Surviving 120% Team Churn
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SpringOne Platform 2016 Speaker: Todd Sedano; Engineering Manager, Pivotal. Is your team disruption proof? What would happen if your key developer went on medical leave or left the company? I’ll explain one way to enable your team to not only survive, but thrive through abrupt changes in team composition. By following the practices of sustainable software development your team can dramatically improve its bus count. I’ll recount a story about how my team continued to deliver through chaotic times. This ten person team slowly lost most of its developers yet still delivered the product successfully. In the end, 22 developers worked on the 43 week project. I’ll dig into the reasons that enabled this team to continue to turn the development crank, week after week, and month after month. By implementing practices that removed knowledge silos and technical debt, your team can succeeded in the face of disruption.
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Surviving 120% Team Churn
- 1. Authors Todd Sedano Paul Ralph Cécile Péraire Surviving 120% Team Churn Sustainable Software Development through Overlapping Pair Rotation (photos licensed or ©Todd Sedano)
- 2. 2 Newsletter Signup: http://sedano.org/research Todd Sedano professor@gmail.com photos used with permission
- 3. 3 Newsletter Signup: http://sedano.org/research Todd Sedano professor@gmail.com
- 4. Todd Sedano professor@gmail.com Why? 4 Todd Sedano professor@gmail.com Newsletter Signup: http://sedano.org/research
- 5. Todd Sedano professor@gmail.com 1. Team losing information 2. Learning curve for new developer 5 Todd Sedano professor@gmail.com Newsletter Signup: http://sedano.org/research
- 6. Todd Sedano professor@gmail.com 6 Todd Sedano professor@gmail.com Newsletter Signup: http://sedano.org/research B E A C D F Knowledge
- 7. Todd Sedano professor@gmail.com A 7 Todd Sedano professor@gmail.com Newsletter Signup: http://sedano.org/research B E C D F Knowledge Knowledge Leaving
- 8. Todd Sedano professor@gmail.com 8 Todd Sedano professor@gmail.com Newsletter Signup: http://sedano.org/research B E C D F Knowledge New Employee
- 9. Todd Sedano professor@gmail.com We want to spread knowledge throughout the team 9 Todd Sedano professor@gmail.com Newsletter Signup: http://sedano.org/research
- 11. Constructivist Grounded Theory Iterative approach to data collection, coding, and analysis Data Sources 1) participant observations of five projects 2) interviews with 21 software engineers, interaction designers, and product managers Interviews were transcribed, coded, and analyzed using constant comparison Research Question: “How do the observed teams develop software effectively while overcoming team disruption?” Todd Sedano professor@gmail.com11 Newsletter Signup: http://sedano.org/research
- 12. Research Context: Pivotal Labs Mission: a) Deliver highly-crafted software b) Provide a transformative experience for client and combine client engineers with pivotal engineers Project team sizes: 2 to 28 devs (6 is common) Balanced team: interaction designer, product manager, devs Method: Extreme Programming Todd Sedano professor@gmail.com12 Newsletter Signup: http://sedano.org/research
- 14. Original Staffing Plan Todd Sedano professor@gmail.com14 Newsletter Signup: http://sedano.org/research Week # of the Project DevelopersAllocated
- 15. Actual Staffing Plan Todd Sedano professor@gmail.com15 Newsletter Signup: http://sedano.org/research
- 16. Theory of Sustainable Software Development 16
- 17. Todd Sedano professor@gmail.com Mitigates negative disruption effects by 1. Spreading knowledge around the team 2. Writing “well-factored” code 17 Todd Sedano professor@gmail.com Newsletter Signup: http://sedano.org/research
- 18. Todd Sedano professor@gmail.com Increases the ability of any pair to work on any story in the backlog 18 Todd Sedano professor@gmail.com Newsletter Signup: http://sedano.org/research
- 19. Sustainable Software Development 3 Principles 3 Policies 3 Practices for Removing Knowledge Silos 3 Practices for Caretaking the Code Todd Sedano professor@gmail.com19 Newsletter Signup: http://sedano.org/research ESEM 2016
