This document discusses using data-driven approaches to develop people, workflows, and products. The agenda includes sections on developing people for 10 minutes and developing workflows for 10 minutes. It then discusses why taking a data-driven approach matters for speed, quality, and avoiding burnout. Common patterns like having a domain champion or uneven workloads are presented. It advocates collecting data on skills, productivity, and processes to identify issues and opportunities for individuals and teams. The goal is to turn data into insights to help create plans to build skills and improve software development.

1. DATA DRIVEN APPROACHES
TO DEVELOPING YOUR PEOPLE,
WORKFLOW AND PRODUCTS
JEN McGRATH, PRODUCT MANAGER, PLURALSIGHT
JEREMY MORGAN, TECHNICAL MARKETING MANAGER, PLURALSIGHT

2. Jen McGrath
ABOUT US
• Held software engineer,
manager, and product
manager for 20+ years
• Stoked about building
products that help advocate
for great leadership and
development
• Likes hiking and mountain
biking

3. Jeremy Morgan
ABOUT US
• Developer for ~20 years
• Worked with a variety of
companies—from Fortune
100 to shoestring startups
• Spent the last several years as
a DevOps engineering
consultant
• Volunteers as a firefighter in
spare time and restores old
trucks.

4. Introduction………………………………………..… 5 minutes
Developing people.................................. 10 minutes
Developing workflows........................... 10 minutes
Q&A................................................................ 5 minutes
AGENDA

5. FROM “AHA💡” TO “CHA-CHING!🤑”

6. WHY DOES
IT MATTER?
Speed: We need to be first to market
Quality: We need code free of defects
Cost: We need to avoid burnout

7. THE OLD
WAY
SLOW & PAINFUL

8. THE NEW WAY
AGILE &
ITERATIVE

9. -Jeremy
Productive - Engineers need to feel they’re
making a difference
Skills - Engineers naturally want to skill
themselves up. They need more than they have
today
To love their work - To do so they need to be
productive and have the skills to work efficiently
ENGINEER NEEDS
237-719-701

10. The goal is to turn data into information
and information into insight.
– CARLY FIORINA

11. LEADING WITHOUT DATA

12. LEADING WITH DATA

14. An expert in a particular area of the codebase; a master
of every class, every method, every algorithm and
pattern
PATTERN #1: PEOPLE
THE DOMAIN CHAMPION

15. IDENTIFY THE DOMAIN CHAMPION:
REWORK & RECEPTIVENESS

16. THE DOMAIN CHAMPION:
WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT...MORE DATA

17. • Bring up the topic
• Provide evidence with the data you’ve
collected
• Collaborate on a solution
1:1s
With data

18. • Look for evidence of a new pattern
• Recognize the people and the solution
Follow up
With data

19. An uneven distribution of workloads across engineering
teams, resulting in individual burnout and process
failures
PATTERN #2: PROCESS
CARRYING TOO MUCH WEIGHT

20. IDENTIFY THE WEIGHT DISTRIBUTION:

21. IDENTIFY THE WEIGHT DISTRIBUTION:
DRILL IN

22. ● Get feedback from the employee
● What type of skills would help
productivity?
● How can we reduce silos in our team?
COLLECTING
DATA
For team & process fixes

23. IDENTIFY THE WEIGHT DISTRIBUTION:
CHECK YOUR SKILLS DATA

24. IDENTIFY THE WEIGHT DISTRIBUTION:
CREATE PLAN & EXECUTE

25. • Have teammates skills come up?
• Are they ready to chip in on the new stuff?
Follow up
With data

26. Use data to help you
build skills and
develop software
IDENTIFY A PATTERN
Teams use Pluralsight Flow to identify patterns
that may be hanging them up.
CREATE A PLAN
Engineers work with their managers and
colleagues to come up with a plan to build Skills.
BUILD SKILLS
Individuals use Pluralsight Skills platform to
level up their skills to meet the new
challenges.

27. THANK YOU!
Questions??