Develpreneur: Become a Better Developer and Entrepreneur

We come to the close of another season. The focus for the last series of episodes has been positivity. Therefore, I hope you have shifted to a more optimistic approach to life after these topics. It is too easy to find the negatives in any situation. However, the work and effort you put into finding upsides in an activity or event are worth the effort. You Find What You Look For One of the things about humans that fascinates me is our ability to shift viewpoints and completely change a situation. Politics is one of the most blatant of these situations. Take any politician and some things they have said then listen to the response from the two parties (in the U.S. arena). The views can often be as different as night and day. However, it all comes down to the point of view. When we take that into account, it is worth attempting to adjust our viewpoint in ways that make us happy and productive A Healthy Choice There are countless medical articles on the health benefits of being happy. With that in mind, why would you not want to find ways to increase your happiness. Once you go down that road, you have two options. You can increase the number of events in your life that make you happy, and you can reduce the ones that suck away your happiness. Our jobs consume a lot of our time. Therefore, that is an area where we can make considerable strides in happiness. When things go well at work, we are generally happier. Likewise, when things are not going well, it shows. A Positivity Impact The goal in this season was to make you a better developer by helping you find more joy in your work and reasons to look forward to each day. All of this goes beyond the simple goal of reducing your headaches. When you look for the positives, you are looking for ways to become a better developer, even in the most challenging situations. These little victories add up. Episode Challenge: Has this season made you (even a little bit) more optimistic? Has that helped your satisfaction in life? Read more about advancing your career.

In a season full of positive points, the list of experienced worker benefits is one of the easiest to put together. We might not see any negatives in these workers. Unfortunately, they are human and have flaws, much like the rest of us. Some of these issues are specific to veteran workers. Think about the idea of getting in a rut, phoning it in, or otherwise getting set in your ways. However, we will not focus on these issues and will stay on the positive side of things. Been There, Done That The most valuable of experienced worker benefits is the ability to lean on past actions. Whether these ended up in success or failure, they all work to help us get to a destination faster. The maze analogy probably works best for this factor. When you know some paths lead to a dead-end, then you can avoid them. Beginners may convince us to "take the scenic route" by heading down dead-end roads. While that has some value, we typically want to get a solution done sooner rather than later. Understanding And Mitigating Risk When we have a broader experience in any area, we also have a sense of where risks are. This sense becomes almost second nature. That is one of the often-overlooked experienced worker benefits. In the world of superheroes, this would be called their "spidey-sense." It does not rise to the level of walking through a minefield with a map. Nevertheless, it is similar to knowing the rough outline of a mined area. These people are better at accessing risk than their newbie counterparts. The Final 20 Percent We have talked about the Pareto principle many times. Our focus has been on the "easy" eighty percent of the solution. However, there is that pesky final twenty percent that also has to be addressed. That is where experienced people work best. They have skills and past projects to build on. While they still may not easily tackle the problematic parts of the project, they do allow for others to cover the first eighty percent. That can be the difference between overall success and failure. Episode Challenge: Are you the best at your role that you can be? Read more about advancing your career.

We all are beginners in our careers at some point. Some of us even do so multiple times. We are not entirely green a second time. However, we may be new to organizations or environments many times throughout our journey. While they can be a burden, there are also upsides of entry-level workers. Let's look at a few of the benefits they bring with them. They Have Not Settled In A knock against veteran workers is that they tend to get too comfortable in their jobs. They have done what they need to do many times and thus can almost work on auto-pilot. True this situation can be highly productive. On the other hand, it can fall behind the times and be less than it could be. When we stop getting better, we get worse. That is the nature of the modern world and maybe humanity's existence as a whole. Learning and Questions The "new guy" is much more likely to ask questions. They have things to learn, and questions are an excellent mechanism for doing so. That helps the inquisitor learn something new, and it can spark understanding in others. When we are asked to present an idea we usually take for granted, it can cause us to re-examine that topic. Simple questions like, "why do you do it that way?" can start us down a path to no learning and epiphany. It is not much different from polishing silver that has been laying around a while. You do not always notice how far you have settled into mediocrity until you are asked to examine where you came from. Use Resources Responsibly There is a long list of upsides of entry-level workers that occur when you put the right people in the right place. Every team has different needs, and the members fill in those gaps based on their skills. When a team works best, each person is in a place that is most effective for their skills and experience. That includes situations where you have a mix of senior staff, juniors, and many points between. Therefore, we have tasks most teams need to complete that are ideally suited for entry-level staff. Grunt work is an example. However, new staff members are often better at testing and documentation. These are tasks that can be biased or impeded by "knowing" too much. It is not different from blind and double-blind experiments. Episode Challenge: When was your last mentor experience? Did you thank them for it? Read more about advancing your career.

