Detailed Notes
In the world of software development, disagreements are inevitable. Whether it’s about the tools to use, the architecture to build, or the best approach to solving a problem, developers often find themselves at odds with one another. The key to overcoming these conflicts lies in understanding the difference between advocating for the right solution and falling into the trap of arguing. This podcast episode explores the subtle but critical distinction between advocating vs. arguing and how mastering this difference can help developers foster a collaborative, productive environment.
Read more... https://develpreneur.com/advocating-vs-arguing-how-to-drive-collaboration-and-success-in-software-development
We invite you to join our community and share your coding journey with us. Whether you’re a seasoned developer or just starting, there’s always room to learn and grow together. Contact us at [email protected] with your questions, feedback, or suggestions for future episodes. Together, let’s continue exploring the exciting world of software development.
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Transcript Text
[Music] okay so I just hit record as far as anybody knows and now we are into the next one the our next episode and I totally bailed out on the the bonus material last time so we'll have extra bonus this time I apologize to all of you guys so this episode I think we're gonna get into what everybody maybe hates a little bit it's a little bit of like soft skills uh I think we're gonna I think this is the one that we'll go talk about basically the difference between advocating for something and arguing and this is basically yes about your team and with your team so when you're sitting there in your team meetings and you're talking about design it is you know do we are we advocating for a better piece of software a better solution or we really just arguing our point and we're going to talk about that a little bit and see where we go both of us have had lots of experiences Sometimes good sometimes bad so I will just upfront I think before we get into this I don't know if I'll this will be your bonus your pre-b bonus is take what we say with a grain of salt I may or may not mention that in the podcast depending on how I go because we like you are developers first and sometimes some of us are known rightly so for not being like the easiest people to deal with does that sound good to you I think sort of as like a a direction we can take with this one yeah I definitely like that uh the other thing too maybe we can kind of slip it in is given that we're also still kind of in a hybrid world be careful with your communication tools like zoom and things like that to allow times for pausing and that so we don't necessarily argue by talking over someone just because there isn't that pause like you can't always see that pause and communication so maybe we can kind of work that into this discussion does that make sense yeah very much so that's like it's a little different that's not something I I thought about but it's definitely as you mentioned it it's something that's like very important especially in the the world of zoom and things like that okay so cool we'll dive right into it then well hello and welcome back we are continuing the developer Journey we are develop preneur we are building better developers you hopefully are a developer if not maybe you'll be a developer by the time we get through all this don't I'm not promising anything because we're not going to teach you how to code in the next 25 to 30 minutes but if you follow us over time if you go check out our site you will have a lot of tools and ability to do that and actually yes as I think about it you go to places like development order.com school. develop order.com and we can we have the material we have the content that you can learn how to code in a couple different languages and a couple different environments but before you do that you need to sit here and listen to this episode because we already here we put this thing together you might as well and me the guy talking right now is Rob rodad I am one of the founders of develop andur and building better developers I'm also a founder of RB Consulting and I have to take a deep breath sometimes because I enjoy doing all this so much but part of what I enjoy on the RB Consulting side is helping people help themselves with the technology that's out there and this is through simplification through automation through integration is taking all of the things that are out there and helping a customer figure out what is the best path forward for them whether it is using a couple of sites and tools that already exist or whether it's all the way on the other end of building an entirely custom solution for their business those are the kinds of things that like help me jump out of bed every day excited to to step into the day speaking of that looking at good things and bad things good thing I like as you get into this is something that as you get further into your career you may run into this as well is that you you may not be you may be like me where you don't really Network a whole lot you don't go to a lot of networking events and stuff like that however there is the word of mouth stuff there are people that we've talked to over the years that we've worked with that people have pointed us to conversations we've had and sometimes those turn into somebody coming out of the blue basically and saying hey I was thinking about you I've got this project or you know I've got this side project or I've got this bigger project or somebody's looking to hire somebody that happens to be a good fit for what you do I had one of those come out of blue just the other day was a guy that I just I just of kept touching Bas periodically here and there and then suddenly like I had heard from him a while and I get a nice little one that's like hey this is where we're at things are still going good but they probably won't we're seeing there may be some some changes we may need somebody so I want to make sure we keep in touch I'm like cool that is nice to know that there are people out there thinking about you bad thing I really don't gosh I now I got to struggle with a bad thing because I don't have one off the top of my head oh bad thing may very well be zoomed because as I'm recording this I going to potentially bump up against somebody else that is in my company that will be effectively using my zoom so I will have maybe two meetings going on at the same time and I don't think Zoom likes that so if towards the end of this I start talking really fast and try to get out of here now you know why on the other side is Michael so goad introduce yourself and give some good and bad of your latest day or last couple of days hey everyone my name is my name is Michael M I'm one of the co-founders of developer ner building better developers and I'm also the founder of Invision QA now we at Invision QA we like to help small and midsize businesses and clinicians help build software that works for them and we typically our main vision and goal is to focus on quality so all of our development that we do is test driven test first we make sure that we do not release software that does not meet the requirements and the expectations good and bad I'll start with the bad so one of the things I've run into recently is sometimes I run into some difficult conversations that you have to have and it kind of puts you in a funk you kind of feel bad a and it takes time to process that so initially you're you're just feeling depressed the good side of that is once you get some rest once you get some mindfulness and you really think through it you really realized that it is a benefit that you learn something new it was more a positive critique than something negative and so that that was kind of a nice takeaway it's like I I went through a funk but at the end of it it's like you know that really wasn't as bad as I thought it was so you may run into that yourselves so one cool takeaway from that is you know the grass is always greener on the other side and it's always sunnier maybe tomorrow pass back to you Bing on that one uh one of the best things I heard and I forget where I he heard it was that um you personally at this point are undefeated you have gone through life and it has not beaten you yet so I thought that was a great way to look at every day it's like no matter how things are going you're at least right now you are undefeated you're number one baby so speaking of that I don't know how I'm going to tie it back to the topic but I'll we'll pretend that I did today we're going to talk about we're really going to talk about fighting for what's right fighting for where you want to go with your team and it can be arguing it can be something where you're just like you're button heads with your teammates and it's and it's personal that you're really tied to this solution or this approach for whatever reason or it could be something more along the lines of advocating where you're trying to build where you're really trying to say look this is the best solution this or this is a better way to go the problem is like I just had that slip basically is if you say this is the best solution that right away is going to get you into trouble because if somebody else has a different one you're saying theirs isn't as good as yours and that mayor may not be true and honestly it is probably not provable because you're dealing with ifs essentially