Honest systems in The dotted line

I was proud of myself this week.

We’re a few weeks into the new working setup, since the mass redundancies took place. 

And in some ways we have returned to the dynamic we had over a decade ago, before there was a big team. Two developers - me and my boss, racing to get through an endless list of features and changes.

But something is also very different to 10 years ago. I am the unexpected authority on our current project. I’ve been working on it for about 7 months, my boss has been working on it
for just a fortnight.

And this week, I found myself joining the meeting with a list of complaints in my hand! Complaints I needed to deliver to my boss, the CEO, to let him know that his dev-team etiquette was not just lacking, but a little reckless!

Four weeks ago I would never have dared to tell my boss everything he was doing wrong, but suddenly, I find myself in a position where it would be irresponsible not to.

For the sake of the project and for the sake of our new team dynamic.

There is still a hierarchy of authority, there is still a direction of travel in which instructions flow, and I still respect that.

But as developer to developer, I believe we must be equals. This was the dynamic I had with my manager, and the dev lead before that, and I’ve learnt a lot from them.

The most important lesson, I felt, was how we normalised saying “I don’t know” and asking for the other’s expertise, regardless of hierarchy.

It taught me that having a safe environment, where honesty was encouraged, not only created healthier relationships, but it actually enabled us to design better systems.