Any event that distracts us from work can be seen as a negative. That goes for both paperwork and in-person activities. However, there are benefits of status meetings and reporting that make this time well spent. These benefits may require some consideration to list them. Thus, these are good for us to cover in a season focused on positives. A Chance To Take A Breath One of the often-ignored benefits of status meetings or similar tasks is that it forces us to pick our heads up. That act alone can be a game-changer. Think about the sad example of a runner that is focused on racing forward but fails to see the rapidly approaching obstacle. When we put blinders on, we can be productive. On the other hand, we can miss critical points required for our success. Sometimes an interruption provides us a way to "take a deep breath" and ensure we are on the correct course. Plan, Plan, Plan We have often listed the benefits of planning. Status reporting is a planning activity. Even better, it combines reviewing past successes (or failures) with future plans. These two activities combine to help us improve our estimates and time management. As they say, "what is not measured is not managed." That means we will not grow if we do not spend time evaluating our plans. This benefit takes some time to come to fruition. However, it is an essential improvement and step in becoming a better developer. Accountability It is one thing to plan on doing something and another to tell others. When we tell others of our plans, it adds a level of accountability. This outcome is one of the best benefits of status meetings and similar activities. We are not all self-starters, but even those personality types can benefit from a push. That is what accounting for our plans provides. We have others to report to that we do not want to disappoint. Good news is fun to share. Failures and bad news are not things we want to communicate. That gives us a mild carrot-and-stick approach to getting things done. Episode Challenge: Review your status template and update it if it can use some tweaks to improve it. Read more about advancing your career.

Modern technology and related jobs have allowed us to get out of our office. This change in a work venue can be full of challenges. On the other hand, remote work benefits can often overwhelm the negatives. I think that your view of this situation is a matter of your goals and personality. Nevertheless, this is a season of positives, and we will embrace those opportunities. Own Your Schedule The more complex your life, the more your schedule is an essential part of your day. We are all given only twenty-four hours a day, so those that manage that time better are likely to enjoy life. No matter what our job is, the commute time required is part of our schedule, we do not control. This daily time can add up quickly and steal away the things we can accomplish. Giving You Back Time We spend a lot of time preparing for and traveling to work. That is often "dead" time spent driving with limited productive options. We might be able to take public transport and be productive as we travel. However, there are still things we do to prepare that spend time we would not if we stayed home. As an example, have you ever worked on a Saturday or day off? If you did that work from home, then I bet you found yourself far more productive. Multiple factors go into that productivity, but think about how much time you did not spend commuting. That may be hours that can be better spent. Reduced Costs Of Working Time is our most valuable resource. Yet, it is not our only valuable resource. There are monetary remote work benefits in the form of gas, not burned, laundry costs, and even eating out. You will find that there are many ways to save money as you get used to working away from the office. You will get those intangible benefits of more control over your time, but the tangible ones add up too. Episode Challenge: When was the last time you assessed (and improved) your remote workspace. Read more about advancing your career.

Some things are universal in the world of work. Nearly everyone has complained about co-workers at some point. Even those that work alone have probably complained at some point. That is just part of the job. Nevertheless, our teammates and leaders provide us a long list of positives on which we can focus. A Whole Better Than The Sum First and foremost, we can accomplish much more as a team than individually. This statement is not always true. There are highly ineffective teams. However, most of the time, adding additional points of view is a boost to productivity. If that were not the case, then we would not have industries to help us make the most of teams and teamwork. There is a cost to building a team as it can complicate things. That cost is outweighed by the ROI you get when you put those heads together. Blind Spots and Points Of View Everyone has blind spots. Nevertheless, there is no shame in this. We are just not omniscient in any area. Therefore, we will miss things. When we add the input of others, we have an opportunity to reduce those weak areas. A blind spot for one person may be seen entirely by the next person. Think about two people standing back-to-back and how the blind spots of one are seen clearly by the other. We can extend this situation to team members that are dramatically different. However, I will avoid waxing philosophic on that topic at this point. Avoiding Writer's Block Via Co-Workers We all have times where we fall into a rut or become too focused on a certain point. These situations can lead to things like writer's block. A good example is the popular escape game setup. You have a group of people that are asked to escape via some situation, and when they work together, they can be far more successful. The mindset of one person can often be primed by input from another. This benefit has often been considered and even has a name in classic literature. That is what a muse does for the recipient. Episode Challenge: When did you last thank a co-worker? Time to spread some affirmation. Read more about advancing your career.

We have been looking at the bright side of things that bother us. Many of you may be questioning what could be wrong about time off. Why would an episode on the benefits of time off be needed? Let's step back and think about that question. We get into a rhythm with our work. Even if we do not enjoy it, we typically get used to it. As better developers, we even enjoy that in most cases. We also have a pile of work when we return from vacation. Those factors add up to many of us deciding it is better to trade vacation days for cash. We are not able to enjoy or benefit from that time away. Refresh And Rejuvenate A real vacation allows us to relax, recharge, and generally rest from our daily grind. These results do not come from a three-day weekend. We need to spend more consecutive time in order to get the benefits of time off. You may argue that you can get more than enough sleep on a long weekend. However, that is not the rest I am talking about. Our minds need to spend some time without churning through our latest challenge. A vacation provides an opportunity for that. Think of it as physical workouts where you take a day or two off for your body to heal and grow. Work On The Bucket List No one wants to spend life solely working. No matter what our "why" is, it is not going to be trudging your way through each day with no real accomplishments. Whether a dream or a reachable goal, we all have some sort of bucket list. These are places we want to go, things to do, even people to meet. The point is to do some things that usually work blocks us from doing. These are the proverbial "smell the roses" activities that make for a full life. At the end of our days, a full life is the indicator of a life well-lived. A Retirement Trial Run Retirement is something we all think about almost as soon as we start into our careers. However, a lifetime of building up a work habit can be hard to break. We need to have a plan for retirement, just like any other significant project. That brings up the last of our benefits of time off. We are provided an opportunity to try out life without work. We may not be able to test out ideas we have for retirement thoroughly, but we can at least get a taste of them. Episode Challenge: When was your last real vacation? Do you need to schedule one? Read more about advancing your career.

