The Age of Scrum Is Over

Scrum has given us a lot, but it’s time for some conscious uncoupling

Gothmog, Lord of the Rings

“The age of men is over.”

confidently (and rather aggressively, as you would expect from one of those nasty orcs) declares the Orc commander Gothmog in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

“The Time of the Orc has come.”

There’s an irony, of course in using this quote for a blog post declaring Scrum’s ultimate decline into irrelevance. In fact the age of men (and woman as the insensitive Orc fails to include) was in fact only just beginning. It was actually the age of the Orc that was over!

Software planning for skeptics

Engineers hate estimating things.

One of the most-often quoted lines about estimation is “Hofstadter’s Law”, which goes:

Hofstadter’s Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter’s Law.

If you want to deliver inaccurate information to your team on a regular basis, give them a 3-month-out product development timeline every week. This is a truism at every company at which I have worked over a varied career in software.

(2022) A guide to fostering virtual water cooler moments – NoHQ Remote Work Guides

Want to learn how to foster virtual water cooler moments? Whether your company is new to remote working or has been doing it for some time, the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in employees struggling to find a clear boundary for work-life balance.

Having virtual water coolers moments can encourage stress-free interactions between remote workers. In this article, you’ll learn:

How to Speed Up WooCommerce Backend | Convesio

A large part of running an online store requires managing the backend operations including product updates, order management, and shipment management. These tasks can easily overwhelm your staff and potentially disrupt business operations if the backend of your store becomes slow. The majority of WooCommerce users focus on speeding up the front-end of their store and do not pay attention to the performance of the backend which is equally important for the success of your online business.

Why We’ve Ditched Scrum Sprints (And You Should Too)

There’s probably no other framework that impacted modern software development as much as Scrum. For many organizations, it’s the first step towards a mature product development organization and you will find a bazillion articles explaining what Scrum is and how you can implement it in your organization. I dare to say it’s so popular that almost every software organization tried at some point to implement one of its core principles — the two-week sprints.

An Introduction to Jobs to be Done (JTBD) – Joe Leech

A no-nonsense guide for product teams. Read time is 6m.

Is JTBD for you?

• Do you want a user-centred design approach that is c-suite-friendly?
• Do you struggle to walk both marketing and product development along the same path?
• Do you need a framework to help identify and promote unmet users needs (aka innovative ideas)?
• Are you stuck in the build trap ie heads down releasing, releasing, releasing without any vision or goal?

If you answer yes to any of those question JTBD could help you.

How Big Companies Kill Ideas and How to Fight Back

Tony Fadell was instrumental in the development of the iPod and iPhone at Apple and then co-founded Nest Labs, which kicked off the consumer smart home market with its smart thermostat in 2011. Tony sold Nest to Google for $3.2 billion in 2014 and eventually left Google . He now runs an investment firm called Future Shape .

Tony’s written a new book called Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making , which, I’ll be honest, is total bait for Decoder. It’s one part memoir, one part tech industry gossip, and one part org charts and decision-making. Seriously, this book has a lengthy section with actual diagrams of org charts to illustrate how company cultures change as things get bigger.

Building a Team’s Culture

Twenty years ago, I was a platoon commander in a classified unit in the army (that is no longer classified). Back then, making decisions and applying authority was straightforward. Officers were to make most decisions, pushing them down the command chain through non-officer commanders all the way to the soldiers. Decision enforcement in that ecosystem was called “a command.”

There was no place for discussion once a decision (command) was made, and the expectation was that it would get fulfilled right away, or else…

The Web3 Movement’s Quest to Build a ‘Can’t Be Evil’ Internet

It’s getting late on a Saturday afternoon in Denver when I lean back and take in the full weirdness of what I’m doing. I’m seated at a long plastic folding table against the wall in a windowless room, a Discord server open on my laptop. Pizza crusts and empty potato chip bags are piled up around me, evidence of the feverish hours I’ve spent hacking together a project with a trio of blockchain developers. I’m not a programmer, just a journalist with a law degree. Yet somehow I’ve gotten swept up in creating my own DAO—a decentralized autonomous organization, a favorite concept among the starry-eyed proponents of Web3 —and it’s supposed to launch tomorrow.

