Updated slidedeck for JavaDay, currently with 12 tips. As you grow in your career, chances are that one day you will end up as the Technical Lead of 1 or more projects. Often not by choice. The role of Technical Lead is quite different from the role of (senior) Software Developer and this talk will bring you answers on questions like: * How do I do technical interviews? * How do I lead a team? How do I lead multiple teams? * How do I cope with my new responsibilities? * How do I cope with success / failure? * How do I prevent losing focus on the technical challenges? * … In summary, everything you want(ed) to know on your first day as a Technical Lead and that you can use every day from that point onwards.

1. JWORKSPowered By Ordina
Everything you want(ed) to know on your
first day as a Technical Lead and that you
can use every day from this point
onwards.
10 tips to become an awesome Technical Lead
Bart Blommaerts
@DaggieBe

2. ORDINAJWORKS
Bart Blommaerts
Application Architect
Ordina Belgium
@DaggieBe
JWorks

3. Technical Leadership
What?
@DaggieBe

4. Technical Leadership
What?
Technical Guidance
@DaggieBe

5. Technical Leadership
What?
Risks & RequirementsTechnical Guidance
@DaggieBe

6. Technical Leadership
What?
CoachingRisks & RequirementsTechnical Guidance
@DaggieBe

7. Technical Leadership
What?
CommunicationCoachingRisks & RequirementsTechnical Guidance
@DaggieBe

8. Technical Leadership
Do we really need one?

9. Technical Leadership
Do we really need one?
Everything is awesome !

11. Technical Leadership
Do we really need one?
Really well-functioning teams
where people share responsibilities

12. 2 sides to a story
Technical responsibilities vs. Leadership activities
Technical Leadership
50 %
@DaggieBe

13. Technical

14. 1. Advocate for Change

15. ORIENT
ACT
OBSERVE
DECIDE
Advocate for Change
@DaggieBe

16. Experience the same pain as
everybody else on the team
@DaggieBe

17. JWORKSPowered By Ordina
Everything you want(ed) to know on your
first day as a Technical Lead and that you
can use every day from this point
onwards.
tips to become an awesome Technical Lead
Bart Blommaerts
12

18. 2. Work through Failure and Success

19. Things will fail
Prepare for failure
Don’t finger-point
Take responsibility
Learn from failure
@DaggieBe

20. Celebrate success
Sprint celebrations
Feature complete
Congratulate the team
Congratulate individuals

21. 3. Stay Technical

22. Stay Technical
Write code
Review code
Technical vision
Evolution of code
@DaggieBe

23. Networking
Security
Deployment
Consistency
Stay Technical
@DaggieBe

24. 4. Always Available

25. Technical Design Business Project
Management
Code
Time Management
35% 25% 15% 25%
@DaggieBe

26. Be realistic
@DaggieBe

27. 5. Be a mentor for your team

28. Mentor
Mediator
@DaggieBe

29. Mentor
Mediator
@DaggieBe

30. Mentor Match goals
Optimise for
the group
Effective
delegation
Mediator
@DaggieBe

31. Mentor Match goals
Optimise for
the group
Effective
delegation
Mediator
@DaggieBe

32. Mentor Match goals
Optimise for
the group
Effective
delegation
Mediator
@DaggieBe

33. Know when to give input
Know when to make decisions
Know when to step back
@DaggieBe

34. 6. Surround yourself with other Tech Leads

35. Personal Level
@DaggieBe

36. Objectives
Architecture
Interoperability
Dependencies
Organisational level
@DaggieBe

37. You are not alone
@DaggieBe

38. 7. Think Big, Bias for Action.

39. Think big
Create bold direction
Inspire results
Think differently
Focus on opportunities
@DaggieBe

40. Bias for Action
Many actions are reversible
Extensive study not always needed
Speed matters
Put flywheel in motion

41. Leadership

42. 8. Interviewing potential new team members

44. www.websitename.com 44
Know your goal
Prepare
Usefulness of resumes
Don’t focus on tooling
Mindset of a Developer
Eagerness to learn

45. Do not use stackoverflow
to find questions
@DaggieBe

46. 1. Comfort
2. Offer options
3. Build on responses
4. Show interest
5. Bonus question
@DaggieBe

47. 9. Embrace Cultural differences

48. Embrace Cultural
Differences
Diversity is invaluable
Opinions matter
Shared end goal
Surround yourself
@DaggieBe

49. Time
Communication
Prepare work
Everybody is part of the
team
Offshore?
@DaggieBe

50. 10. Estimating is hard

51. Hofstadter’s Law: It always takes
longer than you expect, even when you
take into account Hofstadter’s Law.
Douglas Hofstadter

52. Quickly repurpose top innovation
before global communities.
Planning poker
Define a sequence
Set a baseline
Allow reasoning
Uncertainty is normal
@DaggieBe

53. (O + 4BG + P) ÷ 6
Unknown unknowns
Add 20% for
- test
- debug
- polish
- documentation
- wtf moments
Solutioning
@DaggieBe

54. Any estimate is better than no estimate
Don’t forget the bigger picture
Share estimates
Review estimates
@DaggieBe

55. 11. Interfacing with the outside world

56. MIZABusiness Company
Communication with
non-technical people

57. Go-to-Guy / Go-to-Girl
for management, the customer and other stakeholders
@DaggieBe

58. No
@DaggieBe

59. 12. Facilitate (agile) team work

60. Facilitate agile
Backlog
Prioritised backlog
Sprint Planning
Burn down charts
Retrospectives
…
@DaggieBe

61. Your team’s
strength
is not a function of the talent of
individual members. It’s a function
of their
collaboration, tenacity, and
mutual respect.
@DaggieBe

62. Facilitate an awesome team
@DaggieBe

63. Thank You
@DaggieBe