"You need Software Developers to believe in your project"

Original: You need Software Developers to believe in your project

One of the worst ways to motivate teams, or a single individual, is via money, bonuses or any financial compensation. After a certain threshold, the amount of money a person receives won’t make a significant difference in their life.

In particular for for tech workers, where there’s an abundance of jobs, moreover with remote-first companies popping up like mushrooms, finding a more satisfactory job is a matter of time and patience. Throwing money at the face of engineers doesn’t work.

Besides some unusual jargon, and the mention of Agile, which I feel is irrelevant for the overall idea, I quite like this article. In particular the final four points the author points out:

1. Don’t withhold newly discovered information about the customer’s needs

Most companies don’t understand what are the customer’s needs. If they do, only the Product Manager is intimate with them.

2. Avoid the temptation of isolating the team in the name of “just getting it done”

I think the point of this one, is to make sure engineers are releasing frequently and avoiding spending too much time on a particular pieces. Loosing the forest for the trees is quite common.

3. Avoid discouraging technical team members who express interest in the market or business model

I have never seen business actively discouraging engineers from understanding others areas besides their own, but rarely you see encouragement as well. For a senior engineer role, this is a requirement.

4. Avoid over statusing your software development initiatives

This feels more like micro-management, rather than understanding the “why” for a particular project, which was the original’s post starting point.