Do We Still Need Teams?

master1305/Getty Images

We love teams. We really do. Between the two of us, we’ve spent more than 40 years studying, teaching about, and coaching teams in organizations — which is why we’re surprised to find ourselves writing an article in which we question whether teams are as practical or as necessary to knowledge work as they once were.

Our thinking is driven by the many conversations we’ve had lately with employees at all levels, from summer interns to CEOs. In every echelon, we hear worries about work-life balance, burnout, employee disconnection, and turnover. For those who work on or lead teams, the strain seems to be even greater — and we think we know why.

On Reviews

The review is the primary mechanic by which teams create and maintain

alignment at Facebook. Reviews are a tool where you enlist other smart people

to improve your work. You should bring your hardest questions and be honest

about your biggest risks and fears. You will be rewarded with support and

ideas and you will gain trust and credibility. Never pitch or present your

work in an overly positive light, because you will get less useful support and

Mission, Strategy, and Tactics

Originally posted internally at Facebook on December 27, 2013

As organizations grow they run the risk of becoming hopelessly disjointed.

Teams end up working on projects that overlap or conflict, individuals struggle

to see how their work fits into the bigger picture, people fail to see meaning

in what they do and overall progress grinds to a crawl. Our ability to fight

this entropy determines our ultimate capacity, both in terms of bandwidth

Executive

I recently held a question and answer session with a particularly talented

group of my colleagues who are taking on a challenging task. At the end they

thanked me for making the time to speak with them, as is often done. It always

strikes me as bizarre when people thank me for taking an hour of my time when

they are doing the real work.

I have come to realize that very few people have any idea what I do all day,

Anti-Pattern: The Engineering Managers’ Group

EM = Engineering manager
EMs = Engineering managers

Whenever they are given the opportunity, engineering managers emphasize the importance of growth and the importance of teamwork. Yet, they often forget about their development and turn their backs on the techniques they use on their teams.

The fact is that when EMs work as a team, they can get the benefits of a team. Sounds simple? Well, it isn’t straightforward.

8 Thoughts on the Future of Remote Work

8 thoughts on the future of remote work

How You Spend Your Time Is Who You Become

W

e are spoiled for choice in today’s world. In every part of life, there are options to choose from. What we eat. What we wear. Who we spend time with. What we care about. What we spend time on. Who we work for. Why we do it.

All of these are open-ended and dependent on our choices. Some may seem trivial, but none of them are for a simple reason.

Why It’s Wise to Hire People Smarter Than You | Inc.com

I received this note recently from an Evernote user in Japan:

Some of my team members complain that I micromanage. I think they have a valid point, but then I find myself having to tell them how to do even the smallest things. Do you have some general rule in role-sharing?

I do. I’ll tell you how I discovered it.

15 rules for communicating at GitHub

At GitHub, we have a very specific way of working. For one, we use GitHub to build GitHub. Not just for code, but to collaborate on things like Legal, Marketing, and internal policies. But it’s not that the medium defines the workflow (although it certainly helps), in fact, it’s the other way around.

GitHub’s communication style can be summed up in one word: asynchronous . Much of this is defined by the workflows of the open source community, where many of us got our start, but part of it, as a distributed company, is out of necessity. Like open source, rarely are two people in the same place at the same time, working on the same thing at the same time. Yet as in the case of Wikipedia versus Encyclopedia Britannica, distributed workflows produce better results than their traditional counterparts, and I’d argue that everyday quality of life is better for those involved, as a result.

Why Success Is Often Elusive at the Highest Echelons

During recent discussions with friends, one common theme that crops up very frequently is how success has remained rather elusive to recent higher level hires at their companies.

By “higher level hires”, I’m referring to not just senior managers, directors, and VPs, but also very senior engineers (think principal level) who’re tasked with shaping or steering the organization’s engineering innovativeness, productivity, and culture. As often as not, these hires have a solid track record of success over the course of many years at elite tech companies (think a 6–8 year stint in senior engineering or engineering leadership at Netflix or Google), have solid references, some might even have a prominent public profile, and are generally competent and smart people.

