Software Crafts Podcast

In this week episode, we have Paul de Raaij as our guest. He distils the heuristic “Strategy is iterative, not linear” from the Simon Wardley Doctrine (http://wardleypedia.org/mediawiki/index.php/Doctrine_Patterns#Strategy_is_iterative.2C_not_linear). From strategy we discuss the role of a manager in tech, and how it is changing towards a facilitator rather than a traditional pusher. Paul also gives his wish for the future of organisations.

Paul recommends the following resources:

• Reflection as a tool
• Team Topologies from Matthew Skelton and Manuel Pais
• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People from Stephen Covey
• Robin van Persie life lesson to his 13-year son (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_K6Fb7C6njY) 

Paul (@pderaaij) is a believer in organisation missions, rather than IT and business alignment. He is a consultant specialised in helping organisations to change their operating model, to achieve better flow, fostering a healthy working environment. He started his career as a developer, but soon find the people and processes challenge interesting.

He is fond of music and technology, and he doesn’t miss his workouts!

Matthew Skelton is the guest of episode 12, and we will discuss the heuristic “Eliminate waste” from Xebia Essentials repository (https://essentials.xebia.com/eliminate-waste/). From the definition of waste in the IT industry, the roots of the concept in the automotive industry and how we try to manage today, Matthew will give his opinion based on his experience. How to be context-aware, avoid IT as a cost centre, and enabling organisation capabilities towards an adaptive organisation.

Matthew recommends the following resources:

• Domain-Driven Design - https://domainlanguage.com/ddd/
• Virtual Domain-Driven Design - https://virtualddd.com/
• Wardley Maps - https://medium.com/wardleymaps
• Team Topologies Remote First - http://teamtopologies.com/remotefirst

Matthew (@matthewpskelton) is a software delivery consultant based in Leeds, UK. He is Head of Consulting at Conflux, where he helps organisations to design and optimise their teams for effective software delivery using Team Topologies (which he is a co-author). He also specialises in applying Continuous Delivery and operability techniques for software in manufacturing, e-commerce, and online services, including cloud, IoT, and embedded software.

Episode #11 is out. The guest this week is Ellis de Haan, and we will discuss the heuristic “Listen to your ecosystems” from Simon Wardley Doctrine (http://wardleypedia.org/mediawiki/index.php/Doctrine_Patterns#Listen_to_your_ecosystems). Ellis will share with us her journey as a manager. How to balance Love, Power and Anxiety in order to create an environment for people and teams to strive. 

Ellis suggests the following resources:

• Christo Nel - The Practice and Virtues of High Impact Leadership and Teaming
• Brené Brown - The Power of Vulnerability
• Elliott Jacques - Levels Of Work

Ellis (@ellis_haan) is a manager, but not the typical one. She believes that a new style of leadership is needed, and supports it. Part of her work has new styles of leadership in a DevOps world. She is involved in community causes, such as women in tech.

She is a public speaker, conference organiser, and loves to sail!

Jutta Eckstein is the guest of episode 10. She will share her thoughts on the heuristic “Favor continuous improvement over delayed perfection” front he Xebia Essentials repository (https://essentials.xebia.com/improve-continuously/).

We will discuss the trade-offs between goals set in stone and agility, and how values can help in that journey. Using reflection as a foundation to improve through experiments, where individuals, teams and organisations can generate new insights. As an example, using continuous retrospective, where the retrospective honours the context. We end up discussing the skills of the new generation of leaders and how organisations should face VUCA times.

Jutta recommends BOSSA Nova (https://www.agilebossanova.com/) as a resource for this episode.

Jutta (@juttaeckstein) is an experienced independent coach, consultant, and trainer for agile software development. Her know-how in agile processes is based on over twenty years of experience in project and product development. She is an experienced agile process coach and trainer. She has worked with teams using agile processes successfully on medium-sized to large mission-critical projects. As a coach, she is focusing on the process as well as on the quality and soft factors like communication. She also works as a facilitator for retrospectives. With retrospectives, she helps her clients to improve their way of working.

She has presented work in her main areas of expertise at different European and American conferences. She is a member of the Agile Alliance, where she served the board of directors, a supporter of the Manifesto for Agile Software Development and a member of several Interest Groups. She is a partner of IT Communication.

Lisi is our guest for episode #9. We will analyse the heuristic "No multitasking" from the Xebia Essentials repository (https://essentials.xebia.com/no-multitasking/). Lisi shares her methods to keep track when switching contexts; on an individual level but also at a team level. Entering into multitasking and team level, she shares her insights about Mob Programming, and how it changes a team. Ranging from the culture to the quality of the software, she leads us in her experiences. 

