CYF PD

Learning Objectives

Discuss hard and soft skills in a tech team
Describe different roles in tech teams
Explain the importance of agreeing on clear goals for the team

Preparation

You must have done the prep work.

Introduction

Collaborative software development equals higher-quality products and efficient development cycles. Team synergy, knowledge, and diverse skills are crucial to achieving this. We are going to talk about these roles and their responsibilities.

Exercises

Brainstorm about teamwork in the tech industry. (35 minutes)

Goal: Discuss teamwork in the tech industry.

Think about the teams you will work with in tech. Discuss in your team:

What is your dream job?
What professional roles will be in your team?
What other people/teams will you interact with?
What non-technical skills will you bring?
What non-technical skills should you develop while at CYF?
Which of the Belbin’s tole do you identify strongest with?

Define which team member will be the time keeper for your team.
Work in your teams for about 10 minutes and write down brief answers to each question.
Assign one of the team members as speaker to deliver your answers back to the class in maximum 2 minutes.

Discuss the roles in a product team (10 minutes)

Goal: To discuss the importance of different roles in tech teams.

The following are the roles typically found within a development team. As you see, there are plenty of roles other than ‘Full-Stack Developer’.

Discuss as a class the responsibilities of the following tech roles.

Write a brief description for each of them on a post-it and share the post it on a collaborative board:

Front-end web developer
Back-end web developer
UX/UI designer
UX researcher
Product manager
Quality Assurance/Quality Engineer (tester)
Tech lead

Team Charter (15 minutes)

Goal: To discuss the importance of setting clear goals and responsibilities within a team.

You might come across a ceremony called “team charter” in your future work.

Team charters define roles, responsibilities and ways of working. If these are not clear to you when you join a new company, you should ask and seek clarification urgently.

Discuss as a class:

Why is it important for your team to understand their main goal?
Why is it important for everybody on your team to understand the role each other plays?
What is the importance of having clear ways of working?
What happens when you are not clear about these three points?

Spend the rest of your time clarifying any questions about the project and the coursework for the first week.