Soft Skills Engineering

Episode 96: Teaching Burden and Unknown Unknowns

Listen Later

This week Jamison and Dave answer these questions:

  1. I know that teaching others is important when working on a team so that the team can grow and get better. But what happens when one member of the team, despite being the friendliest person in the world, is missing so many required skills for his job that it becomes impossible for me to do anything besides teach him?
  2. I recently heard the concept of “known unknowns” and “unknown unknowns”. It’s the unknown unknowns that get me. Sometimes I ask a question of a seasoned developer and they seem annoyed because it’s something that I could have looked up. They knew it but I didn’t. Sometimes I ask a question and they are eager to help because the question is interesting and they know it will be good for me to learn. I struggle because I don’t want to waste my time or theirs, but I want to work through things and learn. How do I do this well?

    3. Wikipedia has a whole article on the origin of the phrase “unknown unknowns”.

    Also, Gary Bernhardt has a fantastic talk called Ideology about “unknown knowns” - things we believe in software without even realizing we believe them.

    Hoobastank.

    ...more
    View all episodesView all episodes
    Download on the App Store
    Soft Skills EngineeringBy Jamison Dance and Dave Smith
    • 4.8
    • 4.8
    • 4.8
    • 4.8
    • 4.8

    4.8

    266 ratings

    More shows like Soft Skills Engineering

    View all
    Hanselminutes with Scott Hanselman by Scott Hanselman

    Hanselminutes with Scott Hanselman

    377 Listeners

    Software Engineering Radio - the podcast for professional software developers by se-radio@computer.org

    Software Engineering Radio - the podcast for professional software developers

    273 Listeners

    .NET Rocks! by Carl Franklin and Richard Campbell

    .NET Rocks!

    246 Listeners

    The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source by Changelog Media

    The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source

    282 Listeners

    Thoughtworks Technology Podcast by Thoughtworks

    Thoughtworks Technology Podcast

    42 Listeners

    Talk Python To Me by Michael Kennedy

    Talk Python To Me

    591 Listeners

    Software Engineering Daily by Software Engineering Daily

    Software Engineering Daily

    625 Listeners

    AWS Podcast by Amazon Web Services

    AWS Podcast

    203 Listeners

    Syntax - Tasty Web Development Treats by Wes Bos & Scott Tolinski - Full Stack JavaScript Web Developers

    Syntax - Tasty Web Development Treats

    984 Listeners

    CoRecursive: Coding Stories by Adam Gordon Bell - Software Developer

    CoRecursive: Coding Stories

    189 Listeners

    Kubernetes Podcast from Google by Abdel Sghiouar, Kaslin Fields

    Kubernetes Podcast from Google

    181 Listeners

    Practical AI by Practical AI LLC

    Practical AI

    191 Listeners

    The Stack Overflow Podcast by The Stack Overflow Podcast

    The Stack Overflow Podcast

    64 Listeners

    The Real Python Podcast by Real Python

    The Real Python Podcast

    140 Listeners

    The Pragmatic Engineer by Gergely Orosz

    The Pragmatic Engineer

    52 Listeners