Career Tip #4

[172/365] Breakfast by pasukaru76 (sry bad internet)

In the Career Tip Feature I am doing right now we have reached tip #4, after having gone through the following ones so far:

1. Plan your day on your way in to work
2. Complete one thing every day
3. Learn (at least) one new thing every day

This fourth one is a bit trickier to formulate in a clatchy short sentence, but it goes something like this:

So what problem are we solving today?
I have lost count of how many times people have said “that is not my problem/task” or “I’m a developer/designer, not a sales person!” and “I am NOT the project manager!“. Yes, well, you might be right (unless, of course, you are in Sales/Project Management). That still doesn’t mean the task doesn’t have to be solved, and if the current person responsible for it is struggling, you will be suffering, if not now so in the future. Often you know more about what you do, and what that requires, than others do. If they are not providing you with the correct things required by you to do your best: tell them. For your sake! And you know what they say? “Giving is the greatest gift of all“. In cases like these it is often true, and you lose very little indeed by trying whilst you have all to win.

Why, why, why?

WHY?! [69.365] by imNicholas

Now, I am not advocating that you should do all the tasks for your (project?) team and its members, but I am suggesting that there could be several possibilities to why someone hasn’t delivered what you expected to your (hopefully high) standard:

• They have missed something due to being over-worked (at home or at work)
• They have missed something due to not knowing better
• They haven’t fully understood what you require to complete your task(s)
• They are incompetent

(This is not a full list, just examples.)
However tempting it might be to assume the last point, one would hope that whoever signs off new hirings didn’t bring on someone incompetent just to piss the rest of the team off (and if he did/does, where does that leave you?) so if we instead concentrate on the first three bullet points, and we ignore the voice in your head telling us to stand up and scream, all three would be helped by a friendly chat over a coffee with the person in question, to figure out what you have and what you need, to help each other to get to where you both need to be.

More examples

Testing out Tom’s Planner by petahopkins

If you have views on timings, deadlines and estimates which you feel are unrealistic, bring it up to the project/line manager immediately. They would much rather hear about it now (even if they *puff* and *sigh*), 4 months before deadline when there is still time enough to maneuver on, rather than 4 hours before deadline when you still have 3 more weeks of work to squeeze in, and a client that will be less-than-forgiving to your colleague for bringing it up at this late stage. If, 4 months ahead of time, nothing will give (no more time, no more money for more resources etc), there is still time to re-scope what you actually will be delivering, and to manage the expectations with the client for the project manager and/or the bosses.

Generally, the theory goes, if you can help a colleague to avoid being shouted at by the client, you, your boss or your colleagues, that is a better route to take. If people are being yelled at they will turn un-happy. If they turn un-happy they can make your life miserable.

If you have views on poor quality delivery from the people before you in the chain, have a sit down with them to go through what they do, how they do it and gently guide them to do the right thing. Even better, take turns on sitting down with each other in front of each others computers. It will save you massive amounts of time further down the road, and your colleague will evolve and become better at what they do (and you might too!), which you will benefit from in future deliveries from them. In the end, and if you have done this correctly, your colleague will possibly even feel they owe you a favour for helping them out.

If you help colleagues to be praised they will not only make your life easier by increasing the quality in their delivery to you, but they will also become your new best friend and speak highly of you (to for example your boss).

Everyone are “Sales people”

Internet memes | Zuckerberg: This Facebook Guy – oil portrait by A. Fudyma-Powers by a.powers-fudyma

If you think the sales people are selling the “wrong thing” (which can be very taxing and stressful for knowledge workers, given that The Thing, and in fact All Things, has to come from their brains), let the sales people know, preferably not over a heated argument in a board room with lots of VIP’s staring, but instead by providing examples of what you have done previously or that you would like to do. You all work in Sales, even though it is the task of someone else to do some sales-bits that you don’t have to do. You should still make it (the product/service/application) as easy to sell as possible though.

Also, if you give them examples, prototypes and POC’s (Proof Of Concept) you have abstracted away the things they as sales people and/or clients in fact doesn’t need to have full understanding of: pixels on the screen, typography, usability, programming, validation etc. They have hired you guys because you are the experts, but that also means they probably know less than you about your area of expertise, quite simply because they are passionate about selling more of their products, not as passionate about the latest jQuery plug-in you found or the history of your latest type foundry: helping them will help you to do the things you want to be doing.

One thing I know for certain: watching someone who is on “my side” repeatedly doing mistakes will come back to haunt me in the end, and it is quite likely I who will be forced to put in the overtime to sort it out. I much rather put in the extra effort to help people up front to become better at what they do from the start, so we could go down to the pub after work instead. Whoever you have helped that day might even buy you a pint as thanks for you being there to help them out.