Greater Than Code

00:48 - Will’s Superpower: 1) The ability to take something complicated and to find simple ways to think about it that work most of the time. 2) A rigorous love of structure.

Thinking in Systems: A Primer

02:30 - Systems Thinking/Theory

Stella

08:48 - How do you know when to stop modeling?

10:12 - How do you figure out what your team’s rate of change is?

Virginia Satir’s Change Model

19:30 - Focusing Attention

Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience

20:31 - Impacting Systems

24:47 - Patterns of Dysfunction

The First 90 Days: Proven Strategies for Getting Up to Speed Faster and Smarter, Updated and Expanded

32:13 - Sharing Ideas and Contributing with Systems Thinking

The Portal Podcast

38:59 - Having Adaptive Capacity

44:30 - Taking Bets (Risks): Cheap vs Expensive

48:10 - Systems Having Properties and Behaviors and Building Useful Missing Tools

Good Strategy Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters

Reflections:

Jessica: The difference in reasoning about properties vs reasoning about behavior.

Will: It’s easy to look at yourself sometimes as the lone practitioner trying to pull the industry forward. But, it’s exciting to have conversations like these to know there are other people out there trying to do the same thing.

Arty: Systems thinking as a way to think about how to optimize the quality of decisions.

Rein: A problem is a reduction of the system. One of the most important skills for a systems thinker and a problem solver is the ability for form a problem with a complete understanding of the complete mess that we’re choosing to not think about right now.

This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep of DevReps, LLC. To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode

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Special Guest: Will Larson.

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02:37 - Interpersonal Neurobiology and Emotionally Meaningful Experiences + Feelings Working on Software

Code Smells

05:42 - Postmortems and Incident Reviews

09:05 - Blaming People / Blamelessness

From Safety-I to Safety-II: A White Paper

15:25 - Systems Are Benign: Equalizing Humans and What They Can Do to What Our Systems and Machines Can Do

22:47 - Survival Rules

27:37 - Perspectives on Blame

The Agile Prime Directive

35:44 - Survival Rules (Cont’d)

Personal Iceberg Metaphor of the Satir Model

37:48 - Gaining EQ and Inward Exploration

Reflections:

John: Handling blame in a healthy way and not blaming people for blaming people.

Chanté: Read The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom.

Jessica: Software teams are sometimes able to push back against the system because it can point to something tangibly not working.

Also, as an individual, it is not your job to change your whole company.

Astrid: The importance of having these conversations with your team.

Rein: Dealing with a manager who blames through solidarity with coworkers.

This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep of DevReps, LLC. To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode

To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps. You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well.

Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks!

Sponsored By:

• Pantheon: This episode is sponsored by Pantheon. Pantheon is the platform of choice for more enterprise Drupal / WordPress sites than any other platform. A platform with superpowers needs to be run behind the scenes by super humans of all diversities and backgrounds. Pantheon actively supports non-profit initiatives throughout the Bay Area and beyond such as Techtonica, the Tech Equity Collaborative, and Lesbians Who Tech. Learn more about career opportunities at pantheon.io/GreaterThanCode.

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01:29 - Running a Mail Server

08:49 - Amitai’s Superpower: Squirrel Power! and Orienting Himself in a New Problem Space (And Helping Others to Orient Them in Their Own Problem Spaces)

15:03 - Refactoring

23:15 - Managing Developer Time

Global Day of Coderetreat

Brooklyn November 2018: Global Day of Coderetreat

Conway’s Game of Life

28:57 - Feedback and Systems

33:38 - Email Servers

35:46 - Predictability

WeCamp

40:39 - Quality and Collaboration

45:47 - Orienting and Problem Space

Reflections:

Jessica: Having useful questions.

John: The bounded perfectionism concept and the tests as questions.

Rein: What are the minimum possible criteria for progress?

Amitai: “Make hidden things visible. Make abstract things concrete. Make implicit things explicit.” ~ Virginia Satir

This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep of DevReps, LLC. To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode

To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps. You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well.

Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks!

Special Guest: Amitai Schleier.

Sponsored By:

• Pantheon: This episode is sponsored by Pantheon. Pantheon is the platform of choice for more enterprise Drupal / WordPress sites than any other platform. A platform with superpowers needs to be run behind the scenes by super humans of all diversities and backgrounds. Pantheon actively supports non-profit initiatives throughout the Bay Area and beyond such as Techtonica, the Tech Equity Collaborative, and Lesbians Who Tech. Learn more about career opportunities at pantheon.io/GreaterThanCode.

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02:43 - First Conference Experiences

08:31 - The Importance of Networking + Stickers!!

14:56 - Conference Fashion

16:51 - Approaching Speakers After Talks and Tricks to Remembering Names + Faces

18:49 - Speaking At Conferences

31:38 - Conveying Information in a Talk

34:59 - Crafting Proposals, What Selection Committees Look For, and Writing Talks

52:03 - Gathering Conference Talk Topic Inspiration

Reflections:

Coraline: Join our Greater Than Code Slack Community for friendly talk feedback!

Sam: Being a conference speaker is an awesome introvert hack. It gives people a reason to come talk to you!

Rein: You shouldn’t feel like you have to attend conferences or give talks at conference to have a career in the industry.

This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep of DevReps, LLC. To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode

To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps. You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well.

Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks!

Sponsored By:

• Pantheon: This episode is sponsored by Pantheon. Pantheon is the platform of choice for more enterprise Drupal / WordPress sites than any other platform. A platform with superpowers needs to be run behind the scenes by super humans of all diversities and backgrounds. Pantheon actively supports non-profit initiatives throughout the Bay Area and beyond such as Techtonica, the Tech Equity Collaborative, and Lesbians Who Tech. Learn more about career opportunities at pantheon.io/GreaterThanCode.

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02:13 - What is Job Satisfaction?

03:25 - Predictors of Job Satisfaction

14:02 - Evaluating Job Satisfaction: Questions to Ask During Interviews

18:02 - Maintaining Positive Company Culture

25:14 - Managers: What should you do if you know your team is unhappy?

27:42 - Positive Interactions with Coworkers + Feeling Needed / Relevant + Making Progress

Everything Is Broken, and It's OK - John Sawers

The Progress Principle: Using Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement, and Creativity at Work

Rock Stars, Builders, and Janitors: You're Doing it Wrong

34:55 - When Jobs Respect Your Life 👍🏻

42:17 - “Passion” and Playing to People’s Strengths

54:34 - Values Interviews and Attitudes Towards Failure

Superfluous Job Satisfaction Reflections:

John: Microvalidations.

Jamey: Slack Airhorn Auto Response + Farm Meme Fridays

Laurie: Something associated with the start of her day that makes her smile before she even leaves for the office: a backpack.

Rein: Asking “Hey, how can I help you with that?” Also: idiosyncratic emoji usage.

Jacob: Offering to help new people set up their development environments.

This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep of DevReps, LLC. To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode

To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps. You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well.

Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks!

Special Guests: Jacob Stoebel and Laurie Barth.

Sponsored By:

• Pantheon: This episode is sponsored by Pantheon. Pantheon is the platform of choice for more enterprise Drupal / WordPress sites than any other platform. A platform with superpowers needs to be run behind the scenes by super humans of all diversities and backgrounds. Pantheon actively supports non-profit initiatives throughout the Bay Area and beyond such as Techtonica, the Tech Equity Collaborative, and Lesbians Who Tech. Learn more about career opportunities at pantheon.io/GreaterThanCode.

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01:32 - Clare’s Superpower: Collecting and Sharing Useful Information

04:31 - Llewellyn’s Superpower: The Ability to Collaborate with Others

08:01 - Pairing Together: C++ Version of ApprovalTests

12:15 - Pairing Retrospectives: What emotions did you feel?

