Episode 33 – Panel Discussion on building a great team

In the end, you ultimately must find what works best for you and your team. So, if you’d like a little insight on this hot topic, step right over and listen in. Feel free to leave us a comment afterward if you’d like. We’d love to hear from you.
Edward Stull’s Bio:
Edward Stull is a user experience (UX) designer and researcher in Columbus, Ohio. He has held positions in large traditional agencies, mid-size system integration firms, small design studios, as well as a one-person consulting practice. He has worn many hats during his career. Thus, his background grants an uncommon perspective into how various teams understand, practice and sell UX. When he is not working, he is usually hiking.
David Gatti’s Bio:
David Gatti began his career in IT as a Systems Administrator. He learned how to code in PHP out of boredom, and made some simple internal tools to help him while managing the company network. He later became a blogger and wrote about mobile technologies before the iPhone came into existence and PDAs had cellular modems. David also wrote the CMS for the website itself when WordPress was first starting. Then, he began working as a web developer for a company that did simple Facebook games.
After his initial experience, David ported a Windows Mobile app to Android 2.3. He then became a Brand Manager for a mobile game company and a Marketing Director for another company and at that company – he transitioned to Developer Relations Manager and worked for two companies with this title. It was a job that he fell in love with.
But, while hunting for his next opportunity, he struggled to find the right company. Out of frustration he created Simpe.li (simply) so he could keep doing what he does best – Development Relations Management done right.
Episode Highlights and Show Notes:
Arsalan: Hi everyone. Today are bringing to you a really good discussion. The topic of the discussion is how to build a great team. Our panelists today are David Gatti and Edward Stull. How are you guys?
David: I’m doing great, thank you for asking.
Edward: I’m doing fine.
Arsalan: So, tell us a little bit about yourself. Who are you guys and why are you interested in this topic?
David: My name is David. I call myself a tech evangelist now because I like to explain stuff and in particular about technology. My experience with this topic is that I’ve managed teams at my previous jobs and I’ve hired people, developers especially. So, I think I might have something interesting to say about this stuff.
Edward: I’m Edward Stull and I am a user experience consultant here in Columbus, Ohio. Although I work independently now, I’ve been a part of large teams as well as managed very fairly large teams. I think it’s such an intriguing topic just because it’s my belief that if you can have a really good team, anything that you end up encountering if it’s going to be a bad project, client, or situation, a good team will make it tolerable. If you have a good project and you have a great team. It makes the project wonderful. So, it’s a pretty vital part of any project.
Arsalan: Having a good team is good for morale. You want everybody to want to work together because when they work together, they communicate and communication is so important. Without communication, projects fail, everybody’s down, and people leave the company a lot.
Arsalan: So, what you’re feeling on building great teams? Has it been something that you enjoy doing, or has it been hard? What is your overall take on this?
David: I think it’s fun because the mindset that you have to have you need to understand the other person who is on the team has feelings as well. You need to understand if that person is happy or unhappy and try to determine by their body language what might be happening. For me, this is the most interesting part because it is the most intriguing.

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