Bio: Tim’s been building software for over 20 years, and he’s spent the last decade in the Berlin startup world as an engineering manager and CTO. He landed in the tech industry by accident after getting an MBA, so he’s fluent in both business and tech speak. If he’s not inside in front of a keyboard, you’ll find him outside running or walking the dog.

L8 Conf talks

Hacking organisational power & politics - a practical framework for dealing with difficult stakeholders as a staff engineer

As a staff engineer, sooner or later you’ll find yourself needing to deal with power relationships and internal politics in your organisation.

Some of us relish the challenge, and go into battle to fight for their cause, taking on all comers and wheeling and dealing like seasoned party politicians.

Some of us would rather hide in a hole than confront powerful stakeholders, and politics is something that just sounds… kind of dirty?

Problem is, success in an organisation means *having* to deal with the messy realities whether we like it or not.

But dealing with messy realities in code is what we do all day as staff engineers - and frameworks are our secret weapon for dealing with this complexity.

So wouldn’t it be easier if you were armed with a set of frameworks to help you understand what power REALLY is and how organisational politics REALLY work?

In this talk, I’ll give you exactly that.

Based on hard academic research done over decades, you’ll understand why power doesn’t always correlate to organisation charts, and how the most influential stakeholders can be found in the most unlikely of roles.

You’ll be able to find structure in the messy chaos of organisational politics, and assess how get to effective compromises that benefit everyone rather than fighting zero-sum games.

Equipped with an ORM for organisation politics, and a REST framework for powerful people, you’ll be fully-equipped to handle the challenges of dealing with the messy, non-linear part of our world - your stakeholders.