you're saying well I think that if we take this process then we will get here the best possible way but it is you you don't know that there are no guarantees we know there are no guarantees in this so when you get into these situations the first thing you want to do is check yourself is is this something where you're just personally stuck on this where it's like this is what I know and maybe I'm scared that this this other thing I'm G to have to learn it's going to be more difficult for me or it's something where I don't I'm not sure that we can do this that I can do it or that the team can do it and in those cases be hon Hest I think is the best way to go about and say hey look I have concerns about us being able to execute this let people know that that's a that that's a risk for example you're in a te you're in with a a team and everybody's a let's just say everybody's a react developer and now somebody's like but we love angular and and now angular needs to be the thing to do and you can be like okay yeah I want to learn something new and that's there's those Pros but then it could be like well wait a minute we don't know that we don't have an expert on it so now that's a risk now these are the this is how you want to have those conversations is break away from the the personal attachments to some of these things and instead try to step back and take a look at it from the enduser point of view if you keep the customer in mind then the advocating for your customer is going to be sort of like the natural step for you arguing with your team is not going to be because ideally now everybody is moving in this rowing the boat in the same direction everybody wants a happier customer now we can disagree on how we get there but honestly most of the time it's not going to be 100% one or 100% the others so we can in these I think sometimes if not all the time find a way to to meet some find some Middle Ground now there are limits there are things where it's like well we're going to use tool a or we're going to use tool B well you're not going to use both of them so yeah you have to pick one and sometimes it's something where you're going to have to say all right we're going to choose and then we're going to move on once the choice has been made the choice has been made or it may be that you're going into uh you're working with a client the choice has already been made because they already have invested in it or something along those lines so the number one thing is try to and I don't know why we as developers so often have issues with this I think it's because we are creators we are really creatives at the end of the day and these are our babies that we have created that are out there in our blowing up systems or whatever they happen to be doing but these are things that we have put especially if we're a developer if we're just writing code I think sometimes we can just like yeah I'm just slinging code who cares we're a developer we've invested in this we've spent time thinking about the problem thinking about the solution thinking about the design and looking at the requirements so we are invested we have put time in we have got sometimes Blood Sweat and Tears that have been a part of this project or this path that we're taking and so we do have that emotional kind of an attachment to it the thing we need to do is if we start having that that feel that thing inside you of it's like this doesn't feel right or I'm getting a little bit angry or I'm a little you know I'm a little angry or a little scared or a little hurt is to to recognize how and back your truck up a little bit that boop boop boop back it up a little bit and look at it from the customer point of view from the external point of view is try to get away from I put work into this and instead what do we really and this goes back so much again to the why what did we really want to do what are we trying to accomplish because if you can do that if you can back all of that up and say okay what is it that we are trying to do here what are the goals of this project then that's going to a lot of times help us help our team and ourselves by saying is this thing that we are arguing for or advocating for is this moving the ball forward in those goals is it going to achieve those goals better or is it not and if it's a draw if it's something where we as a team are looking are arguing we could be arguing 10 different things but if those if the resolution of that doesn't impact the goals then we need to find we we need to step up and basically say look I don't think any decision matters all we need is a decision whatever decision we make there's going to be Pros there's going to be cons we can do some analysis of it but sometimes it's like we just need a decision and then we need to stick with it and in those cases yeah you may be more comfortable or you like one decision or another or you know the guy next to you is somebody's like your best friend so you want to advocate for what they're doing but if it's not moving the ball forward if it's not part of the why if it's not part of the goals then you're wasting your time you are arguing something that has no impact and we hate it when customers do that I know I've been I remember years ago we spent probably two or three weeks where we were constantly going back to complaining about a customer that we got into a demo we're trying to demonstrate all of these features and there was two or three places that there was effectively a spelling area it was actually it was like a improper chemical uh math was was in there as just example data and the customer spent an hour they were arguing amongst themselves what that chemical uh math should have been wasted all of our time didn't talk didn't give us any feedback on the application didn't give us any feedback that helped us move anything forward it was them arguing essentially semantics or grammar when it had nothing to do with the application so we need to think about that when we get into some of these arguments we get into these situations where it's like we really need to do this now if you've been doing this for a while you probably have gotten out of that if you haven't when we come out of school almost all of us couple years out of or if we come out of a a boot camp or we've been to a conference we're all pumped up about whatever the heck it was that we learned and we covered there and we'll say this is what we need to do and we will fight for it all that kind of good stuff and sometimes yes it is an advocacy thing because we see it we are believers we think it is the better way to go that's cool that's great we need to have those discussions but we need to realize that not everybody necessarily is going to agree and whatever the solution is that we think that we just got sold is the best solution is not always the best solution there are so many times that I've walked into places we've had conversations with developers and teams and customers and we have this Grand Vision of what we're going to build and we it makes no sense to ever go there because a customer really they don't need that big world of us stuff that we're offering they need this little bit of ball down here that's all they need and we need to make sure that we have that as part of our Focus now I will pause there because I know you got a couple different things and I'll throw it over to you and see what what are some of your thoughts in this and where do you see um in particular like the the tension points and the ways to relieve the tension when we're dealing with these kinds of you know is it personal is it not kinds of uh we'll call them discussions here as opposed to arguments or even debates yeah so you touched on a lot of points between the arguing and the advocating within your own teams now some of the things I didn't hear that have really impacted me and really been kind of nail biters more on the arguing when we're trying to Advocate it becomes more arguing is when you're dealing in more of a corporate culture and cross team culture one of the biggest problems and I've run into this quite a bit is if you are working cross teams in an organization that does not have standardized development environments or every team is working in different languages or different architectures you are going to run into a lot of problems where your team may be advocating for customer rights but you're running into the argumenting of architectures or platforms and and it's not necessarily meant to be an argument but it's more along the lines of the culture itself is set up to fail because the corporation itself has not kind of set the standards or possibly even the mentality of how everyone should work together everyone's kind of working in their silos and when you have to work together you're going to run into that argumenting that confrontation environment to kind of avoid that look at it go into those meetings more along the lines of what is it that we're trying to accomplish what are the end goals what are we trying to get out of this and that can hopefully flip that conversation to be more of the advocating of where are we driving this car or where's the end goal which can avoid a lot of those arguments but they are going to happen and it's unfortunately the nature of the Beast Within those cultures or those environments with corporate it's even worse because in a corporation you have thousands of people multiple teams multiple architecture you have no idea or you know the top level may have no idea what's