I was recently involved in a conversation with some colleagues, in which one of them was seeking to introduce to their own organisation “the Spotify model” [pdf] of organising teams. … Continue reading Don’t be a slave to the model
Category: Working practices
Prioritising hypothesis tests
A little while ago I was working with a team that had a lot of user research to do. Naturally, we only had limited time, so we needed to decide … Continue reading Prioritising hypothesis tests
Avoid hostage situations when refactoring
Last week I talked about refactoring and the need—throughout that process—to still be able to deploy frequently. What I did not explain was why it was important to still be … Continue reading Avoid hostage situations when refactoring
Make good work visible
The other day I was at an Underground station where there were a number of charity collectors with buckets. I put a coin in a collector’s bucket and he gave … Continue reading Make good work visible
Achieving excellence is hard work
Some time ago I was working with a team that made a mistake in generating its release notes. I took on the task of improving the process to avoid us … Continue reading Achieving excellence is hard work
Culture is based on tangible things
Organisational culture is seemingly nebulous, hard to pin down. But in fact it’s based on very concrete, tangible things. It follows that by changing those tangible things we can change … Continue reading Culture is based on tangible things
How much time should we put aside for tech debt?
I’ve talked previously about technical debt. Should we stop other work to address it? What is the cost of delay? And that we should watch out for technical bankruptcy. But … Continue reading How much time should we put aside for tech debt?
Trust from delivery
Trust might seem like a nebulous thing, but it’s based on very concrete things. Some time ago I was lucky enough to be part of a workshop run by Laurence … Continue reading Trust from delivery
Balancing ownership and quality
Having worked as both a team manager and a consultant, I find there is a common balancing act when introducing people to a new approach or idea, such as setting … Continue reading Balancing ownership and quality
Are we seeking to evaluate or improve?
In a discussion the other day about measuring the effectiveness of developers I looked for a document I’d written a while back for exactly that purpose. But when I opened … Continue reading Are we seeking to evaluate or improve?
