Knowledge isn’t the problem,

communication isWordCamp Cape Town 2014

$ whoami

• Tomaž Zaman (@TomazZaman)

• Father of 4

• (almost) a husband

• skydiver

• geek

• founder of Codeable

(@codeablehq)

-me, on numerous occasions

“I f*cked up.”

Tom

• 9 - 5

• sucky job

• sucky project manager

• sucky clients

A web developer.Web is global. You should be too.

• Over-promised

• Under-delivered

• Late

• Why? Too many clients at a time.

Fear of running out of work.

Solution?Decrease prices, offer discounts. does it work? No.

No motivation.

“Spiral of guilt”

The fantastic four

Missed

deadlines

Misaligned

expectations

Poorly executed

solutions

Personality

clashes

1. Missed deadlines

Ego == small talk0 benefits

Solution?Admit you have problems, fears, expose your weak sides.

Honesty goes a long way.

Supply and demandThey meet at the correct price. You’re probably not charging enough.

2. Misaligned expectations

–Your client

“This is not what we agreed on.”

Draw.Improve UX and IA skills by doing it.

3. Poorly done solutions

You’re probably not this guy

Technical debtIt’ll bite you or your successor eventually. And it’ll be expensive.

4. Personality clashes

EmpathyCan’t learn it.

AcceptancePractice it. Then practice some more.

Learn to let go.

What about teams?Easy. It’s called SCRUM.

• Kanban 2.0

• 14 day sprints

• User stories

• Daily meetings (not exceeding 15 minutes)

• Roles

• You can do this alone too!

• http://zaman.io/1-person-scrum/

Recap

• Increase your prices, don’t compete on those. Compete on your skills

instead.

• Ego kills relationships

• Empathy and acceptance go a long way.

• Clearly define the scope of work. Draw, if you have to

• Have a partner, or an employee. Preferably several.

• When things go wrong, don’t accuse or point fingers, strive for a solution

and learn from it!

• Learn to let go!

• SCRUM/AGILE/whatever

• Even if you love what you do, it’s just a job. You do it so you can live, not

the other way around.

Dankie!