Yegor256 podcast

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yegor256 podcast

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M41: Six steps to a better speaking English for a software developer12:08

10h ago12:08

12:08

I'm being asked about English speaking skills very often, that's why this video. You want to improve? Here is hot-list: 1) read English books; 2) watch movies in English, with subtitles; 3) find someone to chat with online, not about work; 4) go to the United States of America and stay there for a few months; 5) make lectures or presentations i ...…

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yegor256 podcast

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M40: To achieve quality you should numberize your Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle and its participants11:03

2d ago11:03

11:03

Quality management, if I understand PMBOK and ISO-9001 correctly, is all about the Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle, where we 1) plan what quality objectives are important for us and how they can be numbered, 2) let the team produce the results, 3) collect the numbers, and 4) compare them with our expectations and take corrective and preventive actions. ...…

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yegor256 podcast

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M39: Meeting are evil and must be replaced by a disciplined process of decision making12:34

4d ago12:34

12:34

Meetings are a great solution for lazy, immature, stupid, and non-professional software developers, architects, and their managers. The more you grow, the more professional you become, the bigger will be your frustration from those meetings. What is the alternative? How can we make technical decisions without sitting together in a room and talk ...…

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yegor256 podcast

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M38: Request-for-Proposal (RfP) is how the matchmaking process works in Zerocracy11:42

4d ago11:42

11:42

When you are ready to delegate your software project to Zerocracy, you will need an architect, who will guide you through the bootstrap steps, will understand the requirements, will build the team of freelancers, and will supervise it, with the help of Zerocrat, our AI-powered chatbot. To find that architect you have to submit a Request-for-Pro ...…

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yegor256 podcast

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M37: It's only your fault if the requirements you are working with are not clear enough!9:02

7d ago9:02

9:02

It happens very often: the requirements we have to work with are not clear. Customers, requirements providers, product owners, managers, architects, and other programmers are simply too lazy to specify them right and they just drop those feature requests and bugs on our heads. We have to deal with them. The most enthusiastic of us dive into tho ...…

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yegor256 podcast

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M36: Protect yourself against stupid managers—become their good friend!11:24

9d ago11:24

11:24

You remember my recommendations for a programmer if the management is weak and stupid, right? Don't be loyal. Instead, use their resources for your own good. But what do you do if you are the architect and the tech lead of the project? In that case, the situation is more complicated, but it's solvable. You just need to be more careful, here is ...…

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yegor256 podcast

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M35: A transition from office slavery to pay-by-result model is very expensive8:01

9d ago8:01

8:01

Very often startup founders and CTOs are asking me how and whether it's possible to transition from traditional full-time management to pay-by-result and microtasking, which we practice in Zerocracy. My answer is that it's possible but expensive. It will take time, money, and nerves. Here is a short summary of why it will be so difficult and wh ...…

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yegor256 podcast

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M31: What do you do with junior programmers who can't write good code? You train them.11:34

10d ago11:34

11:34

Multitasking is something only senior developers can deal with, because it's stressful, results-focused, and demands a lot of skills, which junior developers simply don't have. However, the question is: What those junior developers should do? How they can contribute to the project? There is a number of possible ways.The full video is here: http ...…

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yegor256 podcast

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M34: Testing and Quality Assurance (QA) are two entirely different things!5:08

10d ago5:08

5:08

I know so many testers who think that they are QA engineers. They are so wrong that I decided to record a video about that. Testing is about breaking the software and finding bugs. QA is about watching the entire software development process and improving its quality indicators. They are two absolutely different activities.The full video is her ...…

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yegor256 podcast

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M33: No don't need to be loyal to your employers, use them for your own good!13:21

11d ago13:21

13:21

Proper management is very rare, happens only in some companies. Others are treating people like office slaves, expecting them to do stay in the office instead of delivering results. What do you do when you happen to be hired by such a company? How do you change it? How can you improve your team and motivate your management to shift to better ma ...…

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yegor256 podcast

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M32: Micromanagement happens when tasks are big and motivation is not explicit14:08

15d ago14:08

14:08

Do you know what micromanagement is? It's when your manager is telling you exactly what you have to do right now in order to achieve the results he or she wants. The micromanager doesn't trust you and that's why wants and needs to control every step you make. It's annoying and unproductive, but it's inevitable unless you have small tasks and a ...…

