Shaun Abram
Technology and Leadership Blog
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Leadership lessons from our road infrastructure investments
I loved this article in the Washington Post. It is ostensibly about how “We fixed I-95 in 12 days”, and “lessons for U.S. infrastructure”, but I think it is really invaluable lessons about leadership in general…
Tags: i95, infrastructure, leadership, management
Blog post summary: Accountability in Software Development by Kent Beck
A summary of Accountability in Software Development, by Kent Beck
Tags: accountability, kentbeck, summary
Blog post summary: Quality Assurance is Not About Testing
The following is a summary of Quality Assurance is Not About Testing by Matt Lievertz. I have also incorporated some elements of his earlier The Death of the Non-Coding QA Role post too.
Software Laws
Some “laws” that are particularly relevant in software development…
Tags: conwayslaw, goodhartslaw, hofstadterslaw, laws, parkinsonslaw
2022 VOID Report Summary
The following is a summary of the 2022 VOID report.
The original is ~10,000 words. This is ~1500.
Tags: incidents, summary, voidreport
PivotTables in Excel
A basic introduction to creating Pivot tables in Excel.
Tags: dataanalysis, excel, microsoft, pivottable
Amazon Kindle publisher’s copy limit
One of my favorite ways to read technical and leadership books is on my laptop, where I copy, paste, and summarize (I do this so much, I described a bit more in summaries).
One problem is that I often do this reading in the Kindle app and after a certain number of copy & pastes, I get this:
“You have reached the publisher’s copy limit set for this title.”
And it drives me crazy.
Here are a few workarounds…
Tags: amazon, books, calibre, drm, kindle
2022 Books
A short review of some of the books I read in 2022…
Tags: 2022, bookreviews, books, reading
Sublime notes
The following are some notes & examples of using Sublime Text for quick text editing, typically using regular expressions.
Your team is not a democracy
TLDR: During a difficult team discussion, holding an impromptu vote to resolve the issue is rarely the right move. Trust your team but, as the manager, you may have critical information that your team does not and you are ultimately responsible. It is OK to make decisions that go against the majority view.
Imagine you are a manager on a team. The team is debating a thorny issue. There is disagreement on the best way to move forward and someone suggests putting it to a vote. As the manager, should you let the majority decide?
My own personal take is that as a manager, putting it to a vote is rarely the right move.
It is certainly your duty to stimulate debate. Encourage everyone to speak up, and ensure anyone who can’t seem to get a word in is given space. You should challenge the team into creative and out-of-the box thinking.
Ultimately you, as the leader of the team, need to make the call however. Why?
Tags: developmentmanager, devmanager, engineeringmanager, leadership, management
Shift Left
Defining the term shift left to mean testing earlier in the development cycle feels antiquated since waiting until development is “complete” before testing is a plain ol’ anti-pattern at this point.
A better definition could be testing earlier and more frequently. Writing tests each sprint, and running those tests with every commit.
Perhaps better still is thinking of shift left as a movement of testing to earlier in the pipeline. Favor unit tests, which typically run in the pipeline first and fast. Heavier-weight tests, such as UI based and end-to-end tests, which are typically harder to write, slower to run, and run later in the pipeline, do have a place but should be used sparingly.
Another way to look at this is that shift left means shifting down the testing pyramid.
Tags: deliverypipeline, quality, shiftleft, Testing, unittesting
ThoughtWorks Technology Radar v26
The latest, 26th, Tech Radar version from the folks at ThoughtWorks is now available.
As usual, it covers a range of technologies across 4 categories (Platforms, Techniques, Languages & Frameworks, Tools), rated on a scale of:
- Adopt: Strongly recommend
- Trial: Worth pursuing
- Assess: Worth understanding
- Hold: Proceed with caution
I’ve picked out some of the things I found most useful/interesting/relevant for me below, but I recommend checking it out in full at thoughtworks.com/radar.
(more…)Tags: radar, techradar, thoughtworks, thoughtworkstechradar
Blog post summary: Maker vs. Manager
Someone pointed me to this Maker vs. Manager: How Your Schedule Can Make or Break You post recently. There is no published date, but I don’t think it is new (but it is timeless). It is only a 10 minute read itself, but some notes…
(more…)“A woodpecker can tap twenty times on a thousand trees and get nowhere, but stay busy. Or he can tap twenty-thousand times on one tree and get dinner.”— Seth Godin, The Dip
2021 Books
Some short reviews of some of the books I read in 2021…
“Some books should be tasted, some devoured, but only a few should be chewed and digested thoroughly.”
― Sir Francis Bacon
Tags: 2021, book, bookreviews, books, reading