All teams are self-organized
There is a lot of blah blah when it comes to team building. From hierarchical hard-liners to wishy-washy guru's, a lot has been said about how to make people collaborate.…
Flexiblity is a superpower
Every company calls itself flexible. It's one of those meaningless buzzwords used to attract talent. Most businesses are extremely rigid in their mindset. I regularly hear from companies that think…
Targetted overcommunication
Every team building guide and business book stresses the need for good communication. It's important to inform your colleagues and stakeholders of what you're doing and how you're getting along.…
Too many senior devs
A customer I once worked for took pride in a simple yet baffling policy: "We only hire senior developers" Their line of reasoning was that they could afford to pay…
New year, old stack
Attracting software developers remains a hot topic. There is no easy solution and in some cases, it can really block the growth of your organisation. I was talking with a…
Your Kanban board is a waterfall
The Kanban board has become the staple of progress tracking in software development. There's a "To Do" column, various stages of "In progress" and finally a "Done" list. We think…
Minimum viable team
Management worships scaling. More is better. Large teams can churn out more features faster. Strong managers shine in huge hierarchies. Sure, it can be a bit wasteful, but if you…
Office politics for techies
Techies seem to really dislike backchanneling and dealmaking. Mention office politics and the clichés show up. Gossiping and he-said-she-said. Inept managers are promoted. Great solutions are dismissed in favour of…
Pragmatic Software Development
Software developers constantly make trade-offs. Picking an opinionated framework speeds up delivery, but makes it harder to build non-conventional features. Larger payloads vs multiple requests. Does this project benefit from…
Never-ending User Story
How many stories are in your team's backlog? How many items are on the To-Do list? Count them. If you're like most other teams, the answer is: way too many.…