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@chrisgetman
Can’t We All Just Get Along?
12 Ways to Improve The Developer + Account Manager Relationship
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Who’s here?
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What are we talking about?
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Dev & Accounts
• Greater knowledge gap between these teams
than others
• Greater personality gap between these teams
than others
• Greater opportunity for improvement
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Communication
Personalities
Expectations
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Empathize.But first…
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Why did the developer leave
the restaurant?
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Because of the table layout!
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How many account managers does
it take to screw in a lightbulb?
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Is it too late to make the bulb neon?
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Same Team, Man.
Same Team.
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Same projects.
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Same goals.
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Same team.
Different planets?
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AM’s Job
• Schedule
• Scope
• Budget
Developer’s Job
• Build
• Solve
• Make Complex = Simple
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The Conflict.
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AM: “The client wants [insert request].”
Developer: “That will take 1,800 hours and/or is impossible.”
AM: “That’s a terrible solution.”
Developer: “You’re a terrible solution.”
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Tips for Developers(How to help a marketer out)
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Don’t be so logical.
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A developer heads to the grocery store
with a note from his roommate…
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“Get a loaf of bread,
and if they have eggs,
get a dozen.”
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The developer comes home with a
dozen loaves of bread and says..
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“…they had eggs.”
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Sometimes nuance is
lost in translation.
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And sometimes AMs don’t give
developers enough details
to pick up on the nuance.
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So ask the AM:
“Is this really what you’re asking for?”
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Empower your AM.
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AM: “The client wants [insert ill-informed request].”
Developer: “That will take 1,200 hours and/or is impossible.”
AM: “That’s a terrible solution.”
Developer: “You’re a terrible solution.”
Opportunity(to educate the AM)
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Empathize.
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What are the goals?
When is the deadline?
What’s the client situation like?
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No. It’s not your job.
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But it will go a long way.
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Tips for Account Managers(How to make your devs happy)
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Empathize.Involve Devs Early
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Q: How early is too early to bring
a developer into a project?
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A: It’s never too early.
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“I would love a project I know nothing
about dropped in my lap.”
-No One Ever
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Advantages of Early Dev Involvement
• Better scoping
• Ownership from dev
• Less friction during project
• More face time (not kidding)
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Empathize.Care about how
things are made.(Not just how the finished product looks)
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“Just make it do this…”
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If AMs better understood how
projects were built, they could:
• Add more value upfront
• Be more understanding of dev issues
• Better forecast and plan
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Empathize.Don’t pass the stress.
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Account managers are stressed.
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All. The. Time.
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Give your team a protected
space to do their jobs.
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Empathize.Devs Don’t Know Everything.
(And that’s ok.)
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When you ask a dev a question…
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Developers are problem solvers.
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Give them time to research.
Give them all the details about the issue.
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Empathize.Devs aren’t IT.
(Just re-start your computer)
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Seriously. Just re-start it.
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*Pro Tip for Devs
Never fix anyone’s computer at the office.
Not even once.
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Empathize.Leave them alone.
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Headphones on?
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Leave them alone.
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Leave this dude alone.
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It takes 23 minutes to return to the
original task after an interruption.*
*The Cost of Interrupted Work: More Speed and Stress, Gloria Mark, University of California
https://www.ics.uci.edu/~gmark/chi08-mark.pdf
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Do the math.
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4 Interruptions = 1 Hour Lost
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(I’m looking at you Slack)
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“Your team sent a total of 11,400 messages last week (that's 2,103
more than the week before). Of those, 5% were in channels, 7%
were in groups and 88% were direct messages.”
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If you want your project done:
• Get the developer some time
• Leave them alone
• Make everyone else leave them alone
• Give them snacks
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Empathize.How to work
better together.
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Create a DLA(Department Level Agreement)
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The DLA States
• The development team’s expectations of how work should be assigned to them.
• The account team’s expectations of how work should be approached.
• Ideal collaborative scenarios.
• Unfavorable collaborative scenarios.
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Cross Department Presentations(Quarterly)
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The more we know about the
other team, the better.
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Dev presents to accounts.
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Accounts presents to dev.
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Hang out.
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Talk about non-work things.
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Strive to create real relationships.
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End.