Agile, Scrum & Kanban

Why Would Anyone Mob Program? (an intro)

Mob Programming is a concept where a team of ~3-5 works together on a single feature, with only one person typing at a time. It is a difficult process to go from troll-coding to mobbing, but it is an incredibly valuable and efficient experience. It is slow, but the quality of work produced is multiple times better than what a single developer can create. It also allows for full domain knowledge of the system developed, and one member of the mob can represent the team in meetings.

V2 infrastructure project

Multi-year infrastructure overhaul (V2) projects are complex and require a clear business driver and customer-facing value. The engineering leader needs to work closely with business leaders and stakeholders to ensure there is consensus on making the long-term investment. The team needs to go through a prototyping phase to identify components that need refactoring/re-architecting, risks associated with the proposed architecture, and the resources/time required to deliver the project. The engineering leader must also decide how to organize the team for success, either by embedding the V2 team in the V1 team or by spinning up a new V2 team. The project plan should include deliverables, budget, resources, and time, and the team should identify risks early and have mitigation plans. The team should also set KPIs and OKRs and celebrate small victories and demos to stakeholders.

How to measure Engineering Productivity?

Engineering productivity is the measure of how efficient and effective an engineering team is in delivering value. It is important to measure engineering productivity in order to prevent technical debt buildup and to experiment with various approaches to improve throughput and efficiency. Metrics such as cycle time, release frequency, number of bugs, and review to merge time can be used to measure engineering productivity. Additionally, context switching should be avoided as it is a major productivity killer.

Assessing the Performance of Your Team

The French National Football Team won the 2018 FIFA World Cup, led by exceptional players such as Paul Pogba and Kylian Mbappé. The team was coached by Didier Deschamps, who was also a player on the 1998 championship team. This post discusses the importance of a coach in any team sport, and how an Engineering Manager is similar to a football coach. It also provides a list of metrics to measure the performance of individual team members, such as pull requests merged, bugs or support tickets touched, and open source contributions. Finally, it emphasizes the importance of assessing the “soft” skills of collaboration, motivation, and culture fit in a dynamic business context.

Dealing with Uncertainties and Adapting as You Go

Organizations are facing a high level of uncertainty due to the changes in the work environment since 2020. Teams need to find the right balance between short- and long-term plans and incorporate flexibility. Managers should have discussions with their teams about the organization’s mission and stakeholders. Teams should have weekly achievements instead of monthly targets and frequent and purposeful communication. To build long-lasting teams, team-building activities should be encouraged and mission-driven, autonomous teams should be fostered.