I find it pretty amazing that we spend, on average, 18 years going to school yet no-one teaches us the skills that are more important in life: how to deal with people, how to manage time, how to communicate effectively. This is a talk I give to students in computer science about to start their working lives.

1. What they don’t teach you
at school
Ricardo Fiel
CTO, RUPEAL

2. $ whoami
Born 1978, Leiria
Dad of one
Started in a ZX Spectrum
12 years exp in software teams
Very active in tech communities
Noisy guitar player, some albums out, ~300 gigs
Currently CTO @ RUPEAL

3. $ groups ricardofiel
Staffing and Recruitment
services SaaS products
Ruby, Clojure, …

4. Agenda
“A journey from
your last day in college
to
your first 3 years in the work scene”

5. Lesson 0 = HAVE FUN!!!

6. What they don’t teach you at school
1. How to choose the right company
2. How to deal with people
3. How to communicate effectively
4. How to manage time
5. How to be in control, anytime, anywhere

7. What they don’t teach you at school
1. How to choose the right company

8. Company culture - don’t believe the hype!
“…awesome project…”
“…opportunity to grow…”
“…market leader…”
“…focus on people…”
“…training…”
“…ping-pong tables, free snacks, …”
“…work from home…”
“…no managers…”

9. Company culture - don’t believe the hype!
“…awesome project…”
“…opportunity to grow…”
“…market leader…”
“…focus on people…”
“…training…”
“…ping-pong tables, free snacks, …”
“…work from home…”
“…no managers…”

10. Company culture - don’t believe the hype!
The most rewarding thing is the
quality of your team
Strive to work with
really smart people
Ask to meet them for a day
before you accept the offer

11. Company culture - which is better?

12. $ groups ricardofiel
• Culture controlled by
the client
• Wide array of technologies
• Startups and Global companies
• Culture controlled by us :
Culture of Trust
• Unlimited holidays
• Remote (true remote)
• Fully transparent

13. What they don’t teach you at school
1. How to choose the right company
2. How to deal with people

14. Why people leave
(c) LinkedIn
3 out 5 = people

15. The 6 human needs (Tony Robbins)

16. The 5 dysfunctions of a team

17. The 5 dysfunctions of a team

18. Read this.

19. What they don’t teach you at school
1. How to choose the right company
2. How to deal with people
3. How to communicate effectively

20. 1d10t5

21. The golden rule.

22. Luis Martins Simões - Atitude Comercial
1. Reception
“Gordon, you are one the best PMs I know…”
2. I Message
“… but I feel a bit lost on the request you’re making. I need your help so we
can deliver the most value.”
3. Open Questions
“Could you share why is it so important for you to do it today?”
4. Empathic Listening
(Don’t interrupt!)

23. Read this.

24. What they don’t teach you at school
1. How to choose the right company
2. How to deal with people
3. How to communicate effectively
4. How to manage time

25. Gantt Charts.

26. Gantt Charts.

27. Agile. Scrum. Kanban.
WTF is high priority?

28. Importance vs Urgency
Urgency
Importance
1
23
4

29. About productivity
20% of your actions yield 80% of results
—> Focus on the 20%
Book: “Joel On Software”
Build something that matters
—> Sense of purpose

30. Tony Robbins’ RPM (adapted)
Result
Reduce from 4 to 1
the number of API
calls required to
create, finalize and
send an invoice
When? End of Q1
Why?
Because we want to
be the easiest app in
the world for
invoicing a client
Because our support
team is handling 30
cases on average /
month just for this
Action Plan
• Create new
endpoint
• Validate with beta
clients
• Load test
• Update gem
• Create SDKs for
Node.js and C#
The developers own the action plan!!!

31. What they don’t teach you at school
1. How to choose the right company
2. How to deal with people
3. How to communicate effectively
4. How to manage time
5. How to be in control, anytime, anywhere

32. Just an average day

33. Decide how you feel
Manage
your
STATE

35. FocusLanguage
Physiology
STATE
The TRIAD

38. www.kwan.pt
ricardo.fiel@rupeal.com
@theplastictoy
Have an amazing life!

39. Image References
https://business.linkedin.com/talent-solutions/blog/2014/08/top-workplace-deal-breakers-you-should-
know-about-infographic
http://projectlifemastery.com/the-6-human-needs-6-reasons-why-you-do-what-you-do-or-why-
anyone-does-anything/
https://blog.stackoverflow.com/2015/09/culture-of-trust/
http://positivelystacey.com/2014/01/the-four-agreements-a-practical-guide-to-personal-freedom/
http://assets.diylol.com/hfs/ec3/614/e80/resized/stevethisisbullshit-meme-generator-guys-this-is-
bullshit-a1f218.jpg
http://memegenerator.net/instance/47763725
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20140909145708-79149253-why-god-gave-you-two-ears-and-one-
mouth
http://blog.codinghorror.com/microsoft-project-and-the-gantt-waterfall/
https://www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/agile/scrum/task-boards