really going down in the trenches and you may even have outdated policies procedures tools languages styles that you need to use and if you come into this culture your team has been acquired through an acquisition or you're just a new you know Department that's been stood up hey we need this feature you know go out and find the best way to do this you go do that and you come back and it's like oh now you need to do it in this well wait a minute you asked us to do X but now you're forcing us to do y you're you've now kind of force that argument or you're self-imposing that argument because you've a ated you want this but then when they come back with that you're now saying oh no wait now we're going to put all these rules on top of so you're self-inflicting the arguments so you may have said hey developers go brainstorm go give me the best practices but when they come back and they start explaining it to you your managers or management may come back and say well that's not what we want and that's going to immediately force you into that argument to because you've done all this work you want to justify what you did and you are very quickly going to get into that headbutting argumentation and I see wanting to jump in on that so what are your thoughts on how we want how we can kind of avoid that I think and a lot of the areas I've been in it can be demoralizing I've seen teams go from like Hey we're 110% gung-ho we're going we're striving we're pushing the boundaries and then we hit a brick wall and it's not our brick wall but it's a self-imposed brick wall by the corporation well I think one of the things to to think about is uh it's really what is to put yourself in the other person's shoes this is one of these cases where I I've been in those I can think of a couple where it was it's very demoralizing where you sit there and like this is your your pro something like this is the project this is what you're working on and you've been on a team maybe that's working on it for 6 months or a year or something like that and then it gets cancelled or something along those lines and you believe in it you've built it you've done all your stuff and the C your your employer the company the customer whatever it is it just it disappears those things happen what I would remind you in those situations that you have probably done this to somebody else as well maybe not on the same level but think about it think about have you ever uh for example like maybe you've gone out to buy a house and you started to like you were like oh yeah I think we're going to put an offer on the house and then didn't or you were going to move and then you didn't so the real estate agent put a bunch of stuff together and now you're not going to do it or even the most simple stuff is maybe you walked into a restaurant and something happened and you had to leave you ordered some food or something and then you had to leave there's there's things that are out there that like on small scale but also on a larger scale stuff happens we may have like you could have stuff like say a vacation that you've got planned and then you get sick or you know something H or you you lose your job or things like there's all these things that now you've cancelled that because you can't do it so again instead of taking it personally and treating it as they are disrespecting the work you have done the thing I've found and I've that this is something that actually I learned from a a side hustle point of view that I think very often helps it helps me as much as it helps them is I'll say hey if we're if you're going to shut this thing down or you don't want this then at least here is the research that went into it you know if you don't want this product because we looked at it and you know everybody looked at it's like the market research says it's not going to happen that's okay I want you to at least here is the re market research that was done here's some of the thoughts on that so if you ever do come back to it you've got to start on it and those kinds of things I found that at least you feel like it helps you feel like you have at least done something and your stuff wasn't thrown in the trash now it could be that it was thrown in the trash however it's one of those things that at least you can say like okay we did the work we got to a certain point and we some cases it's like you you almost want to feel good that we proved that that wasn't with our work we got to a point that proved that this wasn't a good choice if you want to think of an example that'll maybe help you it would be what happens if you're working on a cure for cancer and you end up it kills somebody because it's poisonous you want to at least the good thing is that that's not going to go forward because you don't want to kill everybody in the world you're trying to create a cure for cancer now that's extreme and we hopefully are not in those situations however this is where you have to realize that there is personal and there is business now if a if a manager or an organization or group or something like that says hey we need you to go do this stuff and they come back and they tell you well no none of those answers make sense then it's it is not shutting down what you did or disrespecting what you did this is an opportunity for you to say okay let's talk through this because we made a mistake somewhere here because there was a disconnect so what do we do to to clean that thing up to understand what we need to do moving forward the last thing I'll think I'll I'll put into that is that sometimes our best approach is instead of saying know that's not the way to go to that organization or something like that let find a way to take like I think of it it's like it's probably a graphic you know comic kind of thing but it's the idea of like somebody sitting there with a shotgun and then you s like a child with a shotgun and you sort of go in there and you replace it with a water gun you something like that it's like okay you don't need this but how about we use this instead and that just stopping from the absolutes of no we can't do this or yes we got to do that like I said best or worst using those kinds of things we can tone that down and again it goes back to we think about that customer and that customer if they like think about them being right there if you're arguing with somebody else in your team in your organization and the customers right there would they think that that is you advocating for them and that you guys are working towards something better for them are they're going to say you guys are a clown show this is a circus what is going on you guys need to like grow up put on us you know put on your big boy pants and move forward and get the work done so those are a couple of things that hopefully can you can like have in your mind I would think so I'm going to throw that at you and it's like how does that does that help a little bit where are we going with this as far as like is that in the the ballpark of what you were you were throwing back at me yeah I I really like that last analogy you kind of threw out there you know trying to deescalate kind of take the feelings out of it the last thing I will throw out there is between arguing and advocating try to leave feelings out of it if you start finding yourself is oh I feel this way because back up almost treat it like the scientific method if I push this am I getting the expected outcome like Rob said you know if we create poison it's like a test if it does not give us the outcome we wanted that's not necessarily a bad thing that's just one less thing we need to do going forward so you basically disprove something you can check it off the list move on think of it that way between arguing and advocating if you find yourself stuck on something check it off that maybe I need to let that go move on keep advocating for what's right keep advocating for the customer and keep driving for excellence and try to get away from those you know back room brawls essentially of argumenting something that really doesn't matter you want to be successful you want the company to be successful and if you get into an argument is the argument really about the success of the company the sucess of the project or is it just egos getting in the way I think in closing this one I want to goes back to something is don't make perfect the enemy of good is don't get stuck where this is this you know light on a shining like shining on a hill is where we want to go and we may all agree on that but realize that that may not be reality that may not be what we can do so sometimes the best approach instead of going all in on something or going all the way there is just find a way to make an incremental move in that direction and this may be thing the things that come up with developer places all the times it's things like putting unit building in unit tests for everything or documenting things user manuals uh build scripts pipelines code reviews there's all of these things that we do that we for the most part complain that it's never done to the right level and a lot of times it's not because there's just not the time there's not the resources that we're having to yeah there's there's technical debt for a reason and it's because we're trying to serve the customer by getting something in front of them and we are we're making conscious decisions ision is that getting this in front of them getting them a product that's 80% there is better than them not having a product that someday