The good news is that I’m going away on business next week. I’m looking forward to that. And after a few more weeks I’ll get more of a handle on the environment and will start feeling more at home.

At least for now, I’m glad it’s the weekend.

I have been working in the same company for over four years now. I have tremendously enjoyed the first three years. The last one has been more challenging. Having considered my options I am faced with two choices:

1. Stay and possibly take on a different role.
2. Or move on and take on a new challenge altogether.

When I have to make important decisions I always try weighing the pros and cons of each option against the other ones. In this particular instance there are a few reasons why I should stay, not least of all being that I have had the chance to progress so much during my time there. This, however, is balance out by the fact that I don’t feel I am learning so much anymore. And if I don’t get intellectually challenged I lose motivation. Lack of motivation can too lead you to complacency. Plus, as one of my friends says, a change is a good as a break. And I could use a break right about now.

So, when is it time to move on? Well, if you are lucky enough to have options – which is a luxury in these difficult times – and you have become a bit too comfortable it is probably time to look for a new challenge. That is the line of reasoning I have followed up to now in my career and it has so far always worked out. So with that in mind I know what I have to do.

The skills required to be a talented developer and those necessary for successful team leading seem to be at the antipodes. Indeed, often software programmers lack basic social skills — remember Garry the IT admin guy you went to talk to the other day because you needed something fixed on your computer and the guy told you off without even looking at you –. After all, we spend most of our time interacting with machines, not humans*. On the other hand, these very social skills are the tools team leaders are required to master in order to be successful.

Another challenge newly appointed team leaders face is that they are forced to stop coding as much as they used to. Most developers I know went into the software industry because they enjoyed writing code so it is a bit hard to take that away.

My personal experience with this transition is that it threw me out of my comfort zone and was challenging at the beginning. However, I quickly realised that although challenging I did enjoy that aspect of my job. And because I wasn’t leading too big a team I also still had time to keep writing code.

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* Kent Beck in “Implementation Patterns” argues that developers should write code for other developers to read, not for compilers. Michael Lopp in “Managing Humans” also has some very interesting things to say about it.

It’s not that I’ve gotten bad at time management — I was never good at it — but nowadays I have many more things to take care of. It is the most obvious at work. Back in October last year I was promoted to a management position which meant that the number of projects I have had to keep an eye on increased at least 2-fold. Combined with a busier private life, my brain quickly gave up trying to keep up with everything going on.

Back in my student years I didn’t have such problem. Life seemed much slower and maybe simpler. Not to mention I was younger.

So what I should I do (I hear you ask)? Well, if my memory can’t hold all this information I need to give it some help. At first I tried making ToDo lists on paper at the beginning of every week. Unfortunately the list kept getting longer and messier as the week went by. Plus, I had to recopy my ever growing list every Monday. I quickly realised it wasn’t a practical solution. The more logical approach (especially given that I’m in the software business) was to use a software to help me keep track of my tasks.

Being a Mac enthusiast I stumbled upon a tool called OmniFocus from The Omin Group. It is build around the GTD approach. I’ve found it very simple and intuitive to use. Unfortunately my computer at work runs on Windows so it wasn’t an option. After some more research I came across My Life Organized — don’t you love the name? –. I’ve only been using it for about three weeks so far but I have certainly noticed a very substantial improvement in keeping up with all my tasks.

Time will tell if this approach is really working for me.

Firstly, the social and communication skill set a team leader role requires is not usually nurtured by typical software engineering environments. Interacting with software is not the same than interacting with human beings! And I have been developing software for a bit now. However, as a leader you are in constant dialogue with your team. In fact, it becomes the most important part of the job. I think I still have to improve on this aspect.
Secondly, throughout my relatively short career I’ve always relied on my own efforts to meet deadlines and quality standards. However, now I need to rely on others to deliver. I still try and do a lot myself but this is not sustainable. Plus, it definitely is not the best way to make your team feel trustworthy. For instance, a few projects we are currently working on are due next week and things haven’t been going as smoothly as I would have hoped. And the nearer we get to the deadline, the stronger the feeling to revert to my old habits becomes. This week I worked very hard to ensure we deliver on time. You realise you’re not doing such a great job when one of the most junior persons in your team tells you you need to delegate more! So I definitely have to improve on this aspect as well.

All in all however, it has been a very exciting year and I’m grateful I have been given this opportunity. I am also looking forward to the future because I firmly believe I can become a very good team leader. I’ll certainly work hard to become one at least.

To prepare myself I read some material discussing the ins and outs of team management. It showed me certain aspects that I weren’t aware of, as well as giving me some ideas on how to handle my new responsibilities. One can learn a lot from readings or courses but nothing replaces experience. The person I now manage has been with us only for a week but I quickly realised that theory alone is not enough. In the last book I read the author stated that no matter what you always “screw up” at the beginning. It is part of the learning process. So I guess I just have to brace myself for my first screw-up.