The Three Pillars of Developer Maturity: Mindset, Skills, and Culture

Be prepared for the future challenges

What is maturity in a team of developers exactly? Is it just responsibility, or is there more to it? You could be a very responsible person, but you couldn't keep up in an experienced, mature team just because you have yet to gain experience.

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In this article, I write about something other than the specific technical skills and requirements leaders, consultants, or companies have defined for themselves. Instead, I want to talk about the standard fundamentals.

Confidence & Skill Set

You must become confident about yourself and your abilities

While responsibility is fundamental, you must become confident about yourself and your abilities. For this, you need a corresponding skill set that ensures you can meet the demands of a team, company, and clients. In addition, a mature couple will have best practices, requiring you to stay up-to-date with your mastery.

Mindset & Continuous Learning

You need the right mindset to acquire skills and cultivate your version of continuous learning. Learning new technologies, methods, or best practices is time-consuming. Learning requires a lot of motivation because you will only succeed once you understand accurately. Therefore, an early developed "mindset of becoming better" is essential.

Culture & Environment

An environment that advocates learning and progression will positively influence everyone in the team.

Last but not least, you should care about the culture. While mindset and skills are personal things, culture is the summation of everyone in and around the team. If you work in an environment where mature mindsets are already developed and flourish, you will be influenced positively. 

Conversely, an irresponsible or toxic climate will reduce your motivation to progress and significantly slow your progression.

The people around you, the books you read, the podcasts you listen to, and the things you think about after work will determine your personality in the long run; thus, an environment that advocates learning and progression will positively influence everyone on the team.

As a leader, you should actively work on improving the cultural level.

In the position of a responsible person, you will be confronted with employees at different stages in their development. Some are eager to learn and try out and overcome their limits. Others want to stay in their comfort zone or are afraid to get overwhelmed by the effort to start to improve.

It's one of the essential tasks for a leadership person to ensure that a positive learning and enhancement culture can thrive. Teams with reasons to improve and try to reach the next level will inevitably focus on that task. But, simultaneously, they won't likely look for other opportunities because you already provide them with a way of progression.

Challenge your teams, but do it wisely.

Most developers I've met have three currencies in mind: money, skills, and well-being. However, I've often witnessed that skills and well-being can be worth more than money, especially when a developer wants to step up his or her game and has a long-term plan or just feels welcome in a great environment where they can add value and create a sense of ownership.

Be bold and develop your developers; they will leave you less likely when you keep challenging them. Instead, provide an environment to learn and a culture of open-mindedness. Then, with every mastered challenge in an appreciating environment, the developer will tighten his bond with the team and company.

How to grow a team culture in a company

Mindset

It all starts in your head. Call it a vision, idea, dream, or belief; it’s essential to understand that the image of yourself and your team in the future is the first initial flame you need to start. Then, cultivate that belief and make sure it does not burn out.

In becoming a better version of yourself, you will face challenges where a strong mindset is a hard requirement. However, it will help you stand up again when you fail, guide you toward where to go next, and stay focused.

#belief #dream #vision #strongmind #focus #will

Skills

With the right mindset in place, you must start developing your version of Continuous Learning. Skills are essential to be successful in what you do, but acquiring those it’s a marathon, not a sprint. Learning will never end, and this is fine. Never get into the notion that you have mastered everything already. There’s always room to improve.

Skill sets are a requirement to become productive, so working on them should be a high priority. When we think of working in a team, the combined mindset and skill set of everyone determines the outcome. It affects the team’s confidence and provides the ability to master challenges it wasn’t able to master before.

#confidence #ability #productive #improvement

Team Culture

Eventually, the right mindset helps you develop the skills you need to be successful. Since most of us work with colleagues, this approach can and should be adopted by the entire team or company. The more team member follows this path, the more they will follow to do so. 

But be aware being a continuous learner means you aren’t compatible with an environment that doesn’t advocate enhancement anymore. 

For leaders, it’s essential to understand that kicking this off in your team means your start to transform your entire team.  

Once your team reaches a certain level of confidence through a positive learning mindset, combined with a variety of acquired skills, you will be ready for any challenge to come.

#productivness #readiness #teamchallenge #transformation #team

Conclusion: Everyone in the tech sector knows how fast everything develops.

That said, understanding how vital a continuous learning culture is is is crucial. Every one of us needs to realize that learning never ends. We have been told as children that we need to learn when we are young and execute as adults. But unfortunately, this doesn't apply to the tech sector at all.

Regarding myself, I learn every day. This newsletter and blogging are forms of learning for me as well. About five years ago, I got rid of the wrong "I already learned everything" mindset and realized there was no end to progression; the industry is relentlessly evolving, whether I like it or not. It won't get easier for a software developer in the future.

What we do with our time is a personal decision. I recommend that everyone appreciate learning and failure to progress and improve. As a leader and/or colleague, you should ensure the environment is suitable for people willing to learn.