A Tech Lead Manifesto

Overview

I’ve had a chance over the last few years to observe various different types of tech leads. Collated here are my views on what I think makes a successful one.

A Tech Lead Should…

Ensure the creation of a clear and consistent technical vision for the project which can best result in a successful project
Ensure all members of the team have a proper understanding of the technical vision
Ensure that the technical vision updates to reflect new requirements
Track and resolve issues where the code deviates from the technical vision
Create an environment in which all members of the team can contribute towards the technical vision
Understand and address skills gaps in the team which would result in difficulties implementing the technical vision

A Tech Lead Should Not…

Tell everyone what to do
Necessarily be the best at everything
Write no code
Write all the hard code

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 12th, 2006 at 9:46 am and is filed under General, Agile. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. It is tagged as programming, agile, rants, learning-experiences over at Technorati

4 Responses to “A Tech Lead Manifesto”

1. On September 12, 2006 at 10:59 am Vishal Singh wrote:

Tech Lead Should
1. Mentor people.
2. Also understand that other developers in due course may become better than tech lead in technology as well as domain

2. On December 23, 2006 at 1:05 am Caroline wrote:

A tech lead should also encourage the team when they are under pressure and working to meet a tight deadline.

3. On January 7, 2007 at 11:42 pm Jeremy Miller wrote:

Very well said.

4. On January 26, 2007 at 9:52 am Guy wrote:

Hello
I have a question about the title: tech lead.
Is it just another name for “system architect” ? is there a clear difference between the two ?

Will apriciate if you can shed some light on this issue.
Thank you
Guy

5. On August 21, 2007 at 8:53 am vikas wrote:

Tech lead should be the leader of the technology not the team.
any minor/major issues raised by team members, TeachLead should be able to resolve.

Have your say

Fields in bold are required. Email addresses are never published or distributed.

Some HTML code is allowed:

URIs must be fully qualified (eg: http://www.domainname.com) and all tags must be properly closed.

Line breaks and paragraphs are automatically converted.

Please keep comments relevant. Off-topic, offensive or inappropriate comments may be edited or removed.

magpiebrain