My latest in Quartz… My partner and I had a hellish move recently. We were lucky in that our landlords are nice, reasonable people, and unlucky in that they were quite disorganized and hadn’t done everything they needed to, like ordering furniture and thoroughly cleaning up after the last tenant. So as this played out, […]
Let’s talk about automation. This seems like an out of place thing in this series. Predictable! Prioritized! Connected! Accountable! These are all fuzzy people things. Automated sounds like… more fun? Like Proper Developer Work? Automation is like documentation, but developers might actually write it. Without automation: It’s easy to have random esoteric things that few […]
Connected: People work together and take an interest in each other (this doesn’t mean everyone has to be friends – but they are friendly). Problem: We lack a clear model for mobile infrastructure. This leads to discussions like whether to have a mobile team or pods. Regardless of what your “mobile teams” look like – […]
Clear on priorities: When you ask people what is most important and why, they can answer. Problem: Leadership is often dominated by iOS users, so Android can feel like an afterthought. If you ask a person on your team what your top priority is as a team, can they tell you? Can they tell you […]
Predictable. The team has a regular cadence. They can set goals and expectations around deadlines. Challenge: Shipping compiled code. Most advice about improving team velocity talks about continuous delivery. Ship constantly! As many times a day as you call! Roll back if you need to! Tell us about that time you broke prod! YOLO! Here’s a fun […]
When talking about team effectiveness, the first thing to consider is what an effective team looks like. Predictable. The team has a regular cadence. They can set goals and expectations around deadlines. Clear on priorities. When you ask people what is most important and why, they can answer. Connected. People work together and take an interest […]
I’m working on a talk about running effective mobile engineering teams – I’d love to know what questions you have about this, what you worry about when it comes to mobile teams in your organization, and what you’ve found most helpful to communicate about them. Comments or email or DMs on Twitter welcome! Title: YOLO […]
The harsh truth is that no-one cares about your idea the way you do. I tell you this, not to be mean, nor to suggest your idea is not brilliant, or that you are somehow lacking in your communication of it… just because if you think that someone else is going to fill in when […]
This is where I live. In this space between what I could achieve in a given day, or week, or month… and what in my imagination I’m capable of. Of course in my imagination I never kick back and watch a movie with my friend and a bottle of wine (honestly, this rarely happens in […]
It’s been bothering me a little lately that some people have been describing me as a workaholic, I think that university effectively rewards workaholism and in the real world it’s easier to avoid. Here are a list of reasons I’ve come up with (feel free to suggest more!): No distinction between work place and home […]