299: Balancing Management and IC Work

This week, we answer a listener question about the balance of being both a manager and an individual contributor, which leads to some more existential conversation about sharing what we think we know and the fear of being wrong loudly in public. And as always, we share a couple cool things like a Marvel movie pitch and an addictive reality show (and Marshall shares the rough skeleton of his screenplay idea). Sponsor: >> Want to become a sponsor of Design Details yourself? Email [email protected] or [email protected] to get started :) This week's episode is brought to you by Abstract Abstract is design workflow management for modern design teams. With Abstract, you can bring your design workflow into a single, unified place for designers, developers, and stakeholders to collaborate and keep work moving forward. Sign your team up for a free, 30-day trial today by heading over to abstract.com. And if you tweet at @goabstract and @designdetailsfm, with the phrase “improve my design workflow” you’ll be entered for a chance to win a $500 credit to their Business plan. Follow-up: Kevin Gutowski is building a plugin on top of Abstract's API that allows your coworkers to view and download all the assets in a master Marc Edwards makes Skala Preview, which allows you to view your mocks with simulated colorblindness Listener Question: Q wants to know how to effectively balance being a manager and an individual contributor Flow state is "the mental state of operation in which a person performing an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity" The Dunning-Kruger Effect is "a cognitive bias in which people mistakenly assess their cognitive ability as greater than it is" Audio: "Talk less, smile more" references a recurring line from the broadway musical Hamilton One Cool Thing: Brian shared "Nando Pitches Ant-Man and The Wasp 2," a video by YouTube creator Nando v Movies pitching the third installment in the Ant-Man series Correction: Nando's first original content pitch was for Suicide Squad 2 Marshall shared his screenplay idea Video: Time Travel in Fiction Rundown does a great job of explaining the different ways time travel can be portrayed Video: Ex Machina Opening Scene is a reference for winning a ticket to the mystery alpha Video: Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory - Pure Imagination is a reference for the Omni campus tour Video: Jurassic Park - Mr. DNA Sequence is a reference for the time travel mechanics exposition Tom Holland is today's Michael J. Fox Marshall also shared Survivor, an addicting, always-evolving competition that commands each player to outwit, outplay, and outlast Design Details on the Web: We are @designdetailsfm Brian is @brian_lovin and [email protected] Marshall is @marshallbock @Sarahberus and @Luperdev make us sound smarter than we are Join the conversation on Spectrum or leave us a review on iTunes BYEEEEE!