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yegor256 podcast

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M30: Pay equality and smaller pay gap mean only one thing: the management is weak10:48

17d ago10:48

10:48

The average salary of american workers is growing 1% every year, while the paygap between similar jobs is decreasing. What do I think about this trend? Does it sound like people are getting more every year and it's good? Not at all. This trend is completely against what Zerocracy is fighting for: unequal pay for unequal contribution. We want to ...…

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yegor256 podcast

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M29: Instead of finding the right architect, find a way to manage the architect right13:18

18d ago13:18

13:18

In order to do the project right, you need the right person, right? Wrong! This type of thinking doesn't help at all and only leads to failures. It's the management that needs to be "right," not its people. Watch this morning video about this problem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSZnloEHeOk

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yegor256 podcast

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M28: Microtasking works only if you can decompose tasks, PDD helps you do exactly that12:50

19d ago12:50

12:50

Microtasking is a great management method, provided you can break your larger scope into smaller micro-tasks. Who should do this decomposition and how much time will work by itself will take? This question I hear very often when we start talking about paying-by-results and microtasking. We've spent a few years to find the answer and the methodo ...…

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yegor256 podcast

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M27: Microtasking enables more accurate and precise estimates of a software project's future12:25

21d ago12:25

12:25

You know how much I love microtasking and paying-by-result, but you may wonder how can we estimate the future of our projects if we deal with very small pieces of work. I made an attempt to explain it in the video. Long story short, microtasks not only make estimation easier for computers, but ensure much higher accuracy and preciseness of the ...…

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yegor256 podcast

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M26: Don't be afraid of your programmers, just get ready to fight when they get rich on your idea7:02

23d ago7:02

7:02

How do you protect your business ideas from potential theft by your own programmers? Do you sign NDAs? Do you hire only those who won't steal? Well, I believe you should do the opposite. Don't be scared of theft, just be prepared to prove that the idea was originally yours and share their success, when and if they get it. The full video is here ...…

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yegor256 podcast

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M25: Dear investors, Zerocracy is not an on-demand software shop, think bigger!6:44

24d ago6:44

6:44

I've got a meeting with a potential investor a few days ago, which asked me to help him develop some software, in order to prove that Zerocracy is an investable business. I refused and here is the explanation of my logic.The full video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3eRSRt-zDY

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yegor256 podcast

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M24: Artificial Intelligence is not a thinking machine, but a powerful calculator5:28

24d ago5:28

5:28

We claim that Zerocracy is an AI bot that is capable of managing people better than a human being. But very often I hear questions: How is it possible to make a computer so smart? Is AI so powerful already? In this morning video I ask you a question: Do you know what AI is? What exactly is happening in that "thinking" machines? Do they really " ...…

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yegor256 podcast

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M23: Senior developers are the best, but the most difficult to manage, and the most dagnerous14:35

26d ago14:35

14:35

If you need to demonstrate your investors that your software team is working hard on something great, you need a group of junior developers — they are easy to manage and are afraid of going into conflicts. On the other hand, if you need to develop a great product, you need senior developers. However, they are difficult to manage because they pr ...…

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yegor256 podcast

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M22: Both full-time hiring and outsourcing will lead your project to failure, Zerocracy won't.14:57

28d ago14:57

14:57

I was asked to explain what Zerocracy is doing exactly, but a potential client of ours. Here is what I managed to create, in just 15 minutes (I wanted to do five, but didn't manage). The bottom line is that full-time hiring and outsourcing are two great recipes for disaster, for a young startup. To the contrary, Zerocracy is a life saver.The fu ...…

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yegor256 podcast

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M21: Junior developers are not a good fit for microtasking, they simply can't keep up.8:35

29d ago8:35

8:35

Very often I hear people saying that microtasking is only suitable for junior developers, who are ready to work like "coding monkeys", while professional senior programmers can't do that. That's a mistake. Junior developer simply can't do microtasking, because it's stressful and complex. It's something that only experienced programmers can do r ...…

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yegor256 podcast

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M20: Reporting bugs and deciding whether they should be fixed are two separate acticitives!6:51

1M ago6:51

6:51

The video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3bjFXFRsI8