Beyond Senior Engineering

3. The Secret to High-Performing Engineering Teams: Challenge the Requirements!


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In this video, I dive into the transformative power of challenging and understanding requirements in software engineering. Inspired by Elon Musk’s approach to simplifying problems, I’ll show you how questioning requirements can lead to higher team performance, better predictability, and improved code quality. Learn how my team went from being mediocre to high-performing without changing the team members or working harder—just by refining our approach to requirements.

We’ll explore how to use sprint refinements effectively, understand the critical metrics in JIRA like mean cycle time and standard deviation, and build trust between engineering and product teams. Whether you’re a software engineer, engineering manager, or product owner, this video is packed with actionable insights that will help you improve your team’s efficiency and deliver better results.

Interview with Elon Musk:

https://youtu.be/Kbk9BiPhm7o?si=F-6w8p7f020Yn-22
Jira Control Chart
https://support.atlassian.com/jira-software-cloud/docs/view-and-understand-the-control-chart/

Topics Covered:

00:00 Intro
02:07 Challange requirements each sprint - Refinements
02:36 Better solutions - Aligned with business needs & Conscious Compromises taken
03:50 Better predictability(Mean Cycle Time, Standard Deviation)
06:25 Team Dynamics & Motivation (Status Update & Sprint Goals & Trust)
08:23 Better Code Quality (Code Reviews & Tech Debt)

...more
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Beyond Senior EngineeringBy Michal Rogowski