Cleveland C# User Group

Most technical teams don’t fail because they lack talent — they fail because they don’t recover well.

While training for a week-long, 500-kilometer running race and conducting doctoral research on team resilience, I’ve reached the same conclusion in both domains: sustained performance is driven by recovery, pacing, and system design — not grit alone. After 25+ years leading technical teams through deadline-driven delivery, shifting scope, and high-pressure product development, I’ve learned that resilience is a buildable capability, not a personality trait.

Resilience isn’t just a personal trait — it’s a critical capability for modern technical teams. Drawing on decades of real-world leadership experience and current research into burnout, cognitive load, and team recovery, this talk explores why even highly skilled teams struggle under sustained pressure — and what actually helps them adapt, recover, and continue delivering value.

This session offers an unfiltered look at real-world team dynamics — from startups to long-established organizations — paired with practical frameworks grounded in research. You’ll see how hiring practices, workload design, prioritization, training, and team culture can be intentionally shaped to reduce burnout, improve retention, and strengthen long-term performance. Rather than treating resilience as a soft skill or personality trait, we’ll examine it as something teams can deliberately design for and improve over time.

To bring these ideas to life, the talk draws parallels from long-distance endurance training, where recovery, pacing, and adaptation matter far more than raw effort. These same principles apply to technical teams navigating constant deadlines, evolving requirements, and sustained delivery pressure.

Attendees will leave with concrete, actionable techniques they can apply immediately — whether they lead teams or contribute as individual developers — to build healthier, more resilient teams that perform better when pressure becomes the norm. This talk is energetic, practical, and grounded in experience, making it ideal for developers, senior engineers, tech leads, and engineering managers who want their teams to thrive over the long haul.

Contact: Sam Nasr (snasr@nistechnologies.com)

Cost: Free (open to all expertise levels. Feel free to invite a friend!)