The document discusses the role and responsibilities of a technical lead. It addresses why technical leads are needed to oversee projects and unify disparate opinions within a coding base. Effective technical leads ensure code quality and focus on people, business needs, technical skills, team culture, vision, riding paradoxes, growing skills, and bridging business and technical concerns. Technical leads need a balance of coding and planning time.

1. The Geek’s Guide
to Leading Teams
@patkua
Patrick Kua

2. Available on leanpub (http://tiny.cc/twtl)

3. Why do we need
a Tech Lead?

4. Why do we need
a Tech Lead?

7. ?

8. Source: http://twitter.com/julianboot/status/232830267822309376
@thejayfields: I had ten guys on my
last project, all of them had opinions
and all of them were expressed in
the code base #speakerconf
@julianboot

9. A simple test for an
effective Tech Lead...

10. Does the codebase look like it
was written by a single person?
Yes
No

11. What do effective
Tech Leads focus on?

12. Tech People
Business You

13. The “Tech” in Tech
Lead

14. TECH
Do effective Technical Leaders
need to code?
Definitely!
At least 30% of the
time with the team

15. http://bit.ly/15Rm4z

16. “...respect is the currency of
the realm”
http://bit.ly/15Rm4z

17. http://bit.ly/15Rm4z
““The amount of respect an IT pro
pays someone is a measure of how
tolerable that person is when it comes
to getting things done...””

18. Consistency over Cleverness

19. http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/TabsSpacesBoth

20. Tabs OR Spaces
2 Spaces OR 4 Spaces
CamelCase OR Underscore
Curly brace end of line
OR next line
Brackets OR not

21. Team Culture

22. How long does the build
stay broken?
Do people avoid
conflict?
Do people offer new
ideas?
Do people flag when
they need help?
Do people feel okay to
admit being wrong?
Team Culture

23. Vision

24. Vision
Yes
No
Can everyone draw the same
architecture diagram?

25. Free download: http://bit.ly/1Esrn7f

26. Riding Paradox

27. Riding Paradox
“Paradox” by Michael Berg
Consistency vs Improvement
Delivering vs Learning
Technical vs Business

28. People

29. Analytical
Activator
Intellection
Achiever
Strategic
Input
Woo

30. Collective
Accuracy
=
Average Accuracy
+ Diversity*
* Requires ability to integrate

31. Trust isn’t built in one day

32. Growing People

33. Skill/Ability
ChallengeHIGHLOW
LOW HIGH

34. Skill/Ability
ChallengeHIGHLOW
LOW HIGH
Anxiety

35. Skill/Ability
ChallengeHIGHLOW
LOW HIGH
Boredom

36. Skill/Ability
ChallengeHIGHLOW
LOW HIGH
Flow
Anxiety
Boredom

37. Learning Activities
Brown Bag sessions
Spike Showcases
Team code reviews
Technical
Retrospectives
Pair Programming
Video/Book Club

38. “Bad Is Stronger Than Good” (2001) Baumeister et al
Beware the bad apple

39. Bridging the Business

40. Technical Business
Translating between realms

41. Business
Opportunities

42. You

45. 9am
6pm
Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday
Email Time Email Time
Planning
Time
1:1s
Email Time
Planning
Time
Email Time
Next week
planning

46. People The Tech of a Tech Lead
Bridging the Business You

47. Questions?
@patkua
Patrick Kua