MindMup

16:21 - Kinship Formed Through Working Together

18:55 - Working Asynchronously vs Live Pairing

20:15 - Writing Documentation for Pairing Sessions and Working to Improve the C++ Community Culture

#include

30:44 - Safeguarding: Harnessing Pain For Good

Safeguarding: A step-by-step guide

MarkdownSnippets

35:04 - Documentation Cont’d

45:08 - Asking “Why” Questions vs “What” Questions: Observability

Reflections:

John: The idea of using a retrospective in such a small scale. Also, the difference in the level of community while pairing: building kinship.

Clare: Read more about the paradigm framing effect.

Llewellyn: Being appreciative of the people you pair with.

Arty: Taking the time to think about what you’re doing from the perspective of sharing affects what you do.

This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep of DevReps, LLC. To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode

To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps. You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well.

Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks!

Special Guests: Clare Macrae and Llewellyn Falco.

Sponsored By:

• Atlas Authority: This episode of Greater Than Code is brought to you by Atlas Authority. Atlas Authority helps organizations manage and scale their Atlassian stack. With expertise in Jira, Confluence, Bitbucket and other software development tools, Atlas Authority offers consulting, training, licensing and managed hosting services. Visit AtlasAuthority.com/GTC to find out more and learn why organizations trust Atlas Authority to implement, support, and maintain their critical Atlassian applications.

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The Twitter thread:

All I can say here is that I try to lead by example. If there’s a clear path to “make the change easy, then make the easy change,” make sure the commit history shows that explicitly, then ask for a code review even if your process doesn’t require it. 1/ https://t.co/VDxDbEQUf3

Sam Livingston-Gray - F̶l̶u̶e̶n̶t̶ Refactoring Talk: Sam talks about refactoring a gnarly Rails controller method. This is a lightly edited version of a talk Sam gave in 2013.

Resources:

github.com/geeksam/fluent-refactoring

Introduction to the Technical Debt Concept

Status Quo Bias

The Well Traveled Road Effect

21:47 - Refactoring Resistance: Who are you trying to convince?

github.com/danmayer/coverband

28:57 - The Risks of Refactoring

Rice’s Theorem

Idealized Design:

3 Different Kinds of Technical Debt:

Churn Tool

35:08 - Documentation and Decision Records

36:59 - Code Value Judgement

42:00 - Convincing Coworkers Re: Refactoring a Codebase

Adaptive Capacity

Reflections:

Coraline: Adaptive Capacity.

Rein: Viability.

Sam: It’s about dealing with people and effectively working with and for them.

This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep of DevReps, LLC. To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode

To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps. You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well.

Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks!

Sponsored By:

• Atlas Authority: This episode of Greater Than Code is brought to you by Atlas Authority. Atlas Authority helps organizations manage and scale their Atlassian stack. With expertise in Jira, Confluence, Bitbucket and other software development tools, Atlas Authority offers consulting, training, licensing and managed hosting services. Visit AtlasAuthority.com/GTC to find out more and learn why organizations trust Atlas Authority to implement, support, and maintain their critical Atlassian applications.

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01:24 - Saron’s Superpower: Being able to figure out what people need + read people.

02:26 - Codeland Conference

July 22nd, 2019 in New York City!

Episode 026: Codeland, Capitalism, and Creating Inclusive Spaces with Saron Yitbarek

03:23 - Offering Free Onsite Childcare at Conferences

07:02 - CodeNewbie

08:18 - Expertise in Newbie-ism

14:55 - Learning and Teaching

Conversation Theory

Virtual Reality

Oculus

22:27 - Encouraging Asking, Psychological Safety, and Being Comfortable with Being Uncomfortable

29:48 - Building a Supportive Community and Advice for Code Newbies

Dev.to

34:12 - Dealing with Bad Actors

Episode 038: Category Theory for Normal Humans with Dr. Eugenia Cheng (Congressive/Ingressive Behavior Conversation)

42:35 - Coding as a Reflection of People

49:23 - Lexicon and Creating a Shared Language

Mitigated Speech

Reflections:

Chanté: Everyone is a Newbie, and the living room metaphor.

