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Teamwork makes the dreamwork
Are you good at teamwork?
What does good teamwork mean to you?
Software development is a team sport
- Code is written by many people (and robots)
- Code is reviewed
- Integration can be hard
- Ideas need to be shared, problems solved, decisions made
- Cross-functional communication
Can we engineer
"Good Teamwork"
from first principles?
Hi, I'm Sheena
- Coding since young teen
- Worked in a lot of startups
-
Spent the last 5+ years in tech education
- has potential => has career
- spoken to a LOT of hiring companies
- science of ed => engineering
of ed
- PyCon Africa 2025 Chair
- Founded Guild of Educators
- Founded Prelude - Gold standard learning experiences
What is a good team player?
A good team-player
Passes the ball
Skilfully!
== Set the next person up for success
Examples of "ball passing" in software dev?
Let's zoom in on PRs
- Make a PR skilfully
- Give feedback skilfully
- Apply feedback skilfully
Coordination is a part of the game
Coordination mechanisms
- Meetings
- Written communication
- Project management tools
Communication is Key
- Share information skilfully
- Absorb information skilfully
Principles over Process
- Avoid "box-checking" behavior
- Avoid "That's just how we do it"
- Rather: Be aware of the reasons for things
- Handle edge cases and gray areas
Help and status
- Share your status - skilfully
- Ask for help - skilfully
- Receive help - skilfully
Diversity matters
Google's Project Aristotle
- 180 Teams
- Over 250 survey questions
- Hundreds of double-blind interviews
- 35 different statistical models
Looked for factors that
- impacted multiple outcome metrics, both qualitative and quantitative
- surfaced for different kinds of teams across the organization
- showed consistent, robust statistical significance
And the winner is...
Psychological Safety
If I make a mistake on our team, it is not held against
me.
Psychological Safety
- Safe to suggest and challenge ideas
- Safe to try new things
- Safe to ask for/offer help
- Safe to say no
How to be a good team player?
- Principles-first approach
- Cater for diversity
- Treasure psychological safety
To err is human
- Habits of awareness and action
- Rational biases
- Ego + Limiting beliefs
- Baggage
The end
