My wife and I send each other articles to read on parenting, since we are both the proud parents of our first child, a six month old baby girl. As I was reading the latest article my wife emailed me, I could not help but draw similarities to caring for developers on an engineering team.

Now before everyone gets excited, the following blog post is not meant to compare developers to babies by any means. I am pointing out some similarities in how leaders should tend to and care for their development team, just as parents or caregivers we would care for a child. Basically, we invest time to nurture and care for them because we want them to be successful.

The article, What Every Baby Needs to Thrive, highlights eight steps every baby needs to thrive. For example, the first one is, "Show your love." What I have done is take this step and draw similarities to how this would apply to the success of a development team. This exercise can transcend outside of development teams to other teams, but this is a blog focused on engineering.

I have not altered the steps provided in the article. Each step and how they can be applied to a development team can be seen below.

Step 1. Show your love

How to Apply: Acknowledge them, give them praise, constructive criticism, tone of voice, genuinely care for their progress, listen to them, coach them, help them help themselves.

Step 2. Care for your child’s basic needs

How to Apply: Give them the knowledge and tools necessary to be successful, provide training opportunities for them to take advantage. Rest them, don’t just sprint them month after month without a break. A well rested employee is more productive. Reward them when they have done well, instruct them when they have not. Show them what it means to be a good developer. Provide a welcoming team atmosphere, lead the culture promoting it, and provide frequent feedback.

Step 3. Talk to your child

How to Apply: Communicate openly and frequently, listed and hear them, ask them how they are, what they are doing, learn how to help them.

Step 4. Read to your child

How to Apply: Present to them, demonstrate and show them what you know, teach them skills that they will learn to admire and achieve so they may help themselves.

Step 5. Stimulate all his senses

How to Apply: Give them a broad range of experiences, don’t just stick them in one technology or one facet of a project. Teach them all the parts of the project. See where there interests and skills develop. Groom them for future development in several areas.

Step 6. Encourage new challenges

How to Apply: Encourage them to raise their bar higher, step out of their comfort zone, teach a class, present a session, develop leadership skills. Teach them to teach others. Train the trainer.

Step 7. Take care of yourself

How to Apply: Lead by example, if you are not well rested (on top of your game), it becomes difficult to instill this sense amongst the team. Continue your education to grow and lead. Find time for yourself away from the team.

Step 8. Find good childcare

How to Apply: Develop a good team atmosphere. Who do you want your developers to emulate? Find mentors, get them training, pay for good speakers, find the right conventions. Encourage them to care for each other, to present to each other, to respect one another.

Obviously employees are different than family, but there are similarities. You cannot fire family, and you do not interview them before they arrive (in some cases I guess). Like leading a horse to water, you can only do so much for you developers to be successful. It is ultimately up to them to take advantage of the situation. If your horses refuse to drink and it hurts the team, then turn them into glue.

Thanks to my wife for sending me this article. My guess is that she never would have thought I would apply it to a development team. This agrees nicely with the sprint board we keep in the house for chores and duties. That reminds, we are overdue for a sprint planning session for the month of April.

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