braindump of Toxic Teams and Expert Beginners as hosted by Keith Dahlby at Pablo's Fiesta in room 106

Keith suggests we don't as an industry think we don't talk about the things that effect us enough. With healthcare.gov the big government culture was likely not helpful. healthcare.gov is a buggy mess. Keith was part of a team of ten acquired by a team of thirty and ended up quiting within a month. He has gone back to contract for the big team keeping old systems on life support. The Dreyfus model of skill acquisition: you start as a beginner, you become an advanced beginner, then you become competent, then a rate of skill acquisition starts to decline. Eventually "proficient" and "expect" lie ahead in the Dreyfus model. There is the danger of moving from advanced beginner into expect beginner from which there is no path forward. A bad environment can make you take this fork in your development which puts you into pit. "Eric" per Keith (who?) suggests that if you bowl without putting your fingers in the ball at top out around 160... at first it may seem like this is OK when no one else does better in your small town. However when you go to teach someone else your teaching may be poisonous. The first developer at a company may turn into the first developer lead at a company and then teach poison downwards in a situation where others may be forced to go along. This sort of thing forced Keith to leave his job. What can we do if you're told to fall in line or get out of the way. Guy in grey shirt: try to demonstrate that things can be better. Guy in blue shirt: feels you need to prove it on your own. Guy in black shirt: a job creates isolation for you, a great first job should not be stayed at past a three year mark because you will become stagnated within the management style there. Keith: you don't want to be the smartest person in the room. It is good to have a culture where everyone in Austin has to go to an event. Guy in black shirt: a lot of people would not go to a Saturday event as we are now. He feels a company cannot push employees to do this stuff. Guy in yellow shirt: think about the horrible experience of making the apathetic nine-to-fivers managers. Grrr. Keith: the laws of physics are not fixed in our industry. Guy in black shirt: if your first job taught you web forms, it will eventually time to learn MVC. Guy in orange shirt: deals with corporation programmers keep limited scope to their knowledge and don't want to grow. He keeps trying at work and being fought. Black shirt: hierarchy of pain 1. character (people who don't perform. 2. ??? 3. ??? 4th item is "tech" Keith: expert beginners think they have climbed a ladder and know it all. Guy next to me: thinks fear drives individuals to not grow. Fear of failure. You have to let people. Patrick Lioi suggested it is good to make sure the learner in that situation does not have the head trash of thinking their the novice it in the room and you have to be sensitive to it. Black shirt: the fear of climbing a the painful mountain of learning a new language or framework is driven by the experience of how painful it once was. Improving makes interviewers ask questions until the candidate says I don't know. One of the worst things you can do as a consultant is to lie to a client do Improving makes you learn to say I don't know. Guy in blue shirt: said saying I don't know is a lot like taking issue of you problems in an addiction control group therapy session. Girl in purple shirt: you are going to have a lot of growth when you put yourself in a position where you are uncomfortable. Keith: when you start to feel your imposter, that's when you have passed beginner to competent. My phone is dying. I think I'm going to duck out of this and find my charger.