The Magic of Setting Expectations | by Shy Alter | Better Programming

No, it’s not obvious

I mean, it’s obvious, isn’t it?

Something happen in your team, it might be a task that fell between the cracks or a team member who didn’t take ownership. You might find yourself saying “I thought it’s obvious that X will be done”. Many things that seem obvious to you, might not be obvious to your team.

Engineering Levels: A Case Study From Three Perspectives

Recently, there has been a lot of debate about engineering levels, whether they are good, bad, or just useless. In this story, I hope to show a positive outcome of a good effort. However, before we get started, let’s take a look at what are the critical elements to make a good framework

You have levels, why?

Although it may seem like an obvious question, the answers can vary a lot. They can range from deciding salary to career growth. Setting your desired outcomes and prioritizing them is essential before designing your framework.

Prioritization as a Superpower – by Nikhil Basu Trivedi

Welcome to issue #41 of next big thing .

As a venture capitalist, I find myself constantly evaluating founders and CEOs on their superpowers and blind spots. Whether for a new potential investment, or when working with a portfolio company, it’s critical to understand the key reasons a leader may be successful in their role, and also the areas where they may need support.

TWH#38: The Hidden Power of Momentum – by Paulo André

Photo by Valerie Blanchett on Unsplash

Momentum is a measure of the tendency for a moving object to remain in motion. It takes energy to create but once it’s there, it takes energy to slow it down.

It’s this last part that any builder or leader should heed. It’s one of those secrets hiding in plain sight.

Sun Tzu wrote:

“When an army has the force of momentum, even the timid become brave; when it loses the force of momentum, even the brave become timid.”

(more…)

The Technium: 103 Bits of Advice I Wish I Had Known

Today is my birthday. I turn 70. I’ve learned a few things so far that might be helpful to others. For the past few years, I’ve jotted down bits of unsolicited advice each year and much to my surprise I have more to add this year. So here is my birthday gift to you all: 103 bits of wisdom I wish I had known when I was young.

105,495,450 searches for WordPress terms in the last 12 months, up 7.5% year-on-year – Ellipsis Marketing

We’ve regularly written about the state of WordPress searches over the years: from the first article analysing a 52% spike in searches in 2020 , to an in-depth look at a search lull in the summer of 2021 , looking at how search traffic and volumes are faring usually reveals a lot about the status of the whole industry.

How to Deal With Remote Work Burnout and Stress – NoHQ Remote Work Guides

No commute. Flexible schedules. Boosted productivity. There’s a lot that remote work gets right.

Yet, employees starting remote work may feel some growing pains. Learning how to manage and maximize the benefits of remote work can take some time. In particular, it’s easy to fall into the trap of overworking and getting remote work burnout when working from home.

Taking Control of Your Professional Growth: A Personal Experience

If you are the kind of person that claims taking control of your professional growth, changing careers, and moving up the ladder are easy feats, I would love to draw on your experience.

For me, my growth journey was and still is a hell of a ride. Not so long ago, I promised myself that I’d go above and beyond to take control of my journey, gain focus and combine my passion and skills to see where this path would take me.

11 Principles of Engineering Management

More than 2 years ago, I decided to try to create a brief, digestible manual on the expectations of management for senior engineers at my company who are considering making the shift. At the time, I had about 3 years of management experience, including two prior companies. Enough to feel like I knew how to do the job, but not enough to feel like I should be some kind of authority on management. After letting this marinate for a couple years, I’m ready to share what I have learned.

Find Your Sweet Spot

Charged with extending their unit’s product lines and boosting top-line growth over the next three years, product managers at one global consumer goods company wanted to identify the most attractive customer segments to target and how best to reach them. So they turned to their market research department for guidance.

And why not? The market researchers at the company–we’ll call it ProdCorp–were world class and skilled at using the latest tools in demographics, psychometrics, and statistical analysis. Every two or three years, they would field an ambitious research project that pinpointed large, attractive customer segments and lots of tantalizing “white space” where the company could expand its offerings.

