Lies we tell ourselves: the 10xEngineer
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By: Chris Greacen - 03/08/2023
The Lab Zero team has seen plenty of the good, the bad, and the ugly in the years we've been working in the software development world.
In this and the next couple videos, I'll talk about the 'bad' highlighting some of the lies we tell ourselves. First on my list is the 10x engineer/developer - a mythical creature sought by many.
Have you worked with a 10x engineer/developer? What was your experience?
Hey, this is Chris with Lab Zero. In my last video I mentioned that the Lab Zero team has seen 'The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly' in working on software product development over the years. And in this and the next couple videos I want to talk about 'The Ugly' - and specifically The Lies We Tell ourselves in the software product world.
The first lie I'll talk about is the 10x engineer. Perhaps you've heard it? The Lie goes something like this: the 10x engineer is an individual who will come join your team and do 10 times the work of a normal mortal. They will spray ten times the lines of code all over your source code repository. They will move 10 times the tickets... And um we know that to be a lie, right?
Let's talk about the truth. The truth is: these are well-rounded individuals who can think clearly about complex problems. They are very unlikely to solve a problem with software, unless it's really clear that there's a solution there. They want to write just enough software, with just enough quality so that the problem gets solved - and they don't have to get a page in the middle of the night or get called into work on the weekend (or whatever, remotely).
The 10x developers that I know have people skills. And they are just as likely to be able to get a group of people together to solve a complex problem as they are able to do anything on their own.
They have no pride in the amount of code that they deliver, or the amount of lines of code that they check into a repository. If anything, quite the opposite! They're going to be proud of the lines of code that they removed from a repository. They want to be known as the people who are taking out the unused stuff -- refactoring to make simple and clear all of those parts of the application which are critical and important to your business.
These are people who do not want to save your company. They're going to look at the need for heroics as a problem. Frankly, your plan should be working. The fact that they have those skills -- great. But they don't want to be pulling those things out all day, every day, on the weekend, and at the night.
Have you worked with 10x developers over the years? What is your experience in working with them? Share your notes or your comments below. I would love to hear from you!
Oh, and call out anything that you think is baloney that I just told you I'll follow this up with some other 'Lies That We Tell Ourselves' soon so stay tuned.
Thanks, this is Chris with Lab Zero!
#10x #heroics #ugly #10xengineer #10xdeveloper #productivity #lieswetellourselves #lies #experience #engineer #developer #softwaredevelopment #team
category = TECH
tagses = 10X ENGINEER, HEROICS, 10XENGINEER, LIES WE TELL OURSELVES, LIESWETELLOURSELVES, LIES, TEAM, SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT, PRODUCTIVITY, ENGINEER, DEVELOPER, TEAMWORK, LABZERO, LWTO, LIESWETELLOURSELVES,
Leave a comment Reflecting on the project that started it all
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By: Chris Greacen - 02/13/2023
One of our first big engagements still serves as a model for all of Lab Zero Innovations Inc.'s highest impact work. Our client was able to unlock a huge victory by bringing in a small #team capable of #designing and #delivering a high quality #software #product. Great things can happen when you pair a high #performing team with a huge opportunity and a solid rationale.
I'm Chris Greacen with Lab Zero Innovations I'm going to tell a couple stories this week about the things we've seen over the years designing and building software products for our clients. We've seen "The Good The Bad and The Ugly". But today we're going to start with the beginning: our first big project, our first real, let's say -- opportunity to operate as the team that we always dreamed of being. An effective small team drives big outcomes through the delivery of good software product.
It started in 2008. Our first client was a big name -- you've probably heard of them. They do genealogical services. They let you research your family origins.
Here I am at Pier 38 which is where our family began. You probably know this place, or at least some of the products that came from this place. Some very famous very big names sprang out of Pier 38. They're probably on your phone right now. Lab Zero is not one of those things...
But the product that we worked on in this particular case, our first one is a big well-known name. They had a problem: they wanted to go public. They wanted to expand their empire and grow their company but their team was already subscribed, already committed to a very aggressive road map. Still, Wall Street analysts did not like the fortunes that this company had. They were not giving favorable ratings to this company as they prepared for their IPO.
They had two big problems. Problem number one - revenue was tied to number of users (MAUs). And the number of users was flat! Had been flat for years! Unlikely to grow Revenue - that's a big No-No in your IPO world.
Problem number two - was their product was very skewed toward people who are well documented, families who are well documented through history. Some people live in places where there are records. And the whole product was based on gathering records and connecting records to your family tree. As it turns out, not everybody has well-documented family history for a lot of reasons.
Someone in the company had a brilliant idea and they said, well if we can build a product that compares people's genetic history -- everybody's got genes... If we can sell this product to our existing users and decouple our revenue stream from our user base, we may overcome the objections and have a very successful IPO.
And that's where we came in: designing and building a product that fits into their world of the existing product suite, fits into the existing architecture, fits into the existing value prop, and extends that value prop to a new area. It took guts for those people to do that. To plunk down a budget for it. To work with people who are known at least to the decision makers, but still like outsiders.
Radical success for everybody involved. They took a chance to grow and make something great happen and they needed a team who knew their stuff. And we were lucky to be in the right place at the right time. And we definitely knew our stuff.
