Defining The Tech Lead Manifesto

Timetable

• 20 Minutes - Present the existing tech lead manifesto, detailing the original context in which it was drawn up and fleshing out the original mindset.
• 30 Minutes - The session breaks up into groups, with each group being presented with a set of challenges which a tech lead might face. Each group will try and identify different ways in which the problem might be with a view to delivering on the principles outlined in the original manifesto.
• 30 Minutes - The groups report back with their solutions, helping drive out missing principles in the manifesto, as well as identify specific practices which can be used to solve specific situations. Participants in the groups are free to suggest their own problems (preferably from experience) and have their individual groups try and come up with solutions to the problem. 
• 10 Minutes - The group as a whole attempts to redraft the manifesto based on the evidence gathered by the groups.

Note - the above timetable is based on a 90min session - it can be tailored to a more intensive shorter session, or we can give more time to the group activities to create a longer session.

Example Problem

As a tech lead, you notice that the quality of the code from one of your team members is not up to the standard of the rest of the team. What should you do?

Rational

The idea behind the group break-out session is to try and test the principles outlined with a mixture of contrived and real-world scenarios. The practices any given tech lead may wish to apply will be wide ranging - but out of these myriad of practices and behaviour patterns, we should be able to extract some core principles which make for an effective tech lead.