Taking Your 1:1s to the Next Level | by Alison Randel | The Ready | Apr, 2022 | Medium

Yes, there is a next level. You can reach it with 4 simple steps.

Photo by Anotia Wang @anotia

Most people in manager-like positions spend a lot of time in 1:1s. And most people on a team have regular 1:1s with managers. 1:1s can be a precious space to build relationships and dig into challenging topics. But many of us don’t realize the potential actually lurking inside the 1:1 format. So most of the time that potential is wasted — on small talk (“How was your weekend?”), surface-level updates (“Yeah, the project is going pretty well”), and venting (“Ugh, the marketing team isn’t stepping up the way I want them to”).

The Anatomy of a 1:1

Broadly speaking, my overarching agenda for any 1:1 is as follows:

It starts with the checkin, “how’s it going?”, an open ended question that some people respond with a status update, and some do not. The important thing is what comes next – finding out how the person feels. Sometimes a status update is useful context for that, sometimes it’s just how we get there. Either is fine.

Making Operational Work More Visible

“If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” – Sir Isaac Newton

Chasing down a ‘blipperdoodle’

It’s 2019, back when I was on the CORE team at Netflix. I’m watching a teammate, the on-call site reliability engineer (SRE), investigate a spike in video playback errors reported by a number of smart TVs. The temporary spike lasted just a few minutes. But investigating these sorts of transient operational issues—“blipperdoodles” asthe team sometimes calls them—can reveal operational issues. It’s also good practice for the newer team members. The SRE on call happens to be new, so he digs in.

Exploring the Gestalt Principles of Design | Toptal

Listen to the audio version of this article

Negative space has long been a staple of good design. Leaving white space around elements of a design is the first thing that usually comes to mind. But then there are designs that use that white space to infer an element that isn’t actually there (the arrow hidden between the E and X in the FedEx logo immediately comes to mind as an example).

How to Find Great Developers by Having Them Read Code

When hiring developers, there are many things we are looking for, but over the years I have found that raw coding ability is easily the most important quality to look for. I can quickly train a person to have knowledge in some domain, but I’ve never seen raw coding ability come from anything other than personal commitment to extensive and deep practice. Because of this, I have found that some methods work better than others to discover talent.

Motivating Developers to Care About Documentation

The following is a transcription of our interview with Paulo André . Paulo is a former VP of Engineering who now coaches CTOs, VPs of Engineering, and Engineering Managers. He also writes a weekly newsletter for technical leaders (sign up for it here ).

Paulo: Let me set the stage here. Internal documentation is something I’m passionate about because I’ve seen how important it is. But in most of my roles I’ve been fairly reactive, having created documentation after there was an apparent need for it. (Being a coach now, I don’t have the opportunity to be more intentional about documentation but if I do join another company I will be.)

Why you should work asynchronously

Most corporations (and their employees) made the shift to remote work during the pandemic. Many of these shifts were to remote-capable workflows (moving offline workflows online), but they never made the maturity leap to fully remote-first , rendering their employees less productive and more likely to burn out. The difference between being able to work remotely and being able to thrive remotely is the ability to work not just digitally, but also to work asynchronously, and it brings with it a number of benefits not possible under legacy workflows.

This Is What Happens When There Are Too Many Meetings

After two years of working from home, I don’t have one unified period of getting things done. I have several mini periods. Work isn’t a contiguous landmass of focus; it’s more like an archipelago of productivity amid a sea of chores, meals, mental breaks, and other responsibilities.

In particular, I’ve noticed a new island of work at the end of the day. Sometime around 9 p.m., I’ll open my computer and see that I have about a dozen urgent-ish emails and Slack messages. So, while in front of the television or with a podcast playing in the background, I’ll spend a late-night hour or more replying to these messages, typing the same intro over and over: “Sorry for the delay …” “Oops, I missed this …” “Hey, just seeing that you …”

Building Infrastructure Platforms

Software has come a long way over the past 20 years. Not only has the

pace of delivery increased, but the architectural complexity of systems

being developed has also soared to match that pace.

