
Ask HN: What are some things your software team does that makes it successful? - inglor
I&#x27;m about to run a software team after being a developer for a few years. I&#x27;ve read the &quot;material&quot; such as &quot;Peopleware&quot;.<p>I&#x27;m interested in concrete tips that you feel have made your team successful in a startup delivery oriented environment.<p>It doesn&#x27;t have to be about software.
======
thecupisblue
Communication.

Whether it's communicating about bugs, tickets, issues we've encountered, bugs
or talking about how drunk was someone this weekend or where we'll go for
lunch. I've seen lack of communication cause issues that snowballed into huge
combination of hours and money spent * stress and willpower. If you're going
to lead the team, don't be one of those silent guys that nobody wants to ask
something because they know they'll get a CS lecture and "mental negative
points". Be accessible to your team, create a positive, relaxed atmosphere, be
open to ideas and suggestions and with good communication even the worst
crunches will pass like nothing.

Other than that:

* Proper git usage

* Defining how we work (architecture, style, plugins)

* Code reviews

* Static analysis - no people blame, machine told you that code sucks

------
davismwfl
It is pretty simple. Your first goal is to make sure your team respects you.
If they respect you they will follow you into hell if that is where you lead
them. Your job is not to lead them into hell but into success. Communication,
respect and honesty are the easiest ways to gain respect and their trust. If
you do that, and don't BS them then you'll get a good response.

I have lead a number of teams, and I can say I have had more than a few people
on each tell me they would work for me anytime, anywhere. The prime reasons so
far have been 1) I will never ask them to do something I won't. 2) I will
defend them first, my ass be damned. 3) I respect the team dynamics and trust
them to do their job while I do mine which is keeping people off their back.

~~~
spotman
avoid negativity and negative thinking. be pragmatic and realistic. ride the
waves of passion and encourage passionate work, but also encourage balance and
health and try to be a leader in both regards, keeping your own work velocity
up, but not getting burnt out it not taking care of yourself.

learn your team and respect them. work at earning their respect. don't expect
more work out of them than you put in. if you assign a dev 3 issues assign
yourself 4. if that's not possible go out of your way to be transparent.
developers are motivated by progress and want to see deliverables; so
transparency about where you spend your time can help, especially at first.

create an environment where it's ok to fail. both with software architecture
and human challenges. avoid creating an environment where people can't
communicate or ask for help.

don't be passive aggressive, always be direct. be light hearted and have a
soul, but don't get stuck being too nice and let that prevent you from being
firm as needed. try to balance this out with letting people occasionally make
their own mistakes and learning from them if it's in an area of the project
that can afford to invest time in this learning. sometimes you can to force a
good decision by being firm, but if you can let it evolve organically the
person will feel they achieved more.

try to do your best work and encourage that in others, but always calculate
some buffer for things not always running at full tilt every day.

good luck!

------
andersthue
Sorry for the shameless self promotion below!

I have been running a consultancy for 15+ years without much success, then
this january I changed some elements on how we worked and wrote a manifesto
about what is most important for our company, this has made a huge change in
how or success and the sustainabillity of our business.

This change has since evolved into the TimeBlock method, a simple method that
takes 30 minutes to learn, a couple of weeks to be comfortable using and
probably a lifetime to master.

The methods manifesto is about Transparency, Planning, Sticking to the plan &
Learning from our mistakes.

You can read more on [http://timeblock.com](http://timeblock.com) or email me
: anders (at) timeblock.com

If you find it interesting and want to learn more I'll gladly take a skype
call explaining the method in details.

