Wanted: passionate developers

skills are essential but attitude is everything

I oversee software development at Flourish . By far my biggest frustration with managing software projects is the overall pace of development . I’ve come to believe there are two main saboteurs to making quality and steady progress.

The first is shifting priorities. Business owners, myself included continually throw new priorities at developers, contract or full-timers. This immediately equates to delays and frustrated engineers. Unfortunately priority shifts are nearly impossible to avoid. It is crucial however for the stakeholders to reinforce the reasons for the change so not to come across as arbitrary. Otherwise the devs will quickly feel unappreciated and lose morale. If possible sharing the rationale behind the decision may also help to ease the pain.

The second is lack of passion from the team. As a founder I’ve tried countless tactics to “motivate” my team to increase quality output. None of which has proven very successful. I think at the end of the day you must find and surround yourself with people of passion. Urban Dictionary nails the definition: Passion is when you put more energy into something than is required to do it. It is more than just enthusiasm or excitement, passion is ambition that is materialized into action to put as much heart, mind body and soul into something as is possible.

This doesn’t mean the team members must share your particular passion. Chances are they won’t. But if they exhibit an attitude of passion, you will immediately see a positive change in output.

“ People with passion look for ways to make things happen.”
― Seth Godin, Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?