System
Needs lled Oriented
recipes simulations
, monitoring
and first
successes
Ionel Condor – Lessons
4/5/2012 Learned in Agile Career
Development

10. So you want to be an
expert…
BAD NEWS
You 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 NEWS
Once you become an expert in one field, it

11. Recommendations for
Developers/Testers
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

12. 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

13. A model of learning
Source: http://www.coderfriendly.com
Ionel Condor – Lessons
4/5/2012 Learned in Agile Career
Development

14. Dilemmas 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
Ionel Condor – Lessons
benefits
4/5/2012 Learned in Agile Career
Development

15. Examples, examples
Ionel Condor – Lessons
4/5/2012 Learned in Agile Career
Development

16. Examples, examples
Ionel Condor – Lessons
4/5/2012 Learned in Agile Career
Development

17. Accountability and
metrics
Ionel Condor – Lessons
4/5/2012 Learned in Agile Career
Development

18. Accountability and
metrics

19. 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

20. 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

21. 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

22. Some book
recommendations
Change
Management
Being effective in
attaining goals
Good teams

23. 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

24. Some book
recommendations
Description of a
complete job life
cycle
Good practices
never gets old
A masterpiece !!!
A must read !!!

25. Some book
recommendations
A strategy for planning
and creating a successful
life in software
development
How they work
Samples of elegant
solutions

26. Some book
recommendations
Attitudes and
techniques of a
software craftsmanship
Back to the basics 
Wisdom from relevant
people

27. 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

28. 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

29. 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

30. Some book
recommendations
The right skills in
the right place at
the right time

31. Some book
recommendations
Interviews
with Experts

32. A Good Career

33. Blog:
http://ionelcondor.w
ordpress.com/
Twitter:
@ionel_condor
https://twitter.com/
Thank you!
#!/ionel_condor

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