Quantcast
Channel: All posts in Training
Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 2

Getting Better Faster - Thoughts From BADCamp

0
0

While down in Berkeley for BADCamp, I had the chance to go out to lunch with Jeff Graham, Chach Sikes, and Catrina Roallos. We got to talking about ways to help people working in technology (or wanting to expand what they do with technology) learn the requisite skills needed to continue to grow.

We talked about ways of finding community - either within open source projects or in hackfests - and about how the connections there can be key. And we also talked about how learning leading edge development best practice - for both front end and back end developers - really isn't widely available within schools.

One thing Chach brought up in the conversation stuck with me. When she brought it up, she made sure to point out that it was advice that she had been given from several people over time, but the reason it stuck with me is because it's so simple, but it's the kind of thing that can help you no matter your experience level (and really, it can help both within tech and in other disciplines).

The advice Chach gave is this: If you work on soving a problem for more than half an hour and you are still stuck, stop and ask a question.

This is some seriously awesome advice. First, it ensures that a person is making a concerted effort to solve the problem on their own before reaching out. This helps avoid obvious and/or lazy questions. Doing some initial legwork also leads to informed questions; an informed, focused question is a lot easier to answer than a general fishing expedition.

This approach also assumes that you have a community, or at least a place where you can ask the question. If you don't know where to ask questions about your specific project, places like StackExchange or even Quora can be good places to start. But, the thing that's awesome about asking a question is that it implicitly acknowledges that none of us ever needs to work in a vacuum, and that it's okay to not know the answer to everything. And, in situations where you don't know the answer, seeking out smart people is a great idea.

Additionally, setting a time limit helps ensure that you don't get lost down a rabbit hole. If we work on something without success for too long, it's natural and normal to get discouraged, frustrated, or angry, and these states of mind rarely lead to our best work. We all have different thresholds, but setting a time limit helps minimize the chance that we'll lose half a day trying to chase down a solution.

As we continued talking over lunch, it was pretty obvious that experienced developers have work habits that are only tangentially related to technology, but that these habits are a key part to their continued success. Individually, none of these habits are a magic bullet, but taken collectively, each strategy helps create incremental improvement.

And that's how we get better.

Over the next few weeks and months, we are planning on doing some work around helping people learn both the techical skills and the less tangible habits and strategies that allow people to have more options in their lives. Things are in the early stages yet, and we'll be updating here with details as things progress, but as we get started on this path, I wanted to share this out. There are simple things we do - habits that work for us and help us work more effectively - that can be shared and taught, and that will help others. One of the things I love about the advice Chach shared is that it can be put to use pretty much immediately, and it can work anywhere - for Drupal developers, for designers, for sysadmins, or outside technology.

What are some tricks, habits, or strategies that have worked for you?


Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 2

Latest Images

Trending Articles





Latest Images