The Accidental Boss

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One Simple Trick To Combat Date-Driven Development

Nothing sucks worse than a company touting itself as "Agile" while failing to adhere to Agile philosophy. It's easy to spot - just pick any leader from your organization and ask them to recite one of the core values of the Agile Manifesto . Yeah, sure, let me just go grab the CEO and put him on the spot. That'll work wonders for my career. Good point. That's not exactly the smartest political move in the book. Besides, there's a far easier way to tell, especially if you're on the receiving end of task- or project-requests. Simply pop that email open and scan for the tell-tale signs of a fake Agile mentality: everything is framed around time. Any of these ring a bell? "We really need this review quickly ." "Any chance you can push this out today? " "The team is looking to have this all wrapped up by next Wednesday ." So much for the sprint, right? But even if you're using Kanban instead of Scrum (ostensibly a

Sad Stories

How are you measuring the quality of your product management? Is it: How accurately you adhere to Scrum? How close your velocity matches your SLO? The number of bugs fixed in this sprint? None. of. this. matters. A surface level review of these metrics would seem to matter to folks desperate to boast about their Agile compliance, while failing to remember the first edict of the manifesto : Individuals and interactions over processes and tools A recent tweet reminded of this: Wow! I reported a unicode issue affecting URLs to 2 different commercial software companies. One responded in 4 days indicating it'll be fixed in a yet-to-be released new version (which requires more $$$); the other provided a working patch in less than 3 hours. — James Moberg (@gamesover) June 18, 2019 While I can't comment on what specific bottleneck is separating these two companies, I understand (all too well) the side-effect of throwing everything into a Scrum bucket. Aft

How Do I Use Myers-Briggs To Assess My Team?

Question: How do I use Myers-Briggs to Assess My Team? Answer: You don't. Seriously. That's my answer. Don't do it. Still reading? (sigh) Alright, if we're going to do this dance, let's get it over with. Myers-Briggs is Junk Science When a hypothesis is tested in a controlled experiment, proven, and those results are vetted by independent peers, you have yourself a little thing we like to call scientific evidence. Leave any of these on the table (eg. you make a hypothesis but don't run an experiment), all you have is opinion . The missing piece in Myers-Briggs (or MBTI) is that last part: independent verification by peers . Scientists uninvolved in the hypothesis need to be able to reproduce the experiments and put their career on the line by saying, "Yeah, this other scientist I don't know anything about...they're 100% correct." The only "verification" that Myers-Briggs has is via the Center for the Application

Secrets of the 10x Developer

This isn't a post about whether a 10x developer exists or not -- as you may have already guessed, this post's stance is there is such a thing as a 10x developer . For why the debate over its existence rages, see this post . For why great leadership skills have nothing to do with being a 10x developer, see this post . If you're still reading, you believe! That's a good thing, because it gives you hope that you'll at last get to the bottom of what constitutes a 10x developer. There'll be a quiz question at the end, so pay attention! Let's get started with a review. In Review First, recall the definition of a 10x developer: A '10x developer' is one that can take software from concept to production-ready in an order of magnitude less time than a peer of matching experience utilizing the same technologies and delivering the same functionality. Cast any other descriptions out of your mind. It isn't that your preconceptions are wrong

A 10x Developer != A Leader (And Why That's OK)

In a perfect world, we'd enjoy teams bursting with natural leaders, self-driven individuals who can handle any situation under any degree of pressure, identify and prioritize the tasks, assign and delegate said tasks, encouraging and mentoring each other, until the team jells with profound efficiency. In the real world, there are plenty of teams adept at software construction that produce amazing creations and are comprised of developers that possess absolutely zero interest in becoming leaders . Nor is it necessary. In order to get to the bottom of this, you're going to need to know the secret ingredient: Band-aids. The Life of Expertise Let's start this rant by understanding what it means to be a 10x developer: a developer that is measurably proficient at what they do (for a greater breakdown of the 10x developer, read this related post ). Gaining proficiency in a trade is a result of either: increasing depth , or increasing breadth of knowledge

10x Developers, Compassionate Bosses, and Other Mythological Creatures

The myth of the 10x developer is so pervasive, debate as to whether it actually exists continues to this day. Crazy talk! Next thing you know, they'll be claiming there's such a thing as a manager that actually cares about your psychological well-being. The audacity of such a thought! How foolish! How positively naive! Allow me to propose a radical notion: What if they do exist, but are just so hard to find, nobody believes it? Allow me to propose one more: What if we're having a hard time finding them because we can't agree on what defines such a creature? Not A Thing Let's start with what a 10x developer is not (something we can all agree on!) A 10x developer is not a developer that writes ten times more code than their peers, A 10x developer is not measured by SPH (Semi-colons Per Hour), and A 10x developer is not someone who makes their teammates 10x better. 1. Amount of Code: Doesn't Matter Ask any programmer worth their salt and the