Q&As
The reality of most projects is there
will always be mission creep. This
comes from changing project
requirements, experimenting with new
tools or getting lost in a bug for hours.
If you notice mission creep starting
to happen as a result of changing
requirements, explain the pros and
cons, reprioritise the requirements and
focus on the objectives that make the
most sense. This lets the organisation
you’re working with understand the
additional work that they’re asking you
to undertake and enables you to stay
comfortably committed.
On that note, you should set some
expectations between yourself and the
other organisation you’re working with.
Talk about their expectations and how
that matches up with your availability,
so you can both come up with a
sustainable plan for a project.
Another powerful technique I’ve
adopted over the past few years is time
blocking. For example, I set my Monday
nights as Elixir Labs check-in night. It
was exhausting after a full day’s work
but meant I got them all done in one go.
I then had another night set for ‘other’
meetings (interviewing volunteers
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then some time for coding as well. This
creates a schedule for me to follow that
drives my time commitment, as well as
giving me time for other projects and a
social life.
Design feedback
GIVING FEEDBACK
Do you have any tips on providing design
feedback to a colleague or employee who’s
typically defensive, whatever you say?
Kelvin Dixon, Southport, UK
JY: Defensiveness is generally an
indicator of inexperience. We designers
can sometimes fall into the trap of
becoming too attached to our work,
which leads to defensiveness when
we feel it’s being criticised and
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best solution.
One of the easiest ways to circumvent
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the feedback. Asking them what they
would like the feedback to focus on
avoids the defensiveness that comes
from criticising things that maybe aren’t
quite ready.
Another tip is to be careful to
choose questions that encourage them
to consider their decisions. It’s often
the case that the act of simply
explaining the thought process behind
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someone else is enough to initiate
critical examination.
The last tip is to keep any feedback you
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of project goals or design principles.
Doing so ensures that the feedback is
purely focused on what matters for the
project’s success and makes it easier to
collaboratively land on a solution.How can I go about finding
volunteer opportunities for
my dev skills?
Emeli Gordon, Nova Scotia, CanadaAS: Finding volunteer developer positions
is surprisingly hard! Here are some good
places to start.When giving feedback to a colleague, it’s important to define its scope to avoid prompting defensiveness in the recipient
3 SIMPLE STEPS
Volunteer websites
Onlinevolunteering.org connects
volunteers with projects around the
world for a variety of roles; developer
positions definitely exist. Other similar
sites include VolunteerMatch, Do-it and
Create The Good.Open-source projects
As a developer, open-source
projects are a great way to
contribute. FreeCodeCamp has a few
projects on its website and GitHub is
always a treasure trove of open-source
projects you can contribute towards.Follow your passion
The best success often comes from
working on something you’re
passionate about. If there’s a nonprofit
you’ve supported or whose cause you
believe in, contact them. PS: we’re always
looking for more volunteers at Elixir Labs!