Brian W. Fitzpatrick > Quotes

“Bus factor (noun): the number of people that need to get hit by a bus before your project is completely doomed.”
― Brian W. Fitzpatrick, Team Geek: A Software Developer's Guide to Working Well with Others

“High-functioning teams are gold and the true key to success.”
― Brian W. Fitzpatrick, Team Geek: A Software Developer's Guide to Working Well with Others

“When put on the spot, most people won’t say much about this, but there are usually a few things that everyone would like to do in the next five years: get promoted, learn something new, launch something important, and work with smart people.”
― Brian W. Fitzpatrick, Debugging Teams: Better Productivity through Collaboration

“An engineer’s skills are like the blade of a knife: you may spend tens of thousands of dollars to find engineers with the sharpest skills for your team, but if you “use” that knife for years without sharpening it, you will wind up with a dull knife that is inefficient, and in some cases useless.”
― Brian W. Fitzpatrick, Team Geek: A Software Developer's Guide to Working Well with Others

“Traditional managers worry about how to get things done, while leaders worry about what things get done…(and trust their team to figure out how to do it).”
― Brian W. Fitzpatrick, Debugging Teams: Better Productivity through Collaboration

“Fear of failure is one of the most common traits of bad managers.”
― Brian W. Fitzpatrick, Debugging Teams: Better Productivity through Collaboration

“Many people hear “consensus-based team” and immediately think
of a bunch of hippies singing “Kumbaya” around a campfire
and never making a decision or getting anything done, but that
stereotype is symptomatic of a dysfunctional team much more than
a consensus-based team. What we mean by “consensus” is that
everyone has a strong sense of ownership and responsibility for the
product’s success and that the leaders really listen to the team (with
an emphasis on the “respect” component of HRT).”
― Brian W. Fitzpatrick

“A good general rule around communication is to include as few people as necessary in synchronous communication (like meetings), and to go for a broader audience in asynchronous communication (like email).”
― Brian W. Fitzpatrick, Team Geek: A Software Developer's Guide to Working Well with Others

“In short, you should care because if you don’t put effort into building and maintaining your culture, your team will eventually be overtaken by a strong personality who cultivates his culture in your team.”
― Brian W. Fitzpatrick, Team Geek: A Software Developer's Guide to Working Well with Others

“Fitz treated Jerry like an adult, Jerry always got his work done, and Fitz never had to worry about Jerry being at his desk, because Jerry didn’t need a babysitter.”
― Brian W. Fitzpatrick, Debugging Teams: Better Productivity through Collaboration

“At Google, one of our favorite mottoes is “Failure is an option.” It’s widely recognized that if you’re not failing now and then, you’re not being innovative enough or taking enough risks.”
― Brian W. Fitzpatrick, Debugging Teams: Better Productivity through Collaboration