"I fantasized about giving up and just coding again."
Tell me if this sounds familiar.
You were a senior developer, spending your days writing code, pairing with other devs on shipping that new feature or squashing that one weird bug, and occasionally meeting with the product managers and designers when deciding what to build next.
Life was good. You were good at your job and you enjoyed it.
When the team expanded, you thought nothing of it...until your boss asked if you wanted to become a team leader. So you took it -- and why not? Everyone was already relying on you as the senior developer, so it made sense.
But... it's been six weeks and you haven't written a line of code. You've lost track of how many meetings you're pulled into every day. Your calendar is an absolute mess...
Drowning in a sea of meetings, outages, and questions you have no time to finish that high-priority feature you committed to last week. Well, you could stay until midnight again to work on it...
Driving home, you think,"I don't wanna screw this up, and I'm pretty sure I already am.”
What if you had this job *nailed*?
Arriving at the office on Wednesday, you stop by the team dashboards. The burn-down chart on the wall shows they're on track to finish all the stories and even a couple of stretch goals.
Glancing at your calendar, you see only have one, low-stress meeting today: brainstorm architecture ideas for Project Raptor with the team. Coffee in hand, you spend the next two hours reviewing requirements and making notes for the session, as well as writing questions. You are leading it, but you're prepared to guide as needed.
After lunch, you investigate the new version of your web framework, analyzing how this version will impact your codebase.
Jim stops by. “I think we found a way to shave a ton of time off each API request. Can I run it by you?” You and Jim review the idea, and it is KILLER! Giving a thumbs-up, Jim spends the next couple hours working on a proof-of-concept.
As you are heading out Jim catches you with a grin. “Works like a charm, it’s 90% faster now!”
Life is awesome.
This isn't a dream, and it's not impossible. You just need to level up your leadership skills, which is exactly what this 2-day workshop will do for you.
Technical Leadership Workshop
This is a hands-on workshop that will leave you with practical ideas and solutions for improving the real-life team you already have.
And, we can't stand listening to lecturers drone on-and-on... so we don't do it! In fact, our "No Hand Cramp" workshop style means you'll spend time problem-solving, talking, listening, observing, thinking and discussing instead of frantically taking notes (and falling asleep after lunch!)
You'll participate in engineering simulations which will challenge you and create "sticky" lessons that you'll take back to your team.
Frankly... most people who come to these workshops ask us to conduct them for their teams after they finish. They understand that "leadership" doesn't only come from the top, but is something everyone can learn.
Sound about right?
In our two-day workshop, you will learn how to stop drowning and start swimming so that you can go home at a reasonable time, and quit working until midnight. Here are some of the modules we cover:
The Workshop's Agenda
Day 1, Morning
Leading Your Teams Through Change and Learning
Day 1, Afternoon
Building A Productive Team Environment
Day 2, Morning
Improving Communication about Requirements and Design
Day 2, Afternoon
Improving Communications Between Silos
Day 1
Registration & Breakfast (provided by us)
Leading Your Team Through Change and Learning
- Learn the difference between leading and managing
- Understand why change is hard, and how to help your team navigate it
- Uncover how to introduce self-forming project teams to your organization
- Use the Piaget learning cycle to build personal and team improvements
- Connect hands-on design exercises to real-world situations
Lunch (provided by us)
Building A Productive Team Environment
- Learn the MOI(J) model of leadership
- Put your team's ideas into practice in the real-world
- Hone your observation and feedback skills
- Improve your retrospective and structured debriefing skills
No-host dinner at a local eatery (arranged by us)
Day 2
Registration & Breakfast (provided by us)
Improve Communication about Requirements and Design
- Observe the impact of time pressure on technical communications
- Improve communication about complex technical tasks
- Understand the cost of assimilating new members into a team
- Identify real-world areas of improvement for your team’s communication practice
Lunch (provided by us)
Removing Silos and Low-Bandwidth Communication
- Improve communication with remote engineers
- Understand the role of conversation in communication
- Observe the effects of silos on team motivation
- Observe the effects of Management by Walking Around
- Build proficiency in leading through asking, rather than telling
No-host dinner at a local eatery (arranged by us)
2018 Workshop Dates
Medford, OR
March 15-16, 2018
San Francisco, CA
March 22-23, 2018
Denver, CO
April 19-20, 2018
Portland, OR
May 3-4, 2018
(Each workshop is limited to 30 participants. No exceptions.)
Prices
Early Bird Prices (more than 30 days before event): $2,099
Regular Prices: $2,399
Last Minute Prices (less than 5 days before event): $2,899
Our "You Gotta Love It" Guarantee
All our workshops offer "You Gotta Love It" 100% money back guarantee. If you attend and feel the workshop was a waste of your money and time, we will issue a full refund, no questions asked. If you're not happy, we don't get paid. It's as simple as that.
What Past Attendees Said
I require every new manager that reports to me to sign up for Marcus's newsletter and often discuss it in staff meetings. Leadership with a capital "L" is a real part of the discipline I now bring to the coaching experience with my team.
I continue to work one-on-one with Marcus to this day, and I hope I will always be able to lean on him and dialog about challenges.
He is worth way more than you can ever pay him.
-- Andrew Coven, Senior Director of Platform Engineering, Box.com
The training was expensive, but was it worth the expense? Absolutely. The techniques, practices, and methods devised to place us in a hands-on learning environment were amazing.
They created a healthy environment for us to learn. The most helpful thing for me was to practice observing myself. This is truly the fundamental starting point for change.
-- Tim Johnson, IT Manager
The training was expensive, but was it worth the expense? Absolutely. The techniques, practices, and methods devised to place us in a hands-on learning environment were amazing.
They created a healthy environment for us to learn. The most helpful thing for me was to practice observing myself. This is truly the fundamental starting point for change.
-- Michael Alotti, Software Development Manager
I wouldn't have come if my company hadn't paid for it, but it turned out to be an amazing workshop!
I feel it would be really helpful for teams to go through the activities together, to surface issues that they may be encountering in real life.
I will be recommending this to my company!!
-- Denise Frey, Software Team Lead
Amenities Provided
Breakfast, lunch, and snacks are provided each day.
Vegan/vegetarian options provided.
No-host dinner each night where we can discuss what we learned.
Journals, pens and a copy of Becoming a Technical Leader are provided to each participant.
Sounds good, but...
It might seem like you’re too busy to take another class, another training, or implement another practice, but that’s short-sighted. It’s not difficult to imagine how busy you will be if your team can't deliver on time. If you’re already “too busy”, building a high-performance environment is one of your most important initiatives.
Compared to what? Take a moment and measure the cost of poor motivation and turnover...
- Wasting days (or weeks) on petty conflicts
- Politics and "not my job" excuses
- Late, incomplete or poor quality software products
- Losing the confidence of your customers, users, and boss
- Late nights spent playing "parent" to developers who can't get along
- Skyrocketing training cost due to high turnover
The back of the napkin calculations shows that if your team ships only 10% more software this year, you're saving 10x - 50x the cost of this training.
Nah! If you can learn to code (a completely foreign thing to humans!) you can learn to build a productive work environment. This isn’t rocket science, and like any skill, it can be learned with a bit of practice.
I've been hiring and leading software teams for 16 years at global enterprises, start-ups and my own software company. I've helped hundreds of managers retain their most valuable employees and become the leaders their team deserves.
Your boss doesn’t want to see turnover either, so they're also motivated to keep the best people happy and productive. We’ll explore how you can work with upper management to create the kind of environment your people need to be happy and productive.
This isn’t true. Everyone finds changing jobs stressful, and developers only do it when they don’t believe their current job will meet their career and emotional goals. They might tell you it’s about money, but it rarely is.
If they are leaving, it's because they want a more productive environment. This is what motivates them.
The reason you don’t have any time is because you’re probably trying to do too much, and everyone depends on you. That’s exactly why you need this workshop. You need a team that is motivated without you standing over them, and an environment where they can be productive without you. This workshop is an investment which will actually create more time in your life.
This workshop is positively cheap compared to the hidden costs of developer turn-over, recruiter fees, stress-related medical bills, delayed projects, reduced market share, and decline in confidence from your users/investor/boss. If it feels like you’re barely keeping your head above water, then you know others are watching you thrash around. Your reputation, and the reputation of your team, depend on you learning these skills.
Our You Gotta Love It guarantee means your money is not at risk. If you attend and don’t love it, just ask for a full refund. We’ll honor it, no questions asked.
We're different, just like you.
Our goal is to revolutionize the world of work for engineers and those who lead them. We believe that every engineer deserves a good boss, and that any engineer can become one. We stand apart from those who preach that “Leaders are born, not made”, proudly helping great coders become great leaders.
When you sign-up you will meet US, Marcus and Amy. We aren’t a large corporate team with an army of drone trainers. We’re a small, Oregon based team who does 100% of the training ourselves. We create and test all our own curriculum. We live and breathe this stuff, and it shows.
Who are we?
Marcus Blankenship
Marcus has worked as a Software Engineer, Architect, Team Lead, Software Manager, Consultancy Owner, College Instructor, Leadership Coach and Business Coach. He specializes in helping Technical Managers and Leaders create high-performing organizations.
His book, Habits That Ruin Your Technical Team is now available. He is currently pursuing an I/O Psychology Degree (Leadership Specialization) from Penn State and lives in Eastern Oregon.
Amy Blankenship, RN, BSN, MSN-Ed
Amy has worked as a Nursing Instructor at Oregon Health Sciences University, specializing in clinical simulations and interprofessional instruction. She has also worked as a post-surgical nurse, hospice nurse, and a hospice clinical manager.
She currently serves as an Executive Board Member of Klamath Hospice, on the Oregon State Board of Nursing Curriculum Council, and as a leadership mentor for the Oregon Nurses Association. She will enter a Ph.D. program in 2018 and also lives in Eastern Oregon.
Questions?
Got questions? Not sure if this is right for you? Want to know our approach to a topic? Email us at marcus@marcusblankenship.com and we'll get right back to you.
You snooze, you lose.
This unique, hands-on workshop is held in small venues where we constantly interact alongside participants during the workshop.
We limit each workshop to only 30 participants to ensure everyone has the best experience possible. These workshops fill up fast, so register today.