Since then we've learned a lot more. I'll tell you about it in the next video. Thanks for watching!
#productdesign #productdevelopment #strategy #ipo #wallstreet #genealogy
A vision for Lab Zero
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By: Chris Greacen - 02/08/2023
Lab Zero Innovations Inc. started in 2008 with a #vision of our small team making a big impact for our #clients . We've been able to bring our own vision to life by assembling an extremely talented and capable team and connecting them with our clients toughest challenges.
Over the next few weeks I'll share a few insights and anecdotes from the things we've seen and learned along the way.
If you visited us in the early days, what are your enduring memories? What challenges are you and your teams facing today?
Here's the transcript from the video:
Chris Greacen with Lab Zero Innovations - we've been designing and building high quality software products since 2008. I want to put a couple videos together to tell you some stories about the things we've learned and seen over the years and I figure it would be a good place to start right at the beginning - here we are Pier 38.
We Incorporated the company in 2008. I wasn't there at the time, I came a little later, but the dream was: do it better. do it right.
We had worked for so many companies where the shortcuts got in the way of quality work and our first client experience allowed us to do the things we knew we needed to - that were effective.
And what better place than a pier, basically a glorified garage on the San Francisco waterfront, to bring that dream to life it started with a team of three people: an engineer, a designer, and a product manager... and that Trio put together a product that solved a really big problem for our first client.
I'll tell you a little bit more about that in the next video I want to say hi first. Hi!
Stay tuned! Bye.
#productdevelopment #productdesign #teamwork #pier38 #startup #consulting #ipo #labzero #softwareengineering #innovation
category = TECH
tagses = VISION, LAB ZERO, LABZERO, CONSULTING, TECHNICAL TEAM, AGILE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT, PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT, PRODUCT DESIGN, EMPOWERED TEAM, AGILE TEAM, SOFTWARE DELIVERY, EFFICIENCY, PRODUCTIVITY,
Leave a comment Chris On The Bridge: Build To Learn
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By: Chris Greacen - 04/28/2020
During the pandemic I shared a short series of videos about some of the software development and teamwork topics that Lab Zero was facing. Here's one about the importance in learning when building software products...
Software development is tricky and can be expensive. If your hopes and dreams involve delivering software, you better be ready to learn about the impact it makes. Sustained value comes from taking stock of what you've delivered and improving upon it. Software enables a relationship between a business and its customers - so learning is a requisite part of building.
Transcript from the video:
This is Chris with Lab Zero. We work with a lot of clients who are trying to launch new things, trying to accelerate their new product or a new feature that needs some help from a team that knows their stuff. They'll call up Lab Zero and we're pretty good about helping our clients deliver software they can rely on, that does a job.
Every once in a while I have that conversation with someone asks me in all earnesty and all seriousness, "we're ready to build this thing (can you help?)" and when I start probing and asking a little bit to get a little bit of the background, usually interesting things happen.
When I ask, "what do you want this thing to do, this thing you want to build?" That is the doorway to some really interesting topics.
One of the things that we've learned from going down that hall a bunch of times and going through that door is that building doesn't happen on its own. It's expensive! You got to build things right. But really building is for a purpose - it's about delivering value to your customers (of course), but more importantly it's about learning.
One of the things we have said to ourselves and now I'm saying it to you - you're ready to build when you're ready to learn.
More from this "Chris On The Bridge" series:
category = TECH
tagses = SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT, SOFTWARE DESIGN, DISCOVERY, LEARNING, BUSINESS VALUE, GOALS, BUILDING, DOOR, HALLWAY, METAPHOR, LABZERO, CHRISONTHEBRIDGE,
Leave a comment Chris On The Bridge: Self-Healing Teams
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By: Chris Greacen - 04/21/2020
During the pandemic I shared a short series of videos about some of the software development and teamwork topics that Lab Zero was facing. Here's one about team's ability to self-improve...
Teams that have clarity in their roles, access to the best data related to the business, and a clear mandate to deliver value will do amazing things. How are your teams thriving in these challenging times?
Here's the transcript:
Hi it's Chris at Lab Zero - you know there are a lot of news stories about health these days. You can't turn on the news and not hear somebody talking about: doctors, medicine, health.
There's a story that probably hasn't been on the news that is really important to me. Stop me if you've heard this one already... it's the story of the self-healing team. Have you heard it before?
It goes something like this... There once was a team made up of members who had clearly defined roles. They understood each other's jobs and contribution to the work on the project. They had the tools available to them. They had the mandate, permission, the ability to make improvements to their process and how they do their job. They had information that was available to them and they took time to look at that information.
Oh I've seen this happen in reality a couple times where a team that is given all this permission and leeway and has the ability to collect performance data on how the team is working. Might be velocity, it might be a burn down chart, something like that.
If they're able to use that data to improve their operation they will improve. They will try to win. They will have fun doing it.
And I wish there were more of those stories on the on the news these days and I look forward to a time when we can focus on that kind of health and healing.
If your teams are doing this I'd be curious to hear what other factors play in there - or into into that story. What factors drive the health and healing powers of your teams? Let me know!
Be well!
More from this "Chris On The Bridge" series:
- 04/05/2020 — TECH —
Chris On The Bridge: Embrace Risk
- 04/04/2020 — TECH —
Chris On The Bridge: What is Essential?