Rein: How much ego investment in our work is appropriate?

Arty: Growing the magical living room.

Saron: Thinking about mitigation speech.

Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell

This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep of DevReps, LLC. To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode

To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps. You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well.

Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks!

Special Guest: Saron Yitbarek.

Sponsored By:

• Atlas Authority: This episode of Greater Than Code is brought to you by Atlas Authority. Atlas Authority helps organizations manage and scale their Atlassian stack. With expertise in Jira, Confluence, Bitbucket and other software development tools, Atlas Authority offers consulting, training, licensing and managed hosting services. Visit AtlasAuthority.com/GTC to find out more and learn why organizations trust Atlas Authority to implement, support, and maintain their critical Atlassian applications.

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01:43 - Halleemah’s Superpower: Cultural Fluency: Operating authentically and being who you are in any space you are in.

Code-switching

07:37 - Existing in Other Spaces; Active Listening

10:31 - Building Bridges to Change the Complexion of the Workforce

Generation Z

15:01 - Identifying Potential Talent, Engaging Underrepresented Populations, and Doing Intentional Work to Diversify Relationships

21:17 - Change, Evolution, and Reinvention

33:25 - Resilience and Acknowledging Privilege

40:10 - Shortening the Distance for Young People; “Urban Authenticity”

Reflections:

Sam: A door metaphor: Things that you can do with something that you originally think of as just being just a static part of the landscape around you that you can interact with and that you can change.

Rein: Maximizing the potential to shine within each person and maximizing their ability to shine throughout the world.

Arty: The concept of “Cultural Fluency”.

Halleemah: Radical professionalism.

Rein: Bonus Reflection: Light bulbs have the ability to shine but only with their connections with others.

This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep of DevReps, LLC. To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode

To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps. You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well.

Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks!

Special Guest: Halleemah Nash.

Sponsored By:

• Atlas Authority: This episode of Greater Than Code is brought to you by Atlas Authority. Atlas Authority helps organizations manage and scale their Atlassian stack. With expertise in Jira, Confluence, Bitbucket and other software development tools, Atlas Authority offers consulting, training, licensing and managed hosting services. Visit AtlasAuthority.com/GTC to find out more and learn why organizations trust Atlas Authority to implement, support, and maintain their critical Atlassian applications.

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01:56 - Chanté’s Superpower: Spotting Talent (Dark Horses)

05:33 - Perceiving Talent/Potential

Essentialism

09:15 - Confronting Biases and Societal Categorization/Division/Labeling

18:54 - Identity as a Feedback Loop

25:04 - Health and Wellness and Human Potential

27:00 - Privilege vs Potential

Actuality, Capability, Potentiality

Brain of the Firm by Stafford Beer

Sapir–Whorf Hypothesis

36:31 - Framing; Framing as Related to Coaching

Matt Ringel: Whiteboarding 101

Functional Fixedness

RailsConf 2019 - Keynote: The Stories We Tell Our Children by Ariel Caplan

49:39 - Working with Organizations to Improve Diversity and Inclusion (Using Metrics)

Campbell’s Law

Reflections:

John: When you pay attention to the margins, the marginalized, etc., and optimize for those getting better, you also optimize for the happiness of the rest of the people inside those margins.

Jessica: Letting go of your goal allows emergence of outcomes you didn’t expect.

Rein: Having values that we can use to determine whether we are moving in the direction we want to move in, and to continue to move in the direction that is towards our values.

Chanté: It’s not about quantity, it’s about quality conversation.

This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep of DevReps, LLC. To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode

To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps. You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well.

Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks!

Special Guest: Chanté Thurmond.

Sponsored By:

• Charles Schwab: This episode is brought to you by Charles Schwab – a modern financial services firm that stands apart from the industry, where you can go as far as your ambition and unique talents take you to create a career worth owning.

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