Not that building software was simple in the “good” old days. If you

wanted to stand up a simple web service for your business, you’d probably

have to:

• Schedule in some time with an infrastructure team to find a spare

  (more…)

Under stress at work? Just remember: Don’t believe what you think. – ideas.ted.com

Eugenia Mello

Here’s how you can take control of your brain’s knee-jerk reactions to distressing situations, says psychology researcher Lisa Penney.

This post is part of TED’s “How to Be a Better Human” series, each of which contains a piece of helpful advice from people in the TED community; browse through all the posts here.

Question: When you’re under stress at work, are you able to do your best thinking?

A new era of WordPress themes is finally here — Rich Tabor

We all knew the landscape of WordPress themes was shifting with the introduction of Gutenberg.

What we didn’t know, was by how much.

With the arrival of the anticipated Full Site Editing experience into WordPress 5.9, themes are starting to look very different. This new class of block-based WordPress themes arguably introduces the biggest change to themes, since well… themes existed.

Transcript: Ezra Klein Interviews C. Thi Nguyen

The Ezra Klein Show

• Send any friend a story

  As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Anyone can read what you share.

Feb. 25, 2022

Every Tuesday and Friday, Ezra Klein invites you into a conversation about something that matters, like today’s episode with C. Thi Nguyen. Listen wherever you get your podcasts .

Transcripts of our episodes are made available as soon as possible. They are not fully edited for grammar or spelling.

Be Plainspoken

It takes practice to communicate well. Being a great

writer or

communicator is a kind of

superpower that makes nearly every aspect of your life easier. But with great

power comes great responsibility; the clarifying power of language can also be

used to confound.

I am worried about the escalation of document length I have observed recently.

Simple questions receive lengthy responses.

People blow past guidelines on document lengths. Paragraphs have five

Problem exploration, selection and validation. | Irrational Exuberance

Most engineering organizations separate engineering and product leadership into distinct roles. This is usually ideal, not only because these roles benefit on distinct skills, but also because they thrive from different perspectives and priorities. It’s quite hard to do both well at the same time.

I’ve met many product managers who are excellent operators, but few product managers who can operate at a high degree while also getting deep with their users’ needs. Likewise, I’ve worked with many engineering managers who ground their work in their users needs, but few who can affix their attention on those users when things start getting rocky within their team.

Preserving Optionality: Preparing for the Unknown – Farnam Street

We’re often advised to excel at one thing. But as the future gets harder to predict, preserving optionality allows us to pivot when the road ahead crumbles.

***

How do we prepare for a world that often changes drastically and rapidly? We can preserve our optionality.

We don’t often get the advice to keep our options open. Instead, we’re told to specialize by investing huge hours in our passion so we can be successful in a niche.

Refactor → Organisation

In this blog post, rather than focus just on the technical challenges, I want to share:

• Some of the organisational history that led to WebCore
• How we went about re-organising for success
• How we viewed the team topologies and interaction modes between teams
• How we view the role of the platform (and the Core teams who build it) in enabling many teams to interact with one another

First — some history…

The BBC website is made up of several digital services, including iPlayer , Sounds , News and Sport . Each is a major service in its own right — with millions of visits every week — and they have grown independently of one another over several years. This was reflected in the way the organisation was shaped — with separate departments owning each digital service.

The Principles and Habits of Healthy Software

I believe both can help us be better people and drive positive change around us – in general, but in software in particular.

Principles help us go in the direction we want, towards an ideal state. Developing software with this in mind is fulfilling. (If you want to feel inspired about principles, read Design Principles Behind Smalltalk by Daniel Ingalls).

Habits are powerful. They help us to get from point A to B at a constant pace, starting small and taking many small steps. They allow us to work towards a higher goal, with purpose. It’s like developing muscles; it’s not possible to get there with a magic meal, you need strict gym activity and a lot of discipline. You also need small increments otherwise you’ll get hurt. So what are the muscles in the software we write, and what habits can we adopt to maintain those muscles and avoid injury?

What You Give Up When Moving Into Engineering Management

My wife recently took a management position for the first time. While my first management role was much different in many ways (I was with a small startup, and she works for a state healthcare system), her mixed feelings reminded me of the roller-coaster ride I felt when I was first put in charge of a team of engineers.