will be 100% there and so those are kinds of things we do need to keep in mind that I think will help us as we step forward what will help us as we step forward is for you guys to shoot us an email at info developer.com we'd love to hear from you we're soon going to be getting into our next uh season cruising right along here it's like it's amazing how many episodes we've got and all that kind of good stuff and we're just going to continue on there's no plan for a break or anything like that so it's just going to be bam we end this season bam we start right into the next one so you buckle up because it's just going to carry on you can leave us feedback email address you can leave it uh comments anywhere whether it's you look at the YouTube app uh YouTube site and and all of the videos that are there you can leave it for any of our stuff that's out there it doesn't even have to be the podcast you can look at some of our past material you can go school. develop n.com you go to developer.com you can leave comments on any of the blog articles out there you can just however you want it you use US mail if you want if you want to send us a letter there's a I'm pretty sure we may be somewhere have an address mailing address if not send us an email and we'll give you a mailing address so you can send us a letter yeah it's a little backwards but hey that's that's how we will work to help you out if for some reason you need to you put a stamp on something obviously I think we've reached the end of this because I've reached the end of my mental capacity in some way so go out there and have yourself a great day a great week and we will talk to you next time all right as I mentioned bonus material before I've got like a tight window right here so we're going to have like let's like bam right through a couple of good little bonus pieces so we didn't touch on them last time but I just want to throw out some time tracking tools like toggle there's uh screen time with your iPad or I where it can actually tell you what you're spending time on what apps or you could actually get like app tracking tools so you can actually see what you're working on at certain times and kind of get a summary at the end of the your your week or month or whatever you're trying to do so just simple ways there are lots of apps lots of tools out there track your time don't ignore it you know if if you don't know what you're working on get those complete system tracking tools but if you are very methodical use like the individual tools start time stop just keep track of what you're doing I just going to say make sure you do that with the non-billable stuff as well if you have question like this is one of the things is a bonus bonus is if you want a little app that you can easily like because I use something ARB Consulting we've got something that we put together that is just very simple highly customized let me know I can I can throw that at you because it's a great way to just basically here's a project is it billable or not what kind of rate are we talking about all that kind of stuff that's like super simple what can help you keep track of that kind of stuff and it is like I said most importantly it's the non-billable have something have a project you know whatever it is a code that you can apply it to that is the non-billable business development kind of stuff because you want to see at the end of the week the month the year how much time you spent on your business versus in your business and making sure that you're getting paid for that as well and last little bonus for this episode is if you're face Toof face use things like poit notes whiteboards put your ideas or what the argument of points on a board put them where everyone can see and people can add Post-it notes to to do their ideas if you're virtual use things like mirro idea um idea boards uh and things like that to kind of flush out your ideas if it is too argumentative make it Anonymous make it where people can just put whatever they want out there and then have someone kind of you know um shoot lost the word um basically manage the meeting facilitate fac U facilitate the ideas that are being thrown out there and a lot of times that helps take away a lot of that argumentative because you don't know who's throwing it out there so if it is kind of a personal Grudge that's removed it's more what are the topics that you're walking through what is it that you're try what's the end goal essentially um so that's my last little tidbit for this one I would say just use in the in the world of using tools use if you can use like you know any of those kinds of like shared idea boards whiteboards and things like that obviously in person actual whiteboards are great uh record the meeting so that you can come back to it if you need to if you're remote then there are still idea there virtual idea boards you can use if you're using a tool that allows chat of some sort then use team chats try not to do like sidebarr stuff but to have at least sort of like a main here's some of the ideas that we're going through when you're in Zoom this is one of the things that we we talked about a bit is like when you're make sure that you're keeping an eye out on their face so see if they're like talking but they're may be a little bit behind what you're hearing so if you're not in a situation where everybody's talking over each other if people don't have a live camera and instead it's just like a you know little image or something like that then still try to make sure that you give some extra time a bonus that you can do is I think here if it goes in a second as you can see one of these little things where it's like this little like raise your hand or lower your hand stuff like that is do some sort of a raising a hand or something there are there are these see it took you too long will mine do it uh oh oh no it doesn't like that super bonus there we go go I'm that cool but there's also you can do react uh you can do react kind of things I don't want to why is it it doesn't unreact me great okay oh there it is finally got rid of it um you can do stuff like that is raise your hand uh you could even like if it's an actual you know if you're on a camera you can just say hey you know something like that or you know you can do something ideally it's raising your hand or in the chat say hey when I get a chance I have a I would like to I a question or something along those lines or put the question in the chat so then somebody especially if there's a facil facilitator they can see that hey Michael's got a question I want to you know and you can either ask the question or allow that person to do it and this is just like you know 101 mute yourself when you're not talking if you're in a zoom call Mute the stinking thing if you're not talking a lot of times that's the first clue that somebody wants to talk is they will be muted and then they will unmute and you're like hey Michael just unmuted I bet he wants to talk so those are just a couple of things that will help you with the tenor of a conversation because if you end up talking over people because of the tools then it ends up being confusing and then people are trying to you know then people are trying to like sort of back up they're trying to talk about a conversation that happened a couple minutes ago some other people are like ahead of the game and now it's just it becomes chaos so find a way to like particularly if it gets heated or emotional in any way everybody wants to talk everybody has something to put into the you the pot and this is probably more so if you're in a face-to-face meeting is allow people to like just like pause take a turn things like that I haven't been in too many situations where it's like people are yelling and screaming on the table or something like that I'm guessing I probably have but usually you know you want to avoid that and you also want to avoid that on accident if you're in some sort of a remote thing where somebody's trying to say something and the they've got a bad internet connection or somebody's obviously saying something and they suddenly get muted or something along those lines is you need an extra you know an extra pound of Grace dealing with somebody when it's a remote conversation because there may be something that's missing and it goes to the more you can have face as part of that video so you can see their expressions you can understand the things that are part of the conversation that are not the words all of the unspoken communication that we do the more you can get that the better and understand that if you're using slack or something like that that there are yes there are moons and stuff like that you can add but generally speaking that text is devoid of emotion and context and read it four or five times before you send it just like an email because sometimes you put something out there and the next thing you know people are wondering what the hell you were thinking and and you look at it you go oh I agree what the hell was I thinking that doesn't make any sense so take your time but now my time is done so I gotta wrap this one up I went too long I hope that you guys enjoyed the bonus material hope that you guys have enjoyed what we did this time better than last time because I just jumped right through it so I apologize so much I I beg your apologies if you want to send me an email another way send me an email info developer.com I will be happy to send you an apology picture or something like that I'll figure it out thank you so much for your time and we will talk to you again next time around as we get closer and closer to wrapping up this season have yourself a good one [Music]
Transcript Segments
[Music]
okay so I just hit record as far as
anybody knows and now we are into the
next one the our next episode and I
totally bailed out on the the bonus
material last time so we'll have extra
bonus this time I apologize to all of
you
guys so this episode I think we're gonna
get
into what everybody maybe hates a little
bit it's a little bit of like soft
skills uh I think we're gonna I think
this is the one that we'll go talk about
basically the difference between
advocating for something and arguing and
this is basically yes about your team
and with your team so when you're
sitting there in your team meetings and
you're talking about design it is you
know do we are we advocating for a
better piece of software a better
solution or we really just arguing our
point and we're going to talk about that
a little bit and see where we go both of
us have had lots of experiences
Sometimes good sometimes bad so I will
just upfront I think before we get into
this I don't know if I'll this will be
your bonus your pre-b bonus is take what
we say with a grain of salt I may or may
not mention that in the podcast
depending on how I go because we like
you are developers first and sometimes
some of us are known rightly so for not
being like the easiest people to deal
with does that sound good to you I think
sort of as like a a direction we can
take with this one yeah I definitely
like that uh the other thing too maybe
we can kind of slip it in is given that
we're also still kind of in a hybrid
world
be careful with your communication tools
like zoom and things like that
to allow times for pausing and that so
we don't necessarily argue by talking
over someone just because there isn't
that pause like you can't always see
that pause and communication so maybe we
can kind of work that into this
discussion does that make sense yeah
very much so that's like it's a little
different that's not something I I
thought about but it's definitely as you
mentioned it it's something that's like
very important especially in the the
world of zoom and things like
that okay so cool we'll dive right into
it then well hello and welcome back we
are continuing the developer Journey we
are develop preneur we are building
better developers you hopefully are a
developer if not maybe you'll be a
developer by the time we get through all
this don't I'm not promising anything
because we're not going to teach you how
to code in the next 25 to 30 minutes but
if you follow us over time if you go
check out our site you will have a lot
of tools and ability to do that and
actually yes as I think about it you go
to places like development order.com
school. develop order.com and we can we
have the material we have the content
that you can learn how to code in a
couple different languages and a couple
different environments but before you do
that you need to sit here and listen to
this episode because we already here we
put this thing together you might as
well and me the guy talking right now is
Rob rodad I am one of the founders of
develop andur and building better
developers I'm also a founder of RB
Consulting and I have to take a deep
breath sometimes because I enjoy doing
all this so much but part of what I
enjoy on the RB Consulting side is
helping people help themselves with the
technology that's out there and this is
through simplification through
automation through integration is taking
all of the things that are out there and
helping a customer figure out what is
the best path forward for them whether
it is using a couple of sites and tools
that already exist or whether it's all
the way on the other end of building an
entirely custom solution for their
business those are the kinds of things
that like help me jump out of bed every
day excited to to step into the day
speaking of that looking at good things
and bad
things good thing I like as you get into
this is something that as you get
further into your career you may run
into this as well is that you you may
not be you may be like me where you
don't really Network a whole lot you
don't go to a lot of networking events
and stuff like that however there is the
word of mouth stuff there are people
that we've talked to over the years that
we've worked with that people have
pointed us to conversations we've had
and sometimes those turn into somebody
coming out of the blue basically and
saying hey I was thinking about you I've
got this project or you know I've got
this side project or I've got this
bigger project or somebody's looking to
hire somebody that happens to be a good
fit for what you do I had one of those
come out of blue just the other day was
a guy that I just I just of kept
touching Bas periodically here and there
and then suddenly like I had heard from
him a while and I get a nice little one
that's like hey this is where we're at
things are still going good but they
probably won't we're seeing there may be
some some changes we may need somebody
so I want to make sure we keep in touch
I'm like cool that is nice to know that
there are people out there thinking
about
you bad thing I really don't gosh I now
I got to struggle with a bad thing
because I don't have one off the top of
my head oh bad thing may very well be
zoomed
because as I'm recording this I going to
potentially bump up against somebody
else that is in my company that will be
effectively using my zoom so I will have
maybe two meetings going on at the same
time and I don't think Zoom likes that
so if towards the end of this I start
talking really fast and try to get out
of here now you know why on the other
side is Michael so goad introduce
yourself and give some good and bad of
your latest day or last couple of
days hey everyone my name is my name is
Michael M I'm one of the co-founders of
developer ner building better developers
and I'm also the founder of Invision QA
now we at Invision QA we like to help
small and midsize businesses and
clinicians help build software that
works for them and we typically our main
vision and goal is to focus on quality
so all of our development that we do is
test driven test first we make sure that
we do not release software that does not
meet the requirements and the
expectations good and bad I'll start
with the bad so one of the things I've
run into recently is sometimes I run
into some difficult conversations that
you have to have and it kind of puts you
in a funk you kind of feel bad a and it
takes time to process that so initially
you're you're just feeling depressed the
good side of that
is once you get some rest once you get
some mindfulness and you really think
through it you really realized that it
is a benefit that you learn something
new it was more a positive critique than
something negative and so that that was
kind of a nice takeaway it's like I I
went through a funk but at the end of it
it's like you know that really wasn't as
bad as I thought it was so you may run
into that yourselves so one cool
takeaway from that is you know the grass
is always greener on the other side and
it's always sunnier maybe tomorrow pass
back to you
Bing on that one uh one of the best
things I heard and I forget where I he
heard it was that um you personally at
this point are undefeated you have gone
through life and it has not beaten you
yet so I thought that was a great way to
look at every day it's like no matter
how things are going you're at least
right now you are undefeated you're
number one baby so speaking of that I
don't know how I'm going to tie it back
to the topic but I'll we'll pretend that
I did today we're going to talk about
we're really going to talk about
fighting for what's right fighting for
where you want to go with your team and
it can be arguing it can be something
where you're just like you're button
heads with your teammates and it's and
it's personal that you're really tied to
this solution or this approach for
whatever reason or it could be something
more along the lines of advocating where
you're trying to build where you're
really trying to say look this is the
best solution this or this is a better
way to
go the problem is like I just had that
slip basically is if you say this is the
best
solution that right away is going to get
you into trouble because if somebody
else has a different one you're saying
theirs isn't as good as yours and that
mayor may not be true and honestly it is
probably not provable because you're
dealing with ifs essentially you're
saying well I think that if we take this
process then we will get here the best
possible way but it is you you don't
know that there are no guarantees we
know there are no guarantees in this so
when you get into these situations the
first thing you want to do is check
yourself
is is this something where you're just
personally stuck on this where it's like
this is what I know and maybe I'm scared
that this this other thing I'm G to have
to learn it's going to be more difficult
for me or it's something where I don't
I'm not sure that we can do this that I
can do it or that the team can do it and
in those cases be hon Hest I think is
the best way to go about and say hey
look I have concerns about us being able
to execute this let people know that
that's a that that's a risk for example
you're in a te you're in with a a team
and everybody's a let's just say
everybody's a react developer and now
somebody's like but we love angular and
and now angular needs to be the thing to
do and you can be like okay yeah I want
to learn something new and that's
there's those Pros but then it could be
like well wait a minute we don't know
that we don't have an expert on it so
now that's a risk now these are the this
is how you want to have those
conversations is break away from the the
personal attachments to some of these
things and instead try to step back and
take a look at it from the enduser point
of view if you keep the customer in mind
then the advocating for your customer is
going to be sort of like the natural
step for you arguing with your team is
not going to be because ideally now
everybody is moving in this rowing the
boat in the same direction everybody
wants a happier customer now we can
disagree on how we get there but
honestly most of the time it's not going
to be 100% one or 100% the others so we
can in these I think sometimes if not
all the time find a way to to meet some
find some Middle Ground now there are
limits there are things where it's like
well we're going to use tool a or we're
going to use tool B well you're not
going to use both of them so yeah you
have to pick one and sometimes it's
something where you're going to have to
say all right we're going to choose and
then we're going to move on once the
choice has been made the choice has been
made or it may be that you're going into
uh you're working with a client the
choice has already been made because
they already have invested in it or
something along those
lines so the number one thing is try to
and I don't know why we as developers so
often have issues with this I think it's
because we are creators we are really
creatives at the end of the day and
these are our babies that we have
created that are out there in our
blowing up systems or whatever they
happen to be doing but these are things
that we have put especially if we're a
developer if we're just writing code I
think sometimes we can just like yeah
I'm just slinging code who cares we're a
developer we've invested in this we've
spent time thinking about the problem
thinking about the solution thinking
about the design and looking at the
requirements so we are invested we have
put time in we have got sometimes Blood
Sweat and Tears that have been a part of
this project or this path that we're
taking and so we do have that emotional
kind of an attachment to it the thing we
need to do is if we start having that
that feel that thing inside you of it's
like this doesn't feel right or I'm
getting a little bit angry or I'm a
little you know I'm a little angry or a
little scared or a little hurt is to to
recognize how and back your truck up a
little bit that boop boop boop back it
up a little bit
and look at it from the customer point
of view from the external point of view
is try to get away from I put work into
this and instead what do we really and
this goes back so much again to the why
what did we really want to do what are
we trying to accomplish because if you
can do that if you can back all of that
up and say okay what is it that we are
trying to do here what are the goals of
this project then that's going to a lot
of times help us help our team and
ourselves by saying is this thing that
we are arguing for or advocating for is
this moving the ball forward in those
goals is it going to achieve those goals
better or is it not and if it's a draw
if it's something where we as a team are
looking are arguing we could be arguing
10 different things but if those if the
resolution of that doesn't impact the
goals then we need to find we we need to
step up and basically say look I don't
think any decision matters all we need
is a decision whatever decision we make
there's going to be Pros there's going
to be cons we can do some analysis of it
but sometimes it's like we just need a
decision and then we need to stick with
it and in those cases yeah you may be
more comfortable or you like one
decision or another or you know the guy
next to you is somebody's like your best
friend so you want to advocate for what
they're doing but if it's
not moving the ball forward if it's not
part of the why if it's not part of the
goals then you're wasting your time you
are arguing something that has no impact
and we hate it when customers do that I
know I've been I remember years ago we
spent probably two or three weeks where
we were constantly going back to
complaining about a customer that we got
into a demo we're trying to demonstrate
all of these features and there was two
or three places that there was
effectively a spelling area it was
actually it was like a improper chemical
uh math was was in there as just example
data and the customer spent an hour they
were arguing amongst themselves what
that
chemical uh math should have been wasted
all of our time didn't talk didn't give
us any feedback on the application
didn't give us any feedback that helped
us move anything forward it was them
arguing essentially semantics or grammar
when it had nothing to do with the
application so we need to think about
that when we get into some of these
arguments we get into these situations
where it's like we really need to do
this now if you've been doing this for a
while you probably have gotten out of
that if you haven't when we come out of
school almost all of us couple years out
of or if we come out of a a boot camp or
we've been to a conference we're all
pumped up about whatever the heck it was
that we learned and we covered there and
we'll say this is what we need to do and
we will fight for it all that kind of
good stuff and sometimes yes it is an
advocacy thing because we see it we are
believers we think it is the better way
to go that's cool that's great we need
to have those discussions but we need to
realize that not everybody necessarily
is going to agree and whatever the
solution is that we think that we just
got sold is the best solution is not
always the best solution there are so
many times that I've walked into places
we've had conversations with developers
and teams and customers and we have this
Grand Vision of what we're going to
build and we it makes no sense to ever
go there because a customer really they
don't need that big world of us stuff
that we're offering they need this
little bit of ball down here that's all
they need and we need to make sure that
we have that as part of our Focus now I
will pause there because I know you got
a couple different things and I'll throw
it over to you and see what what are
some of your thoughts in this and where
do you see um in particular like the the
tension points and the ways to relieve
the tension when we're dealing with
these kinds of you know is it personal
is it not kinds of uh we'll call them
discussions here as opposed to arguments
or even
debates yeah so you touched on a lot of
points between the arguing and the
advocating within your own teams now
some of the things I didn't hear that
have really impacted me and really been
kind of nail biters more on the arguing
when we're trying to Advocate it becomes
more arguing is when you're dealing in
more of a corporate culture and cross
team culture one of the biggest problems
and I've run into this quite a bit is if
you are working cross teams in an
organization that does not have
standardized development environments or
every team is working in different
languages or different architectures you
are going to run into a lot of problems
where your team may be advocating for
customer rights but you're running into
the argumenting of architectures or
platforms and and it's not
necessarily meant to be an argument but
it's more along the lines of the culture
itself is set up to fail because the
corporation itself has not kind of set
the standards or possibly even the
mentality of how everyone should work
together everyone's kind of working in
their silos and when you have to work
together you're going to run into that
argumenting that confrontation
environment to kind of avoid that look
at it go into those meetings more along
the lines of what is it that we're
trying to accomplish what are the end
goals what are we trying to get out of
this and that can hopefully flip that
conversation to be more of the
advocating of where are we driving this
car or where's the end goal which can
avoid a lot of those arguments but they
are going to happen and it's
unfortunately the nature of the Beast
Within those cultures or those
environments with corporate it's even
worse because in a corporation you have
thousands of people multiple teams
multiple architecture you have no idea
or you know the top level may have no
idea what's really going down in the
trenches and you may even have
outdated policies procedures tools
languages styles that you need to use
and if you come into this culture your
team has been acquired through an
acquisition or you're just a new you
know Department that's been stood up hey
we need this feature you know go out and
find the best way to do this you go do
that and you come back and it's like oh
now you need to do it in this well wait
a minute you asked us to do X but now
you're forcing us to do y you're you've
now kind of force that argument or
you're self-imposing that argument
because you've a ated you want this but
then when they come back with that
you're now saying oh no wait now we're
going to put all these rules on top of
so you're self-inflicting the arguments
so you may have said hey developers go
brainstorm go give me the best practices
but when they come back and they start
explaining it to you your managers or
management may come back and say well
that's not what we want and that's going
to immediately force you into that
argument to because you've done all this
work you want to justify what you did
and you are very quickly going to get
into that headbutting argumentation and
I see wanting to jump in on that so what
are your thoughts on how we want how we
can kind of avoid that I think and a lot
of the areas I've been in it can be
demoralizing I've seen teams go from
like Hey we're 110% gung-ho we're going
we're striving we're pushing the
boundaries and then we hit a brick wall
and it's not our brick wall but it's a
self-imposed brick wall by the
corporation well I think one of the
things to to think about is uh it's
really what is to put yourself in the
other person's shoes this is one of
these cases where I I've been in those I
can think of a couple where it was it's
very demoralizing where you sit there
and like this is your your pro something
like this is the project this is what
you're working on and you've been on a
team maybe that's working on it for 6
months or a year or something like that
and then it gets cancelled or something
along those lines and you believe in it
you've built it you've done all your
stuff and the C your your employer the
company the customer whatever it is it
just it
disappears those things happen what I
would remind you in those situations
that you have probably done this to
somebody else as well maybe not on the
same level but think about it think
about have you ever uh for example like
maybe you've gone out to buy a house and
you started to like you were like oh
yeah I think we're going to put an offer
on the house and then didn't or you were
going to move and then you didn't so the
real estate agent put a bunch of stuff
together and now you're not going to do
it or even the most simple stuff is
maybe you walked into a restaurant and
something happened and you had to leave
you ordered some food or something and
then you had to leave there's there's
things that are out there that like on
small scale but also on a larger
scale stuff happens we may have like you
could have stuff like say a vacation
that you've got planned and then you get
sick or you know something H or you you
lose your job or things like there's all
these things that now you've cancelled
that because you can't do it so again
instead of taking it personally and
treating it as they
are disrespecting the work you have
done the thing I've found and I've that
this is something that actually I
learned from a a side hustle point of
view that I think very often helps it
helps me as much as it helps them is
I'll say hey if we're if you're going to
shut this thing down or you don't want
this then at least here is the research
that went into it you know if you don't
want this product because we looked at
it and you know everybody looked at it's
like the market research says it's not
going to happen that's okay I want you
to at least here is the re market
research that was done here's some of
the thoughts on that so if you ever do
come back to it you've got to start on
it and those kinds of things I found
that at least you feel like it helps you
feel like you have at least done
something and your stuff wasn't thrown
in the trash now it could be that it was
thrown in the trash however it's one of
those things that at least you can say
like okay we did the work we got to a
certain point and we some cases it's
like you you almost want to feel good
that we proved that that wasn't with our
work we got to a point that proved that
this wasn't a good choice if you want to
think of an example that'll maybe help
you it would be what happens if you're
working on a cure for
cancer and you end up it kills somebody
because it's poisonous you want to at
least the good thing is that that's not
going to go forward because you don't
want to kill everybody in the world
you're trying to create a cure for
cancer now that's extreme and we
hopefully are not in those situations
however this is where you have to
realize that there is personal and there
is business now if a if a manager or an
organization or group or something like
that says hey we need you to go do this
stuff and they come back and they tell
you well no none of those answers make
sense then it's it is not shutting down
what you did or disrespecting what you
did this is an opportunity for you to
say okay let's talk through this because
we made a mistake somewhere here because
there was a disconnect so what do we do
to to clean that thing up to understand
what we need to do moving forward the
last thing I'll think I'll I'll put into
that is that sometimes our best approach
is instead of saying know that's not the
way to go to that organization or
something like that let find a way
to take like I think of it it's like
it's probably a graphic you know comic
kind of thing but it's the idea of like
somebody sitting there with a shotgun
and then you s like a child with a
shotgun and you sort of go in there and
you replace it with a water gun you
something like that it's like okay you
don't need this but how about we use
this instead and that just stopping from
the absolutes
of no we can't do this or yes we got to
do that like I said best or worst using
those kinds of things we can tone that
down and again it goes back to we think
about that customer and that customer if
they like think about them being right
there if you're arguing with somebody
else in your team in your organization
and the customers right there would they
think that that is you advocating for
them and that you guys are working
towards something better for them are
they're going to say you guys are a
clown show this is a circus what is
going on you guys need to like grow up
put on us you know put on your big boy
pants and move forward and get the work
done so those are a couple of things
that hopefully can you can like have in
your mind I would think so I'm going to
throw that at you and it's like how does
that does that help a little bit where
are we going with this as far as like is
that in the the ballpark of what you
were you were throwing back at me yeah I
I really like that last analogy you kind
of threw out there you know trying to
deescalate kind of
take the feelings out of it the last
thing I will throw out there is between
arguing and advocating try to leave
feelings out of it if you start finding
yourself is oh I feel this way because
back
up almost treat it like the scientific
method if I push this am I getting the
expected
outcome like Rob said you know if we
create poison it's like a test if it
does not give us the outcome we
wanted that's not necessarily a bad
thing that's just one less thing we need
to do going forward so you basically
disprove something you can check it off
the list move on think of it that way
between arguing and advocating if you
find yourself stuck on something check
it off that maybe I need to let that go
move on keep advocating for what's right
keep advocating for the customer and
keep driving for excellence and try to
get away from those you know back room
brawls essentially of argumenting
something that really doesn't matter you
want to be successful you want the
company to be successful and if you get
into an argument is the argument really
about the success of the company the
sucess of the project or is it just egos
getting in the
way I think in closing this one I want
to goes back to something is don't make
perfect the enemy of good is don't get
stuck where
this is this you know light on a shining
like shining on a hill is where we want
to go and we may all agree on that but
realize that that may not be reality
that may not be what we can do so
sometimes the best approach instead of
going all in on something or going all
the way there is just find a way to make
an incremental move in that direction
and this may be thing the things that
come up with developer places all the
times it's things like putting unit
building in unit tests for everything or
documenting things user manuals uh build
scripts pipelines code reviews there's
all of these things that we
do that we for the most part complain
that it's never done to the right level
and a lot of times it's not because
there's just not the time there's not
the resources that we're having to yeah
there's there's technical debt for a
reason and it's because we're trying to
serve the customer by getting something
in front of them and we are we're making
conscious decisions ision is that
getting this in front of them getting
them a product that's 80% there is
better than them not having a product
that someday will be 100% there and so
those are kinds of things we do need to
keep in mind that I think will help us
as we step forward what will help us as
we step forward is for you guys to shoot
us an email at info developer.com we'd
love to hear from you we're soon going
to be getting into our next uh season
cruising right along here it's like it's
amazing how many episodes we've got and
all that kind of good stuff and we're
just going to continue on there's no
plan for a break or anything like that
so it's just going to be bam we end this
season bam we start right into the next
one so you buckle up because it's just
going to carry on you can leave us
feedback email address you can leave it
uh comments anywhere whether it's you
look at the YouTube app uh YouTube site
and and all of the videos that are there
you can leave it for any of our stuff
that's out there it doesn't even have to
be the podcast you can look at some of
our past material you can go school.
