No Red Shoes! How NOT to Lead a Team of Drupal Developers

Presenters: tobby

Throughout my career of two decades of Web development, I've been given some really terrible advice. As I persisted, despite them, I advanced to a position of leadership. That opened the door to some more really terrible advice about how to manage.

There’s a difference between being a boss and being a leader. I want to share this terrible advice, and make sure no other leader does the same things I was told to do. These nuggets would include (and will be countered with better advice):

  • "Anyone can 'do Drupal' -- don't worry about finding the right person, just get the cheap person."

  • "People are resources, cogs; put them in the right place, and the machine will run smoothly."

  • "Set arbitrary rules to establish your authority, like 'no red shoes in the workplace!', then they'll know you're the boss."

  • "A college degree in Computer Science is the only thing that matters when you're hiring."

  • "Do it that way because that's how the CEO wants it done."

  • "If you put their nose to the grindstone, and work really hard, you can have a nice car like this one day."

This session will allow for some questions and answers to help guide other Drupal leaders, and we can even talk about some things that you SHOULD do as a leader.

Audience
Experience Level
Intermediate
Schedule Info
Conference Year
2018
Date / Time
Room
Room F1/F2
Status
Accepted
Session Track
Project and Team Management
Supporting Documents