- 20. Principles Engendering Positive Attitudes Toward Team Disruption “Team members go out of their way to make new teammates feel welcome and help ramp them up.” Encouraging Knowledge Sharing and Continuity “Everyone has context. Everyone is constantly communicating about the entire system.” Caring about Code Quality “Everyone is responsible for fixing issues.” Todd Sedano professor@gmail.com20 Newsletter Signup: http://sedano.org/research
- 21. Policies Team Code Ownership Increasing the ability to change any of the team’s code “I feel ownership of the code as a whole. I feel empowered to work on any part of the codebase.” Shared Schedule Working the same hours whenever possible Avoid Technical Debt “Thinking that someone else will fix it can be dangerous, because then nobody will do it.” Todd Sedano professor@gmail.com21 Newsletter Signup: http://sedano.org/research
- 22. Removing Knowledge Silos Practices Continuous Pair Programming Pairing whenever possible Increases Team Code Ownership Overlapping Pair Rotation Rotating one partner on each track of work “This reduces knowledge silos and reduces the bus factor. We do not want the departure of one developer to cripple the project.” Knowledge Pollination Sharing information in unstructured ways Todd Sedano professor@gmail.com22 Newsletter Signup: http://sedano.org/research
- 23. Todd Sedano professor@gmail.com Example: Removing Knowledge Silos 23 Todd Sedano professor@gmail.com Newsletter Signup: http://sedano.org/research
- 24. Individual Code Ownership Todd Sedano professor@gmail.com24 Newsletter Signup: http://sedano.org/research A B C D E F Knowledge Gap Knowledge Transfer
- 25. Continuous Pair Programming Todd Sedano professor@gmail.com25 Newsletter Signup: http://sedano.org/research A B C D E F Knowledge Gap Knowledge Transfer
- 26. Overlapping Pair Rotation Todd Sedano professor@gmail.com26 Newsletter Signup: http://sedano.org/research Knowledge Gap Knowledge Transfer A B D C F E Strategies Optimizing for people rotation Optimizing for personal preferences Optimizing for context sharing
- 27. Knowledge Pollination Todd Sedano professor@gmail.com27 Newsletter Signup: http://sedano.org/research Knowledge Gap Knowledge Transfer A B D C F E
- 28. Knowledge Pollination Contributing to knowledge sharing in an un-structured way Daily stand-up meetings Weekly retrospectives Writing or sketching on whiteboards Overhearing a conversation Using the backlog to communicate current status about a story Calling out an update to the entire team Simply reaching out to team to ask a question Todd Sedano professor@gmail.com28 Newsletter Signup: http://sedano.org/research A B D C F E
- 29. Todd Sedano professor@gmail.com Example: Strategies for Rotation 29 Todd Sedano professor@gmail.com Newsletter Signup: http://sedano.org/research
- 30. Four Tracks of Work Todd Sedano professor@gmail.com30 Newsletter Signup: http://sedano.org/research Track 1 Track 2 Track 3 Track 4 Icons designed by Freepik
- 31. Individual Ownership Todd Sedano professor@gmail.com31 Newsletter Signup: http://sedano.org/research Day 1 BobAlice a a Day 2 BobAlice b b Day 3 BobAlice c c Day 4 BobAlice d d Alice Bob b aa d c Generated Knowledge After Four Days c d b
- 32. Optimizing for Personal Preference Todd Sedano professor@gmail.com32 Newsletter Signup: http://sedano.org/research Day 1 BobAlice aa bb Day 2 CarolAlice cc Day 3 DanAlice dd Day 4 ErinAlice Alice Bob a b a d Generated Knowledge After Four Days c d c bI’m enjoying this track
- 33. Optimizing for People Rotation Todd Sedano professor@gmail.com33 Newsletter Signup: http://sedano.org/research Day 1 BobAlice aa bb Day 2 CarolBob cc Day 3 AliceCarol dd Day 4 ErinAlice Alice Bob Generated Knowledge After Four Days a c d b b d a c
- 34. Bob Carol bb d a a cc Generated Knowledge After Four Days d Optimizing for Knowledge Sharing Todd Sedano professor@gmail.com34 Newsletter Signup: http://sedano.org/research Day 1 BobAlice aa bb Day 2 CarolBob cc Day 3 DanCarol dd Day 4 DanCarol Has enough context been shared? YesYes YesYes YesNo Has enough context been shared? Has enough context been shared?
