Debugging Teams: Better Productivity through Collaboration

by Brian Fitzpatrick, Ben Collins-Sussman

Overview

In the course of their 20+-year engineering careers, authors Brian Fitzpatrick and Ben Collins-Sussman have picked up a treasure trove of wisdom and anecdotes about how successful teams work together. Their conclusion? Even among people who have spent decades learning the technical side of their jobs, most haven’t really focused on the human component. Learning to collaborate is just as important to success. If you invest in the "soft skills" of your job, you can have a much greater impact for the same amount of effort.

The authors share their insights on how to lead a team effectively, navigate an organization, and build a healthy relationship with the users of your software. This is valuable information from two respected software engineers whose popular series of talks—including "Working with Poisonous People"—has attracted hundreds of thousands of followers.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781491932056
Publisher:	O'Reilly Media, Incorporated
Publication date:	10/26/2015
Pages:	187
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 8.80(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

Brian Fitzpatrick is Founder and CTO of Tock. Brian started Google’s Chicago engineering office with Ben in 2005 and led several of Google’s global engineering efforts, including the Data Liberation Front, and Transparency Engineering. He also served as internal advisor for Google’s open data efforts, having previously led the Google Code and Google Affiliate Network teams. Prior to joining Google, Brian worked as an engineer at Apple, CollabNet, and a local Chicago development shop.



Brian has written numerous articles and given dozens of presentations, including cowriting Team Geek: A Software Developer’s Guide to Working Well with Others, Version Control with Subversion (now in its second edition), and chapters for Unix in a Nutshell and Linux in a Nutshell.



Brian has an A.B. in Classics from Loyola UniversityChicago with a major in Latin, a minor in Greek, and a concentration in Fine Arts and Ceramics. He resides in Chicago.

Ben Collins-Sussman was one of the founding developers of the Subversion version control system. He cofounded Google’s engineering office in Chicago, launched Google Code, led two display advertising teams, and now manages teams that power Google’s search infrastructure. He’s currently the engineering Site Lead for Google Chicago, but also collects hobbies—including authoring interactive fiction, playing bluegrass banjo and jazz piano, composing musicals, operating ham radios, and exploring photography. Ben is a proud native of Chicago and holds a Bachelor of Science from the University of Chicago with a major in Mathematics and minor in Linguistics. He still lives in Chicago with his wife, kids, and cats.

Table of Contents

Mission Statement xv

Acknowledgments xvii

Foreword to the Second Edition xxi

Introduction xxiii

1 The Myth of the Genius Programmer 1

Help Me Hide My Code 1

The Genius Myth 2

Hiding Is Considered Harmful 5

It's All About the Team 10

The Three Pillars 11

HRT in Practice 14

Next Steps 22

2 Building an Awesome Team Culture 23

What Is Culture? 23

Why Should You Care? 26

Culture and People 28

Communication Patterns of Successful Cultures 31

High-Level Synchronization 33

Day-to-Day Discussions 41

Using an Issue Tracker 44

Communication as Part of Engineering 45

It Really Is About Your Product, After All 49

3 Every Boat Needs a Captain 51

Nature Abhors a Vacuum 51

Manager Is a Four-Letter Word 52

The Servant Leader 56

Antipatterns 57

Leadership Patterns 62

People Are Like Plants 78

Intrinsic Versus Extrinsic Motivation 79

Final Thoughts 81

4 Dealing with Poisonous People 83

Defining "Poisonous" 83

Fortifying Your Team 84

Identifying the Threat 86

Repelling the Poison 90

A Final Thought 97

5 The Art of Organizational Manipulation 99

The Good, the Bad, and the Strategies 99

How Things Ought to Be 100

How Things Usually Are 102

Manipulating Your Organization 108

Plan B: Get Out 120

All Is Not Lost 122

6 Users Are People, Too 123

Managing Public Perception 124

How Usable Is Your Software? 128

Design Matters 134

Managing Your Relationship with Users 140

Remember the Users 148

A Epilogue 149

B Further Reading 151

Index 153