In Praise of Tech Teams

A crisis of EQ is what we spoke about this week in the other newsletter and we covered both what it looks like and the fact that there are very simple but effective things that can be done.

For tech teams, this appears an even more urgent and less of a “done” ticket for many reasons.

One valid reason is the fact that technologists have a much higher cognitive and emotional load than other professions to contend with by the mere nature of the speed of the industry. Constant learning and continuous improvement are not elective, they are part of their everyday reality and in their absence, they couldn’t be delivering anything.

Additionally, skilled professionals are never plentiful in any organisation and everyone is constantly expected to bite more than they can chew, so being extremely overworked is the norm. That translates into massive pressure for most- the burnout in the tech industry will soon start to show glaringly at every corner.

Layered over all that still, is the fact that we have employed these professionals to do one thing and now we are practically asking for another. Deep independent work in isolation was what we initially asked for and now, that makes up for a minute percentage of the work and instead the need is for human interaction. Stand-ups, retros, demos and 1-on-1s alone are taking a lot of time and can be challenging, but then there’s also being in dojos, pair-programming, joint learning and so many other collaborative occasions that no one ever was trained for and yet they make up the bulk of the professional ask these days.