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Assholes are ruining your project (Monki Gras)

by Donnie Berkholz on Feb 09, 2012

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Intro Gentoo Social in tech You need to differentiate between personal attacks and technical criticisms.
Community is critical Best predictor of long-term viability How do you attract new contributors and users? Your brand. Function of your ability to create results. Key point: Ability to accomplish your mission
Good to Great Continual improvement – greatness is a process Metrics Are a few assholes balanced by a few amazing people? – come back to this later
Intent to harm not required Difference between how a person treats the powerless and the powerful is a great judge of character
Pattern! States vs traits. Consistency across places and times Everyone has a bad day sometimes. For assholes, every day is a bad day. Tolerance builds up over time. You don't realize who's an asshole.
Are a few assholes balanced by a few amazing people? Negative interactions 5x worse than positive
Are a few assholes balanced by a few amazing people? Negative interactions 5x worse than positive
Are a few assholes balanced by a few amazing people? Negative interactions 5x worse than positive
Are a few assholes balanced by a few amazing people? Negative interactions 5x worse than positive
Are a few assholes balanced by a few amazing people? Negative interactions 5x worse than positive 5 good for 1 bad. Your team needs 5/6 positive people just to break even!
External cooperation & recruitment: based on reputation, caused by word of mouth Recruitment is different in FLOSS from biz; everyone has the power
Refusal to confront reality Dreadful stats - 50% of targets considered quitting, 12% of targets quit. One asshole, multiple targets. Reputation: word of mouth. Cascade
Social and technical ability are orthogonal. One never balances out the other. A good coder has one; a good developer has both.
Personal interactions Modeling Reporting: encourage; have a place; respond; rapid feedback Is it your job to change them?
Personal interactions—have a conference Modeling
People need somewhere to complain and a sense that action will happen— rapid feedback Reporting: encourage; have a place; respond; rapid feedback
Are you here to fix people or accomplish your goals? At some point, it's time to cut off the detour. Is it your job to change them?
Culture is like molasses, not like code. Problem of change in diffuse organizations: persuasion, shared interests, reputation
Show that social aspects have metrics, too. Developers believe numbers.
Is “good” really good enough? You are a SWAT team, you need great! Recruitment standards – is “good” good enough?
Nobody knows your culture when they start. Do you want them to learn it from an asshole? Provide a code of conduct. Clear expectations set a baseline: code of conduct
Get rid of them, and later you'll wonder why it took you so long to act.

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Karsten Dambekalns , Creative Code Engineer at TYPO3 Association 2 months ago
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Assholes are ruining your project (Monki Gras) — Presentation Transcript

Assholes are Ruining your Project
Assholes are Stealing your Beer
Reputation Results Contributors The Community Circle
Your ability to get results depends on your community .
What makes a great community? Assholes The best Most of us
Is this even a problem? Ohloh Ubuntu launches Proto-assholes start receiving complaints Assholes removed
What isn't an asshole? Conflict is good
What is an asshole? A simple test After talking to the asshole, does the target feel oppressed, humiliated, de-energized, or belittled?
What is an asshole? Look for patterns
How many good interactions does it take to cancel out one bad one? Sutton
Sutton
Sutton
Sutton
Sutton
Problems assholes cause to targets
- 48% decreased their effort
- 47% worked less time
- 38% dropped their quality
- 66% declined in performance
- 80% lost time worrying
- 63% lost time avoiding
- 78% became less committed
- 25% quit; 20% of witnesses quit!
Sutton
Problems assholes cause to projects
- Reduced innovation & creativity
- Reduced cooperation & cohesion
- Cost of targets' retribution toward project
- Impaired cooperation from external projects & people
- Impaired ability to attract the best & brightest
- Recruiting more assholes
Sutton
TCA: Total Cost of Asshole Team lead Developer relations team Project leadership Recruiting & training new developers Targets & witnesses __________________ Total Cost of Asshole + + + + Sutton
An asshole is incompetent Flickr: escapo
How do you fix it? Flickr: trp0
Flickr: kalandrakas
Flickr: hashir
Flickr: shannonmary
How do you prevent it? Flickr: redefyne
Flickr: koenvereeken Be quantitative
Flickr: soldiersmediacenter Keep your standards high
Flickr: mount_otz Provide expectations
In the long run, dealing with assholes is never worth it.
Donnie Berkholz Analyst RedMonk [email_address] Twitter/IRC: dberkholz

Assholes are ruining your project (Monki Gras)

by Donnie Berkholz on Feb 09, 2012

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Assholes are ruining your project (Monki Gras) — Presentation Transcript