A series that focuses on the positives of pain points could skip the tasks with a noticeable ROI. Nevertheless, we will dive into the less apparent benefits of certifications and training. These are not the results. Instead, they are benefits we get from making the journey. Growing Our Skillset The idea of becoming a better developer often comes back to our overall skillset. While we get the highly visible benefits of certifications in the form of a certificate, or recognition, there is more to it. We expand our knowledge and add to our toolset. These additions assist us in problem-solving and comparing solutions. These are essential skills for us, as we have discussed in the past. The more we expand our "comfort zone," the more options we have for tackling a problem. This flexibility can be the difference between success and failure. Every Challenge Is An Opportunity For Success Experience is something that can not be imitated or replaced. There is the idea of "been there, done that" that shows up in a broad range of specialties. Technology is no different. When we survive (or thrive) after a challenge, we add that to our list of things we have accomplished. This list becomes the equivalent of things we can do because we did them before. While no technology problem is going to be exactly like the last one you faced, the similarities can help your confidence and speed in delivery. Technology DNA One thing that is hard to learn, until you have a lot of experience are the traits of technology companies. There is a mindset almost to the level of groupthink that can settle into an organization. When you spend the time studying for certifications or are exposed to a lot of training on a vendor, you start to see their way of thinking. This mindset has strengths and weaknesses, just as any technology does. Therefore, you can develop a sense of what vendors are best for families of problems. This knowledge can dramatically reduce your time in selecting a vendor for a specific project. Episode Challenge: When did you last put a certification on your career road map? How are you progressing on it? Read more about advancing your career.

One of the scariest things many of us face in our jobs is getting up in front of a crowd. This situation may occur as part of presenting to our team, the management, or at a conference. There are benefits of presentations that outweigh the related stress and fear. Therefore, it is time to look at this black storm cloud and find the silver lining. A Focus On The Details Most of us stress the details for a presentation more than many other situations. Activities that demand detailed knowledge, including interviews and certification tests, force us to learn. However, there tends to be more structure to that knowledge in those cases than when we are presenting on an idea. We will end up with a firm plan and story for our presentation. However, we do not start with those constraints. Therefore, we are pushed to not only learn a topic but also to find the bits that are interesting to our audience. That is a task that requires more than knowledge. It requires understanding. Repetition Leads To Mastery The process of crafting a presentation involves a lot of repetition and editing. These repeated reviews of the content and the source material will solidify the knowledge in our minds. We can not help learning the things that we repeatedly do. That is what practice is all about. Thus, we end up practicing the topic as we work to create an exciting presentation. Found In Translation One of the undervalued benefits of presentations is our need to talk to a more general audience than usual. It is one thing for us to learn a fact and understand it. When we attempt to teach that fact to others, it forces us to use a language they understand. That is a barrier to a lot of communication. We have words and phrases that we translate in a way that differs from other roles, groups, professions, and even individuals. Episode Challenge: What will you choose as the topic of your next presentation? When will you perform it? Read more about advancing your career.

There are countless performance tuning benefits. Well, maybe not countless, but there are a number of them that are readily apparent. However, the typical outcomes from a performance tuning project are just some of the upside to doing this work. There are many indirect silver linings of this black cloud. The process of improving performance can be daunting. Nevertheless, the ROI makes it all worthwhile. Learn From Challenges One of the best performance tuning benefits outside of a better running application is the process itself. We learn by being pushed beyond our limits. When we are asked to expend beyond what we know or have done, it causes growth. A steady stream of obstacles provides the bricks in the road to being a better developer. That may seem cheesy. However, the more difficult situations we face and overcome, the better we become. Thinking Outside of The Box Human beings tend to fall into thought patterns. We approach new situations based on what we have experienced before. There is nothing wrong with that habit. Nevertheless, we add tools to our toolbox when we are forced to step beyond what we know. This learning often comes from tuning a process; otherwise, we would have implemented it differently the first time. We are effectively asked to solve the same problem in a different way. That is an excellent way to grow. Analysis Practice The best software developers (and problem solvers) are very good at analyzing a situation or problem. One of the performance tuning benefits is that it provides us practice at analyzing our code or something written by others. We need to step through the solution and judge it step-by-step in an attempt to find a better solution. This process is high-end thinking and problem-solving. Think of it as similar to going to the gym and lifting the heavier weights. Episode Challenge: Plan your next performance tuning project? Read more about advancing your career.