On the one hand, I was excited. This was an opportunity to make a bigger impact on the organization and my teammates’ careers.

The Data-Informed Product Cycle

I recently shared this Tweet:

Most teams jump from high level strategy/goals straight to feature ideas (w/ “success metrics”) The most successful teams 1. Have a strategy 2. Translate that into models 3. Add minimally viable measurement 4. Identify leverage points 5. Explore options 6. Run experiments

Along with this image:

A number of people asked me to write about it. Here goes!

Data-informed product is a loop (or series of loops).

The Latest E-Commerce Trend: What You Need To Know About Social Commerce

Jessica is the Founder & CEO of Valux Digital , a nationally recognized full-service marketing and PR firm.

getty

As e-commerce businesses globally are getting ready for the holiday season, one trend is shaking up the online shopping scene. Social commerce looks set to make an impact on e-commerce sales this season.

What Is Social Commerce?

Social commerce is the convergence of e-commerce and social media. Brands engaging in social commerce use social media platforms as vehicles to sell products and services. If your business relies on e-commerce sales, you are likely already involved in social commerce. However, are you maximizing the potential of this trend for your business?

Diffusion of innovations – Wikipedia

Theory on how and why new ideas spread The diffusion of innovations according to Rogers. With successive groups of consumers adopting the new technology (shown in blue), its market share (yellow) will eventually reach the saturation level. The blue curve is broken into sections of adopters.

Diffusion of innovations is a theory that seeks to explain how, why, and at what rate new ideas and technology spread. Everett Rogers , a professor of communication studies , popularized the theory in his book Diffusion of Innovations; the book was first published in 1962, and is now in its fifth edition (2003). Rogers argues that diffusion is the process by which an innovation is communicated over time among the participants in a social system. The origins of the diffusion of innovations theory are varied and span multiple disciplines.

5 Questions Every Manager Needs to Ask Their Direct Reports

Krittiraj Adchasai/Getty Images

Sara, a departing employee, sat across from her company’s HR leader for an exit interview . As a marketing executive for a financial services company, she was resigning after five years to take a CMO role at a fintech startup.

When the HR director asked Sara, “Is there anything else we could have done to keep you here?” Sara paused. “Yes. I wish there had been conversations about my career goals and opportunities for growth,” she said.

Getting Up and Running Quickly When Joining a Project

Getting up to speed when you join a large project is not an easy thing to do.

In addition to astonishing amounts of code and history, joining a new project

usually coincides with getting to know new colleagues and wanting to cause a

great first impression, which raises the stakes and makes things even more

difficult.

Here are a few things that have worked best for me when trying to get up to

How I Learned to Onboard Effectively in an Engineer Manager Role

Understanding my behaviors from starting new roles over the years

Doug Arcuri Follow

Nov 8, 2021 · 9 min read

Photo by Zan on Unsplash

Onboarding at a new company is an immensely engaging experience, where the difference between an effective or ineffective onboarding is an action away. As a software engineer manager , I’ve reflected on the unique behaviors I prioritize. This post will cover the gestalt of my successful onboarding experiences within the first 90 days.

This scientist busts myths about how humans burn calories—and why | Science | AAAS

Being a First Time Exec at an Early Stage Startup

This week I talked with Jean Hsu , VP of Engineering at Range , a company that helps make teamwork way less work. We spoke about being a first time exec, how she navigated being a mother and exec during a pandemic and what she enjoys about early stage startups.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

So we met speaking on the same panel.

Yeah. It was about challenging the default performance management systems that companies have, and we got those mugs with our faces on them, which was amazing. My partner loves it. He’s like, “Oh, then I can use it and then you’re just there with me,” which is very sweet. It feels weird to use a mug with your own face on it.

Delicious Brains – 2021 Year in Review: Tripled, Acquired, Reborn, and Humming

TL;DR — Despite the pandemic, we had a great year as a team and as a business. We tripled the size of the team, acquired ACF, shipped and published a ton of awesome stuff that we’re proud of, and had a nice bump in revenue.

This is my seventh year in review post since I started writing them: