Soft Skills I Want to Always Keep in Mind

Cybozu 2024 Summer Festival / 2024 Big LT Battle Conference - saku

Self-introduction

• saku (@sakupi01)
• 2024 New Graduate
• Frontend Developer
• Team History
  • '23/10~ : Reactone Team
  • Training ①: DOGO Team
  • Training ②: EPT
  • Training ③: Design Technologist
  • 7/8~ Officially Assigned: Mira Team
• , , >

Learned from observing how peers and seniors work,

Soft Skills I Want to Always Keep in Mind

Available in JA

1. Keep Logs

Benefits of keeping logs

• Prevents looping through the same thoughts two or three times
• Can help others, including your future self, understand
  • Convenient when consulting someone during implementation if you can quickly produce a log of the process
• Sometimes someone might politely interrupt and offer advice

However, this was difficult at first

• It's troublesome to write out as text that someone else might see
• Switching from the working screen feels like breaking concentration
  • When focused on work, I forget to switch screens and log, leaving large time gaps between each log
  • Resulting in logs with chaotic cause-and-effect relationships

How I started keeping logs

1. Utilize review comments on Draft PRs
   The log directly becomes a PR that communicates to reviewers
   1. Create a Draft PR at an early stage of implementation
   2. While implementing, casually add thoughts as comments to the PR
   3. Edit comments as needed into more communicative text when requesting a review
2. Write directly in the codebase
   When you don't want to move from your work environment
3. Post on times or internal environment
   Easier for people outside the team to politely interrupt

2. React sufficiently as needed

Note: This isn't about these kinds of reactions

Reactions

• Generating ideas
• Asking questions
• Indicating YES/NO (speaking, nodding, stamps, likes, etc.)
  • +α Being able to explain the reasoning behind it

When there are no reactions

• Lack of interest in the discussion or the other person / Failing to fulfill imaginative responsibility
• → What's the point of sharing the same space and time...?

Impact on the team

• It means there are members with an unconscious attitude of delegation, assuming sufficient discussion will occur without them
  • This delegating attitude spreads to other members and the team atmosphere
• Things don't progress
• It becomes a team that leaves members in a state of anxiety
  • It's not a healthy state for a team even before discussion

Impact on oneself

• Unable to form one's own opinions
  • Reacting === responding to external elements
  • → Not reacting === not responding to or judging external elements, or not having an opinion

Continuously reacting === Developing the ability to make independent judgments and maintaining team health

3. Strive to clarify the essence with a macro perspective

When pressed for time, one tends to prioritize personal progress all at once

When under pressure

• First, try to make progress by prioritizing what you know and are good at
  • You can deal with uncertain parts later when you have mental and time leeway
  • → Priority judgment === Overall perspective Self-progress perspective of "whether I can do it now"

What might happen if you proceed with a self-progress perspective

• Work with high overall priority doesn't progress
• If high-priority work doesn't progress, other members end up compensating
• → Likely to only be assigned tasks that can be done with certainty(?)

How to act when under pressure?

• Spend time clarifying uncertain areas that you can't see
  • Prioritize what can't be done rather than what can be done
• Consider what's optimal for the overall situation
  • Think about what movement is required of you, not whether you can or can't do it
• → Can move in a direction that's efficient overall
  • Might be slower in terms of personal progress since it's not about whether you can complete it yourself
  • But, potential risks are cleared so others can support

1. Keep a log
2. React sufficiently as needed
3. Strive to clarify the essence with a macro perspective

Soft Skills I Want to Always Keep in Mind