We Don’t Do That Here Quote: "It is a conversation ender. If you are the newcomer and someone who has been around a long time says “we don’t do that here”, it is hard to argue. This sentence doesn’t push my morality on anyone. If they want to do whatever it is elsewhere, I’m not telling them not to. I’m just cluing them into the local culture and values. If I deliver this sentence well it carries no more emotional weight than saying, “in Japan, people drive on the left.” “We don’t do that here” should be a statement of fact and nothing more. It clearly and concisely sets a boundary, and also makes it easy to disengage with any possible rebuttals." (categories: communityculturediversityinclusiontech )
Building the Customer-Informed Product :: Adam Kalsey Quote: "Strong products are guided by strong visions, and the execution of that vision is the primary focus of product development. This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t listen to your customers. But your product roadmap should be customer-informed, not customer-led." Love the restaurant analogy. (categories: product-managementproduct-product-productfeedback )
Spidey-Sense – Rands in Repose Quote: "The colorful phrase is “shit rolls downhill.” The inversion of that statement is also true: “fires burn faster uphill.” The further you are up the organizational chart, the further you are up the hill, the more fuel there is for the fire. Teams often successful extinguish small fires before you ever see them, but the ones that get to you are burning, and they are burning hot and often unstoppable." (categories: managementleadershipspidey-sense )
Fast Software, the Best Software — by Craig Mod Quote: "Speed manifests in the language — the literal words — of software, too. In recent years, macOS dialogs for closing an unsaved file have shifted from “Don’t Save, Cancel, Save” to “Delete, Cancel, Save.” This is only my opinion, but “Delete, Cancel, Save” makes less sense than “Don’t Save, Cancel, Save.” The option to “delete” implies something as having once been saved. Did I save this and forget I saved it? Or did it auto-save?" Same. (categories: designsoftwareperformance )
Psychological Safety: 5 Ways to Create a Culture of Psychological Safety Quote: "Evaluate psychological safety with these 5 questions Think of a team you work with closely. How strongly do you agree with these five statements? If I take a chance, and screw up, it will be held against me Our team has a strong sense of culture that can be hard for new people to join. My team is slow to offer help to people who are struggling. Using my unique skills and talents come second to the objectives of the team. It’s uncomfortable to have open honest conversations about our team’s sensitive issues." The entire blog post is great. (categories: teammanagementculturepsychology )
4 principles for massive software engineering projects Quote: ".. We did a bunch of things right to make this giant program work. Chief among them are the four engineering principles we used to plan and execute the project: All-in – This was a massive program and it needed the entire company, from exec to intern, behind it. Attack the riskiest assumption – Don’t think “MVP.” Think about what the riskiest part of the entire program is, and focus on that until it’s no longer the top risk. Incremental, even when it hurts – Reduce risk by breaking the migration into as many small parts as possible, even when that increases dev time. Sprint to 100% – In this program, the payoff was when we could completely stop deploying to the old infrastructure. Don’t slow down or lose focus until you are done, done, done, and done. These, along with our company values (especially “don’t f**k the customer” and “build with heart and balance”), formed the foundation for the entire project." (categories: atlassianmonolithengineeringrefactorsoftwareprioritization )
Four Magic Numbers for Measuring Software Delivery – ONZO Technology – Medium Quote: "…there are 24 capabilities that are correlated with high performing software delivery organisations. Broadly speaking these fall into a few categories; Continuous Delivery — How well do you build small batches, test them and push them to production frequently? Like… Really frequently Architecture — Does your systems architecture empower teams to work independently and deliver features end-to-end? Product & Process — Are you building the right thing? And learning how to do it better Lean Management & Monitoring — Is your approval process for moving a binary to production lightweight and effective? Once it gets to production how well does your platform share its operational health? Cultural — Does your environment support people in learning, growing and collaborating? Does the leadership inspire, support and provide vision for the team?" (categories: metricsengineeringsoftwaremanagementarchitectureprocessmonitoring )