Developer on Fire
Episode 081 | Esther Derby - Making More Humane Workplaces
Esther Derby started her career as a programmer, and over the years she's worn many hats, including business owner, internal consultant and manager. From all these perspectives, one thing became clear: our level of individual, team and company success was deeply impacted by our work environment and organizational dynamics. As a result, she has spent the last twenty-five years helping companies design their environment, culture, and human dynamics for optimum success. She has written over 100 articles, and co-authored two books–Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great and Behind Closed Doors: Secrets of Great Management. She writes about management, leadership, collaboration, organizations and change (or another topic I’m currently exploring).
Chapters:
- - Dave introduces the show and Esther Derby
 - - Esther's definition of value
 - - The things that "light Esther up"
 - - Esther's early experiences with creating software and how it was like Agile
 - - Abusive disconnect - "too stupid" users
 - - How Esther got started in software
 - - Esther's story of failure - more an attitude toward failure and resilience and a growth mindset
 - - Esther's story of success of which she can be proud - creating environments where people can learn and grow and examine assumption
 - - How Esther stays current with what she needs to know
 - - Esther's book recommendations
 - - The things that have Esther most excited
 - - "Create the environment where writing good software is the natural outcome."
 - - The greatest sources of pain in Esther's life and work - humiliation and lack of humanity in workplaces
 - - Abusive measurement of productivity and its origin
 - - The things about which Esther geeks out apart from software
 - - Esther's prediction for the future of software
 - - Esther's top 3 tips for delivering more value
 - - Keeping up with Esther
 
Resources:
- Esther's Website
 - Esther's Monthly Teleconferences
 - Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great - Esther Derby, Diana Larsen
 - Behind Closed Doors: Secrets of Great Management - Johanna Rothman, Esther Derby
 - Gerald Weinberg
 - Greg Shackles on Developer On Fire
 - IBM Flowcharting template
 - Carol Dweck
 - A Good Podcast Interview With Carol Dweck
 - Linda Rising on Developer On Fire
 - "Other Esther" Schindler
 - Esther on Six Rules for Change
 - Woody Zuill on Developer On Fire
 - Caitlin C. Rosenthal
 
Esther's book recommendations:
- Books by Carol Dweck
 - Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths And Total Nonsense: Profiting From Evidence-Based Management - Jeffrey Pfeffer, Robert I. Sutton
 
Esther's top 3 tips for delivering more value:
1. Understand who is receiving what you deliver.
2. Understand the purpose of what you deliver.
3. Understand the relationship you want to create.
Developer on Fire