Etiquette for Tech Teams

Sat, 10 Mar 2018 10:25:40 +0100

For a Happy Workplace

This article attempts to offer some of the rules for a productive, cohesive and enjoyable working environment for tech teams. It is a semi-working article that I will add to over time.

Meetings

Always include an Agenda and Objective to meeting invites. It helps invitees decide whether the meeting is relevant to them.
Long blocks of uninterrupted time is when the magic happens, for most engineers. Be mindful of this when scheduling meetings. The “best” time will differ depending on who you are inviting to the meeting.
Default meeting duration is 30 minutes. Meetings longer than 1 hour tend to become unproductive: avoid them.
Keep in mind everyone in the meeting, avoid tangents that are not applicable to the majority of the room. Stick to the agenda! Some conversations should just go into a ticket or google doc.
At any point, excuse yourself from a meeting if it is not relevant to you.
Announcing the meeting in #meetings slack channel. Don’t invite the whole company to every meeting, but allow people to invite themselves to things that are of interest to them.
If you need a room make sure you book a room, so you’re not taking it from anybody else.
Feel free to use your laptops in meetings unless the host specifically states otherwise.

Engineering Team Core Values

Mon, 15 Jan 2018 10:17:14 +0100

Simple Code is Elegant

Tidy, readable, simple code is paramount. It makes reviewing PR easier, it makes coming back to the code after 18 months easier, it makes your peers like you more.

Anti-Gossip

Constructive conversations over background criticism. Call it out when you see it (even if in other parts of the company). If you feel the need to complain, make a difference and give feedback instead.

Approachable

During busy times, when you are deep in code and stress is mounting, it is easy to forget to Treat Others as You Would Expect to be Treated and be “approachable”. Others should not be worried about talking to you. Definitely no jerks, even if they are geniuses. Adjust your technical language when speaking to non-technical staff.