- 35. Example in Practice Todd Sedano professor@gmail.com35 Newsletter Signup: http://sedano.org/research
- 36. Caretaking the Code Practices TDD / BDD Write unit tests before creating a design or writing code Creates a safety net “Allows me to change code without breaking everything” Continuous Refactoring Systematic improvement of the code base Enables any pair to work on any part of the system Supported by Live on Master “Use frequent commits and always rebase” Todd Sedano professor@gmail.com36 Newsletter Signup: http://sedano.org/research
- 37. Sustainable Software Development Todd Sedano professor@gmail.com Principles Policies Engendering Positive Attitudes Toward Team Disruption Encouraging Knowledge Sharing and Continuity Caring about Code Quality Team Code Ownership Shared Schedule Avoid Technical Debt 37 Newsletter Signup: http://sedano.org/research Removing Knowledge Silos Practices Caretaking the Code Practices Continuous Pair Programming Overlapping Pair Rotation Knowledge Pollination TDD / BDD Continuous Refactoring Supported by Live on Master ESEM 2016
- 39. Team Code Ownership paper Available at ResearchGate.com Todd Sedano professor@gmail.com39 Newsletter Signup: http://sedano.org/research
- 40. Team Code Ownership Collective Ownership (Beck 2000) “Anyone can change any piece of code in the system at any time” aka Shared Code (Beck 2004), Collective Code Ownership (Fowler 2006) Team Code Ownership (Sedano 2016) “the ability for any developer on a team to change any of the team’s code” Todd Sedano professor@gmail.com40 Newsletter Signup: http://sedano.org/research
- 41. Team Code Ownership Is more than a policy statement Is a complex interaction Is an emotional, qualitative attribute Eroded by some events Bolstered by some practices Is a spectrum Todd Sedano professor@gmail.com41 Newsletter Signup: http://sedano.org/research Individual Team
- 42. Five Observed Factors Affecting Ownership 1. System Context 2. Code Contribution 3. Code Quality 4. Product Fit 5. Team Cohesion Todd Sedano professor@gmail.com42 Newsletter Signup: http://sedano.org/research
- 43. Limitations Researcher bias: With participant-observer, the researcher may lose perspective and become biased by being a member of the team Prior knowledge bias: may also blind the researcher to alternative explanations We mitigated these risks by recording interviews and having the second and third authors review the coding process External Validity: grounded theory is non-statistical sampling research (results might not apply to different software cultures) Todd Sedano professor@gmail.com43 Newsletter Signup: http://sedano.org/research
- 44. Conclusion 44
- 45. Summary 1. Introduce Sustainable Software Development Theory Todd Sedano professor@gmail.com45 Newsletter Signup: http://sedano.org/research
- 46. Summary 2. The theory extends our understanding of Extreme Programming 3. Mitigates the negative effects of major disruptions by i. Spreading knowledge around the team ii. Writing “well-factored” code Todd Sedano professor@gmail.com46 Newsletter Signup: http://sedano.org/research
- 47. Conclusion Primary benefits to the software developer Understand the team’s code Work on any story Increased teaching opportunities Primary benefit to the employer is business agility Team continues to deliver “quality software effectively” while surviving disruptions Todd Sedano professor@gmail.com47 Newsletter Signup: http://sedano.org/research
- 48. 48 Newsletter Signup: http://sedano.org/research Todd Sedano professor@gmail.com photos used with permission
- 49. Thank You! 49
- 50. Sustainable Software Development paper 50 Available at ResearchGate.com Newsletter Signup: http://sedano.org/research Todd Sedano professor@gmail.com Newsletter Signup: http://sedano.org/research
- 51. Discussion 51