Making Software Development Hum

Transforming Chaos to Clarity Making Your Software Development Hum Ron Lichty, Software Engineering Mgmt RonLichty@sbcGlobal.net SofTech August 26, 2009 Mark Ginnebaugh, President softech.org

Ron Lichty, Software Engineering Management SOFTWEST

Poll: Software Development in Disarray? • Who has seen chaos in a product group? • Who has seen chaos in your current group? • Who feels like your devt is running rough? • Suffering from organizational knots? • Anyone have a development organization that doesn't feel chaotic right now?!

Define Success • What are you trying to accomplish • How do you know you're not • How will you know when you get there • Assess what’s working • Assess the issues and the symptoms – Every organization is unique

Chaos Isn’t All Bad • Don’t eliminate it entirely • Going offroad may seem chaotic – Innovation can spring from chaos • Look for the pings and the misfires – Tune the engine, not the route – Make your product engine hum • whether you’re cruising the highway or off-road

Systems to Diagnose • Requirements • Roadmaps and Strategy • Motivation and Urgency • Your Team • Coaching and Mentoring Your Managers • Project Planning • Technical Debt • Communication • Development Process

Optimize Your Requirements Process • GIGO • Programmers: – who has received an exceptional set of rqmts? – what was the programming experience like? – how did it differ from the usual? – ever gotten to delivery only to find out there was another db field desired? • How good are your requirements? • Do your requirements change?

How’s Your Roadmap? • Why do you need a roadmap? • In an Agile world, what’s it look like? • How do you create one? • What do you do with it? • Why do you need a roadmap?

Develop Motivation and Communicate Urgency • How is developer motivation measured? – Remember it’s a marathon, not a sprint • What motivates programmers? – Are you communicating your reality? – Are you communicating their impact? – Are you enabling them to do their best work?

Assess Your Team • Most problems are not people – but some are – Occasional problem employees • You must act • Marty Brounstein, Handling the Problem Employee – Employees who need to be mentored into roles • People problems start with bad hiring – One bad hire can quickly destroy a well humming team

Get Coaching/Mentoring for Your Engineering Managers • How did we become engineering managers? • What qualities differentiate: – Engineers / Managers / Directors / VPs Eng? • How do you grow the qualities you need?

Smart Project Planning • Deliver demonstrable progress frequently • Get the risky stuff done first – the UI should always be high on the risk list • Deliver the highest customer value first • Be first / be ready to integrate / be early • Don’t over-engineer

Get Out of Technical Debt • What’s “technical debt”? – Shabby, rundown areas of code – Untested code / lack of automated tests – Undocumented code – Brittle design – Difficult to maintain, change, extend • Expensive to debug • Result: interest accrues • Solution? – Pay down debt: Revisit, refactor, write tests, do TDD

Fix Interdepartmental Communication • Build trust relationships • Product Mgmt & Eng. Mgmt: collaboration • Establish processes for your partners to fit • Communicate, communicate, communicate • Never succumb to “them vs. us” • Avoid the “blame game”

Optimize Process • Just about any process is better than no process. – Mark Ginnebaugh – The exception: process for process’ sake • I’m a fan of – “Just-Enough Process” – Agile – baby steps

Systems to Diagnose • Requirements • Roadmaps and Strategy • Motivation and Urgency • Your Team • Coaching and Mentoring Your Managers • Project Planning • Technical Debt • Communication • Development Process

Other Systems to Diagnosis • There are lots of other systems – Meetings – Quality • Development’s quality • QA • TDD – UI – Risk – ...and a long list more

The Bottom Line • Chaos is common • It’s really a series of challenges • It’s a series of improvement milestones • Each of them can be transformed – Likely each new hum will reveal the next ping • Like peeling an onion or climbing a mountain

Q&A Ron Lichty RonLichty@sbcGlobal.net

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Making Software Development Hum

by Mark Ginnebaugh on Sep 21, 2009

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Making Software Development Hum — Presentation Transcript