Happy developers are more productive, make better teams, write better code, and retain their jobs longer than miserable developers

1. Happy Developers are
Better Developers
Jason Straughan - Grok Interactive, LLC

2. ● Managers of developers
● Project Managers
● Lead Developers
● Sr Developers
● Mentors
Who is this talk for?

3. Who is this talk for?
Anyone that writes code
or works with someone
who does.

4. MBA

5. Why Me?

6. I’m a developer.
Why Me?

8. ● Why happiness is important
● Leadership skills that build happy workplaces
● Ideas that work, and some that don't
What is this talk
about?

9. How to make your job a better
place to work
What is this talk
about?

10. noun hap·pi·ness ˈha-pē-nəs
happiness
● the state of being happy
● an experience that makes you happy
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/happiness

11. adjective hap·py ˈha-pē
happy
● feeling pleasure and enjoyment because of your life, situation, etc.
● showing or causing feelings of pleasure and enjoyment
● pleased or glad about a particular situation, event, etc.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/happy

12. Happiness is a shared
experience of joy or pleasure
resulting from events or
situations that are unique to
each individual.

13. Employees thrive and are both
happier and more productive in a
positive environment where they are
supported, inspired, challenged, and
appropriately resourced.

14. ● Increase positive emotions
● Buffer against negative events
● Attract and bolster employees
Effects of Positive Practices on
Organizational Effectiveness
The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science

15. A sense of confidence that the team will
not embarrass, reject or punish someone
for speaking up.
Harvard Business School professor Amy Edmondson
Psychological Safety

16. 10X
Developer

17. A miserable
developer will take
two times as long to
write bad code than a
bad developer.

18. "Your brain at positive is 31% more
productive than your brain at
negative, neutral or stressed"
- Shawn Achor

19. ● Better (able to) secure jobs
● Better (at) keeping jobs
● Superior productivity
● More resilient
● Less burnout
● Less turnover

20. What makes
developers happy?

21. Developers want to be challenged
and appreciated while creating
software people use.

22. 3 Virtues of a Great Programmer
● Laziness
● Impatience
● Hubris
- Larry Wall, BDFL of Perl

23. YMMV

24. Hiring

25. Autodidactic
Resourceful
Empathetic

26. Junior
Developers

28. Properly
Resourced

29. Team

31. Continuing
Education

33. $$$

34. 1:1

35. Theory X
And
Theory Y
Social Psychologist Douglas McGregor of MIT

36. ● Dislike working.
● Avoid responsibility and need to be directed.
● Have to be controlled, forced, and threatened to deliver what's
needed.
● Need to be supervised at every step, with controls put in place.
● Need to be enticed to produce results; otherwise they have no
ambition or incentive to work.
Theory X Managers believe that
their employees:

37. ● Take responsibility and are motivated to fulfill the goals they are
given.
● Seek and accept responsibility and do not need much direction.
● Consider work as a natural part of life and solve work problems
imaginatively.
Theory Y Managers believe that
their employees:

38. Theory Y
Is Widely Accepted
as Superior

39. Empathy
cannot be
faked

40. ● Happy Developers == Better Developers
● Happiness is unique to individuals
● Work should be challenging
● Environment should be forgiving
● Theory Y > Theory X
Takeaways

41. Implement
Test
Iterate

42. Empathy
cannot be
faked

43. Jason D. Straughan
@jdstraughan
jasons@grok.rocks
@GrokInteractive