The document discusses 12 ways to improve relationships between developer and account management teams. It suggests both teams should empathize with each other more by understanding each other's goals, deadlines, and work pressures. Developers should be brought into projects early and given uninterrupted time to work, while account managers should avoid passing stress to developers and educate themselves more on how projects are built. Creating a department-level agreement and regular cross-team presentations could also help teams collaborate better.

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Can’t We All Just Get Along?
12 Ways to Improve The Developer + Account Manager Relationship

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Who’s here?

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What are we talking about?

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Dev & Accounts
• Greater knowledge gap between these teams
than others
• Greater personality gap between these teams
than others
• Greater opportunity for improvement

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Communication
Personalities
Expectations

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Empathize.But first…

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Why did the developer leave
the restaurant?

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Because of the table layout!

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How many account managers does
it take to screw in a lightbulb?

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Is it too late to make the bulb neon?

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Same Team, Man.
Same Team.

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Same projects.

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Same goals.

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Same team.
Different planets?

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AM’s Job
• Schedule
• Scope
• Budget
Developer’s Job
• Build
• Solve
• Make Complex = Simple

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The Conflict.

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AM: “The client wants [insert request].”
Developer: “That will take 1,800 hours and/or is impossible.”
AM: “That’s a terrible solution.”
Developer: “You’re a terrible solution.”

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Tips for Developers
(How to help a marketer out)

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Don’t be so logical.

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A developer heads to the grocery store
with a note from his roommate…

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“Get a loaf of bread,
and if they have eggs,
get a dozen.”

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The developer comes home with a
dozen loaves of bread and says..

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“…they had eggs.”

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Sometimes nuance is
lost in translation.

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And sometimes AMs don’t give
developers enough details
to pick up on the nuance.

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So ask the AM:
“Is this really what you’re asking for?”

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Empower your AM.

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AM: “The client wants [insert ill-informed request].”
Developer: “That will take 1,200 hours and/or is impossible.”
AM: “That’s a terrible solution.”
Developer: “You’re a terrible solution.”
Opportunity
(to educate the AM)

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Empathize.

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What are the goals?
When is the deadline?
What’s the client situation like?

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No. It’s not your job.

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But it will go a long way.

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Tips for Account Managers
(How to make your devs happy)

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Empathize.Involve Devs Early

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Q: How early is too early to bring
a developer into a project?

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A: It’s never too early.

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“I would love a project I know nothing
about dropped in my lap.”
-No One Ever

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Advantages of Early Dev Involvement
• Better scoping
• Ownership from dev
• Less friction during project
• More face time (not kidding)

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Empathize.Care about how
things are made.
(Not just how the finished product looks)

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“Just make it do this…”

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If AMs better understood how
projects were built, they could:
• Add more value upfront
• Be more understanding of dev issues
• Better forecast and plan

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Empathize.Don’t pass the stress.

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Account managers are stressed.

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All. The. Time.

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Give your team a protected
space to do their jobs.

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Empathize.Devs Don’t Know Everything.
(And that’s ok.)

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When you ask a dev a question…

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Developers are problem solvers.

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Give them time to research.
Give them all the details about the issue.

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Empathize.Devs aren’t IT.
(Just re-start your computer)

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Seriously. Just re-start it.

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*Pro Tip for Devs
Never fix anyone’s computer at the office.
Not even once.

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Empathize.Leave them alone.

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Headphones on?

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Leave them alone.

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Leave this dude alone.

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It takes 23 minutes to return to the
original task after an interruption.*
*The Cost of Interrupted Work: More Speed and Stress, Gloria Mark, University of California
https://www.ics.uci.edu/~gmark/chi08-mark.pdf

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Do the math.

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4 Interruptions = 1 Hour Lost

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(I’m looking at you Slack)

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“Your team sent a total of 11,400 messages last week (that's 2,103
more than the week before). Of those, 5% were in channels, 7%
were in groups and 88% were direct messages.”

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If you want your project done:
• Get the developer some time
• Leave them alone
• Make everyone else leave them alone
• Give them snacks

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Empathize.
How to work
better together.

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Create a DLA
(Department Level Agreement)

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The DLA States
• The development team’s expectations of how work
should be assigned to them.
• The account team’s expectations of how work
should be approached.
• Ideal collaborative scenarios.
• Unfavorable collaborative scenarios.

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Cross Department Presentations
(Quarterly)

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The more we know about the
other team, the better.

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Dev presents to accounts.

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Accounts presents to dev.

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Hang out.

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Talk about non-work things.

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Strive to create real relationships.

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End.