Go to Other People’s WorkShops
Go to workshops that aren’t for you, especially the ones where you’re a little over your head in someone else’s specialty.
Two weeks ago I stayed late to join in on a Test Driven Development (TDD) workshop we had at SlideShare. I really had no idea what TDD was before this. And for those of you like me, it’s a way of programming that integrate testing / debugging alongside the development of the code instead of leaving it all at the end. Now I’m not an engineer, but from what I can tell it reduces load off of QA testing at the end and helps focus in developers onto the task at hand.
Sounds a bit technical I know, but that was the point. TDD has absolutely nothing to do with my job description. It’s not going to help me with our SEO strategy or help me write our next press release. But it is going to help me understand and work with our developers, which at the end of the day is just as important if not more so.
If you have a multidisciplinary job, which everyone does at a startup, it is important for you to get a little bit of everyone else’s perspective. I need to make sure that if I’m out solving problems, not just asking for new features. Often I ask for something that is hard to do, but we can get at least 80% of the way there on something easy. Sometimes settling for the easy 80% is the right decision and sometimes it isn’t, but I knowing about that option makes the world of difference.
These things aren’t always easy to spot, but even if someone sees them, it’s hard to bring up if the higher up is merely saying “do this, code that. I need this done.” I’ve seen this happen with graphic design, user interface design, and even with franchise incentive programs. It happens everywhere.
So, be a better coworker and a better boss. Go to someone else’s workshop and get some perspective.
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