The Four Principles of Software Development
Building Relationships
I find that everyday the parallels between the tech world and kindergarten classrooms grow closer and closer. The same values of always share your toys, clean up your mess, and the golden rule all seem to apply to repos, team projects, and working with clients.
According to John C. Maxwell (2014), the Four Winning Principles describes how anyone can build better relationships. (Maxwell & Shepherd, The difference maker). We can benefit from a little tutoring on relationship building, as I’m sure most of us have not mastered some of those playground rules. Building great relationships requires some training, but it can be done!
Four Principles of Great Developers
1. The Lens Principle — Who we are determines how we see others
Motivation is great, but that won’t replace hard work and the competency needed from top tier developers! Sometimes the good old college try, ass-in-chair, elbow grease method is all we need to up our level. Measuring success by hours put in can place you on the same level as Senior Developer, whilst motivating someone at entry level.
2. The Pain Principle — Hurting People Hurt People and are easily hurt by them.
We all have setbacks. Sometimes those setbacks are not the failures, but rather the words or critique from a mentor, teacher, or just passers-by. Always remember: Being a Developer is a rare, and lifelong skill. We depend on computers to know everything, not humans. Remember to stay the course, chin-up, and make the criticism you receive your next big success.
3. The Elevator Principle — We can lift people UP, or take them Down with us.
Development is a team sport. We all depend on open source libraries, tutorials and documentation to ensure that we ALL succeed. You can criticize someone’s mistakes on a GitHub repo, knocking their confidence. Or you can submit a pull request, help the situation, possibly gain a new connection and even boost moral!
4. The Learning Principle — Each Person we meet has the potential to teach us something
When it comes to big projects, when you have to learn a Mathematics concept in one night, or when you just don’t quite know what the heck you’re doing: EVERYONE has and will ask for help. So here’s my say: DO it! You have MY permission to ask for help, google search, and watch as many tutorials as you like to learn and get better. People want you to succeed, otherwise Stack Overflow would be out of business!
My name is Jay Dwayne. A former baby, still a Fire Fighter and currently a Software Engineer. Thankyou for making it to the end of this Article.
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