Agile
Modernization Case Study at CSG (via Agile Amped)
- It’s risky to go dark for 18 months and $100M to modernize
- Take a piece of the system over time using version control, infra automation, testing, CI, feature flags, code porting, incremental rollout
- Need to skill current workers in modern tech
- Dangerous vendors… contracts that are difficult to understand, price gouging, changes of terms
- Many vendors don’t have a good try-before-buy model. The sandboxes are very limited, and don’t let you understand whether it will solve your problem.
- You need cross-functional teams, not siloed organizations. Instead of over-analyzing for months about how to do this, just start and figure out what’s not working as you go. Otherwise, you’ll be paralyzed by fear of the unknown.
Work Bifurcation and Change Control with Ross Buermann (via Leading Agile)
- Work bifurcation — break work into smaller chunks to deliver faster
- Change control — managing changes to a system in a deliberate way
- Regulated industries require more care because the tolerance for risk is much lower. Military capabilities could be exposed, patients could be harmed, etc.
- The Department of Defense took one waterfall process (DIACAP) and replaced it with RMF. The way it was rolled out made it look like one waterfall process was replaced by another.
- People don’t understand how Agile can work in environments with risk. Most enterprises have people that have been doing the same thing for 15-30 years. It’s hard to adjust what you already know.
- People think faster means lower quality. It’s more about the structure and how the work is defined for the engineers.
- Ideally documentation is created programmatically instead of manually. DevOps is the mindset shift to “everything is code”(infrastructure, documentation). The content is more important than the structure of the document.
- You can be Agile and still be auditable; remember that audits are checks to see whether you do what it is you say you do.
- You can have CI/CD pipelines and still be waterfall. DevOps is building code to do everything that you do.
- Agile doesn’t inherently think documentation has no value. Agile values delivering things that bring value to the market, and in regulated environments some of those things are documents.
Business
Why Stock Buybacks Are Dangerous for the Economy (via Harvard Business Review)
The article goes into the finer points about how stock buybacks are harmful in the long term. Essentially, companies do this for short-term gains for people who are already wealthy. The company itself and its workers ultimately pay the price.
Why the Best Developers Keep Customers Front-of-Mind (via Harvard Business Review)
The root cause seems to be that everyone tries to copy what Steve Jobs did — build what Apple wants people to want. It’s extremely rare when the inside-out model works. You’ll be more successful building what your customers want (outside-in) and anticipating what they’ll want in the future.
Are You Undervaluing Your Customers? (via Harvard Business Review)
- Companies are motivated by current accounting standards, which focuses on quarterly earnings, not on whether they’re serving their customers (e.g., costs cut by reducing quality, but how many customers are they now turning away?)
- Find ways to measure and manage customer value
- Use design thinking (i.e., from the customer’s view) and data to make better decisions
- Organize around customer needs (e.g., cross-functional teams instead of matrixed departments like finance, marketing, etc.)
- Leadership needs to show examples of preferring customer focus over short-term gains
Career
The Post-Holiday Funk Is Real (via Harvard Business Review)
- Focus forward — it’s easy to look backward at the end of the year; start looking forward to what you want to accomplish
- Get specific — it’s easy to not achieve objectives because they’re too vague (e.g., be a better leader); having to outline a specific outcome forces you to think how you’ll get there and to make time for it
- Make the right social comparisons — we tend to make upward social comparison (who’s “better” than us) and downward social comparisons (who’s worse off than us); the former makes it seem we’ll never achieve, the latter makes us complacent. Compare yourself to your previous self.
Are You Pushing Yourself Too Hard at Work? (via Harvard Business Review)
- You aren’t taking time off
- You deprioritize personal relationships
- You’re unable to be fully present outside of work
- You’re neglecting personal care
- You see your value as a person completely defined by work
Should You Go to Graduate School? (via Harvard Business Review)
- Yes… (1) to bump your salary potential, (2) to set a career change in motion, (3) to follow your passion because you got stuck in the wrong job.
- No… (1) just to learn, because there are so many less costly options to upskill yourself, (2) if you learn better by doing, as many companies hire people for “learnability”, (3) if you want to avoid going into debt.
Communication
What It Takes to Give a Great Presentation (via Harvard Business Review)
- Use fewer slides, and fewer words
- Complement text on slides with images and videos
- Don’t underestimate the power of your voice to make a positive impression on your audience
- Give your audience something extra
- Put in the time to make yourself great by practicing
Culture
Advertising Makes Us Unhappy (via Harvard Business Review)
Advertising exists to create a gap that whatever product or service will fill. We’re always looking around us to compare how we’re doing with others — their cars, homes, clothes, etc. There’s only so much status to go around.
How Corporate Cultures Differ Around the World (via Harvard Business Review)
With companies becoming increasingly cross-cultural, it’s useful to consider what different cultures value. This article has some status about which traits are more important to different geographical regions of the world.
Leadership
The Cost of Being a Caring Manager (via Harvard Business Review)
Managers who help their reports with personal issues should realize that such help can affect their mood and performance. One way to help is to ask whether the advice you have was helpful.
How the Best Managers Identify and Develop Talent (via Harvard Business Review)
- Think ahead — know what your company needs are several years out; this is a long game
- Focus on the right traits — current skills may go out-of-date quickly; focus on emotional intelligence, drive, and learning ability
- Don’t go outside when you can stay inside (the company)
- Think inclusively — we tend to hire people that look/think/act like us
- Be data-driven to avoid hiring biases
- Think plural rather than singular — people need to work well with others
- Make people better — leadership is moving from command-and-control to coaching them to improve
Productivity
Create a Productivity Workflow That Works for You (via Harvard Business Review)
The statement that was most valuable in this article was around how many productivity systems there are, because everyone works just a little bit differently. The steps she outlines work for the system I use (Trello)…
- Know the problem you’re trying to solve
- Start small (don’t put everything in the system all at once)
- Create separate dashboards for different projects
- Look for integrations
- Make an escape plan
Software development
The Myth of Architect as Chess Master (via Software Lead Weekly)
In chess, it’s always the same game where the pieces can only move in certain ways. Software is rarely the same game twice — there are new domains, frameworks, implementations. Plus, software architecture is a process, not a destination.