http://www.phparch.com \ November 2018 \ 25The Talk
The Dev Lead Trenches
performance is causing an issue with
the team or the project itself. For me,
this means we have tried to find a way
to make things work, and we need to
be very real and very serious about the
next steps and potential outcomes. We
want to be clear that if the situation does
not improve what the consequences are,
up to and including if termination is on
the table.Brief Management
Before you have this talk with the
coworker, make upper management
aware. Depending on your company
you may or may not have the direct
power to terminate someone, but you
need to make upper management
aware there is a problem, you have tried
to work on it between yourself and the
coworker, and that a serious next step
is being taken. In my case, I have the
power to recommend whom we need
to terminate if it comes down to it. You
may not—make sure you are working
within the confines of your company.Once the proper people know (be
it a manager, or human resources, or
whomever), you need to schedule this
talk. I do not like to spring this specific
talk on someone out of the blue. If you
have been working with this person,
then the meeting should not be unex-
pected. The intent is not to directly
terminate the person, so I am perfectly
fine letting them know what the meet-
ing is about.Have Specific Examples
You need to be prepared with
concrete examples of the problems. If
you started to document the times when
instructions were not followed, and you
attempted to correct it, you should have
a good portion of this already. I hate
metrics, so I never bring those up, but
it can be hard to avoid without docu-
menting specific events. For example,
I am never going to punish someone
because they haven’t closed enough
issues, but I will punish someone if theyrefuse to follow our merge and close
procedures.
During this talk, you need to express
exactly what the problem is. Saying,
“Bob, things are not working out, we
need to improve” is not going to help
any party. You need to be specific in
what the problem is, so something like,
“Bob, there seems to be an issue with
following our pull request workflow,
and it is causing problems getting issues
resolved” is much more direct. You are
laying out what the issue is, and from
there can come up with a plan.Personal Improvement Plans
You may want, or might be directed
by human resources, to come up with
a Personal Improvement Plan (PIP)
for this coworker. This term has a very
severe and negative connotation in the
business world, as it can easily be used
to get rid of a troublesome employee,
versus its intention—as a way to help an
employee correct their mistakes.Docker for Developers, 2nd Edition
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