develop n.com you go to developer.com
you can leave comments on any of the
blog articles out there you can just
however you want it you use US mail if
you want if you want to send us a letter
there's a I'm pretty sure we may be
somewhere have an address mailing
address if not send us an email and
we'll give you a mailing address so you
can send us a letter yeah it's a little
backwards but hey that's that's how we
will work to help you out if for some
reason you need to you put a stamp on
something obviously I think we've
reached the end of this because I've
reached the end of my mental capacity in
some way so go out there and have
yourself a great day a great week and we
will talk to you next time all right as
I mentioned bonus material before I've
got like a tight window right here so
we're going to have like let's like bam
right through a couple of good little
bonus pieces so we didn't touch on them
last time but I just want to throw out
some time tracking tools like toggle
there's uh screen time with your iPad or
I where it can actually tell you what
you're spending time on what apps or you
could actually get like app tracking
tools so you can actually see what
you're working on at certain times and
kind of get a summary at the end of the
your your week or month or whatever
you're trying to do so just simple ways
there are lots of apps lots of tools out
there track your time don't ignore it
you know if if you don't know what
you're working on get those complete
system tracking tools but if you are
very methodical use like the individual
tools start time stop just keep track of
what you're
doing I just going to say make sure you
do that with the non-billable stuff as
well if you have question like this is
one of the things is a bonus bonus is if
you want a little app that you can
easily like because I use something ARB
Consulting we've got something that we
put together that is just very simple
highly customized let me know I can I
can throw that at you because it's a
great way to just basically here's a
project is it billable or not what kind
of rate are we talking about all that
kind of stuff that's like super simple
what can help you keep track of that
kind of stuff and it is like I said most
importantly it's the non-billable have
something have a project you know
whatever it is a code that you can apply
it to that is the non-billable business
development kind of stuff because you
want to see at the end of the week the
month the year how much time you spent
on your business versus in your business
and making sure that you're getting paid
for that as
well and last little bonus for this
episode
is if you're face Toof face use things
like poit notes whiteboards put your
ideas or what the argument of points on
a board put them where everyone can see
and people can add Post-it notes to to
do their ideas if you're virtual use
things like mirro idea um idea boards uh
and things like that to kind of flush
out your ideas if it is too
argumentative make it Anonymous make it
where people can just put whatever they
want out there and then have someone
kind of you know
um shoot lost the word um basically
manage the meeting facilitate fac U
facilitate the ideas that are being
thrown out there and a lot of times that
helps take away a lot of that
argumentative because you don't know
who's throwing it out there so if it is
kind of a personal Grudge that's removed
it's more what are the topics that
you're walking through what is it that
you're try what's the end goal
essentially um so that's my last little
tidbit for this one I would say just use
in the in the world of using
tools
use if you can use like you know any of
those kinds of like shared idea boards
whiteboards and things like that
obviously in person actual whiteboards
are great uh record the meeting so that
you can come back to it if you need to
if you're remote then there are still
idea there virtual idea boards you can
use if you're using a tool that allows
chat of some sort then use team chats
try not to do like sidebarr stuff but to
have at least sort of like a main here's
some of the ideas that we're going
through when you're in Zoom this is one
of the things that we we talked about a
bit is like when you're make sure that
you're keeping an eye out on their face
so see if they're like talking but
they're may be a little bit behind what
you're hearing so if you're not in a
situation where everybody's talking over
each other if people don't have a live
camera and instead it's just like a you
know little image or something like that
then still try to make sure that you
give some extra time a bonus that you
can do is I think here if it goes in a
second as you can see one of these
little things where it's like this
little like raise your hand or lower
your hand stuff like that is do some
sort of a raising a hand or something
there are there are these see it took
you too long will mine do it uh oh oh no
it doesn't like
that super bonus there we go go I'm that
cool but there's also you can do react
uh you can do react kind of things I
don't want to why is it it doesn't
unreact me great okay oh there it is
finally got rid of it um you can do
stuff like that is raise your hand uh
you could even like if it's an actual
you know if you're on a camera you can
just say hey you know something like
that or you know you can do something
ideally it's raising your hand or in the
chat say hey when I get a chance I have
a I would like to I a question or
something along those lines or put the
question in the chat so then somebody
especially if there's a facil
facilitator they can see that hey
Michael's got a question I want to you
know and you can either ask the question
or allow that person to do it and this
is just like you know 101 mute yourself
when you're not talking if you're in a
zoom call Mute the stinking thing if
you're not talking a lot of times that's
the first clue that somebody wants to
talk is they will be muted and then they
will unmute and you're like hey Michael
just unmuted I bet he wants to talk so
those are just a couple of things that
will help you with the tenor of a
conversation because if you end up
talking over people because of the
tools then it ends up being confusing
and then people are trying to you know
then people are trying to like sort of
back up they're trying to talk about a
conversation that happened a couple
minutes ago some other people are like
ahead of the game and now it's just it
becomes chaos so find a way to like
particularly if it gets heated or
emotional in any way everybody wants to
talk everybody has something to put into
the you the pot and this is probably
more so if you're in a face-to-face
meeting is allow people to like just
like pause take a turn things like that
I haven't been in too many situations
where it's like people are yelling and
screaming on the table or something like
that I'm guessing I probably have but
usually you know you want to avoid that
and you also want to avoid that on
accident if you're in some sort of a
remote thing where somebody's trying to
say something and the they've got a bad
internet connection or somebody's
obviously saying something and they
suddenly get muted or something along
those lines is you need an extra you
know an extra pound of Grace dealing
with somebody when it's a remote
conversation because there may be
something that's missing and it goes to
the more you can have face as part of
that video so you can see their
expressions you can understand the
things that are part of the conversation
that are not the words all of the
unspoken communication that we do the
more you can get that the better and
understand that if you're using slack or
something like that that there are yes
there are moons and stuff like that you
can add but generally speaking that text
is devoid of emotion and context and
read it four or five times before you
send it just like an email because
sometimes you put something out there
and the next thing you know people are
wondering what the hell you were
thinking and and you look at it you go
oh I agree what the hell was I thinking
that doesn't make any sense so take your
time but now my time is done so I gotta
wrap this one up I went too long I hope
that you guys enjoyed the bonus material
hope that you guys have enjoyed what we
did this time better than last time
because I just jumped right through it
so I apologize so much I I beg your
apologies if you want to send me an
email another way send me an email info
developer.com I will be happy to send
you an apology picture or something like
that I'll figure it out thank you so
much for your time and we will talk to
you again next time around as we get
closer and closer to wrapping up this
season have yourself a good one
[Music]