Lisi recommends her resource list for collaboration, pairing and mobbing: https://www.lisihocke.com/p/collaboration-pairing-and-mobbing.html. 

Lisi (@lisihocke) graduated in sinology, and fell into agile and testing in 2009, and have been infected with the agile bug ever since. She is especially passionate about the whole-team approach to testing and quality as well as the continuous learning mindset behind it. Building great products which deliver value together with great people is what motivates her and keeps her going. Within her teams, she often thinks of being the glue, as well as "the little burr under the saddle blanket that gets people thinking about changing and trying new things".

She received a lot from the community; now, she is giving back by sharing stories and experiences. She tweets as @lisihocke, blogs at www.lisihocke.com, and speaks at meetups and conferences.

In her free time, you can either find her in the gym running after a volleyball, having a good time with her friends or delving into games and stories of any kind.

On episode #8 we have Kenny Baas-Schwegler. We started the interview with the heuristic “Find the root cause” from the Xebia Essentials repository (https://essentials.xebia.com/genchi-genbutsu/). Kenny shares with us the importance of balancing two powerful forces, love and power in a working environment. Also, how we can manage uncertainty using Cynefin, Deep Democracy, Domain-Driven Design and Visual Collaboration.

Kenny recommends:

• Virtual Domain-Driven Design (https://virtualddd.com/)
• Rebecca Wirfs-Brock (@rebeccawb)
• Ruth Malan (@ruthmalan)
• Dawn Ahukanna (@dawnahukanna)
• Diana Montalion (@dianamontalion)
• Deep Democracy (https://lewisdd.com) 
• “Sitting in the fire” by Arnold Mindell

By leveraging Deep Democracy, Domain-Driven Design, Continuous Delivery and Visual collaborate tools, Kenny (@kenny_baas) empowers organisations, teams and people in building valuable quality software products.

One of his core principles is sharing knowledge. He does that by blogging on his website (https://baasie.com) and also organise several meetups like Virtual Domain-Driven Design, Domain Driven Design Nederland. He is a public speaker giving talks and hands-on workshops at conferences and meetups.

The guest of this episode is Jim Gough. He will share his thoughts about the heuristic “Algorithmic optimizations have a greater impact than micro-optimizations” from the Embedded Artistry repository (https://embeddedartistry.com/blog/2018/04/26/embedded-rules-of-thumb/). We will walk the trade-offs of optimizations in the Java world, and when we need to look to the big picture. Also, we discuss how bias, both at individual and group level, gets in our way. 

Jim suggests the following resources:

• “Optimizing Java” book, co-written by Ben Evans, Jim Gough and Chris Newland
• Kirk Pepperdine (@javaperftuning) blog - http://www.kodewerk.com/index.html
• Ben Evans (@kittylyst) blog - https://kittylyst.com/
• Richard Warburton (@richardwarburto) blog - http://insightfullogic.com/
• JMH project - https://openjdk.java.net/projects/code-tools/jmh/
• Micro-benchmarking video at InfoQ - https://www.infoq.com/presentations/jmh/
• Java Specialists newsletter - https://www.javaspecialists.eu/ 

James (Jim) Gough (@Jim__Gough) is an executive director and developer at Morgan Stanley, where he’s focused on building customer-facing technology. A Java developer and author, Jim first became interested in Java during his degree program at the University of Warwick; after graduating, he became a member of the London Java Community. The community has remained central to Jim’s contributions, which include working on the design and testing of JSR-310 and serving on the Java Community Process Executive Committee for several years. Jim’s a regular conference speaker and spent four years teaching Java and C++ around the world.

Working with Ben Evans and Chris Newland, he co-authored a book titled Optimizing Java. The book is available to purchase on O’Reilly, read on Safari Books or Amazon. Last but not least, Jim is a Java Champion!

Another week pass by. And this episode Gien Verschatse join us to share her ideas about the heuristic “Optimise for future potential” from DDD Heuristics repository (https://www.dddheuristics.com/design-heuristics/optimise-for-future-potential/). She will share her journey, and how she applies decision-making theory and Domain-Driven Design to create better software. Also, she will tell us the preferred visualisation techniques to create a shared mental model within a team.

Gien recommends:

• Her blog - https://www.selketjah.com/
• Nick Tune blog - https://medium.com/nick-tune-tech-strategy-blog
• As books:
  • The Thinker's Toolkit: 14 Powerful Techniques for Problem Solving by Morgan D. Jones
  • Thinking in bets by Annie Duke
  • Are your lights on? by Gerald Weinberg
  • Becoming a technical leader by Gerald Weinberg
  • Simple heuristics that make us smart by Gerd Gigerenzer
• As courses:
  • The art of Critical Decision Making, by Michael A. Roberto (on Audible)
  • Strategic DDD using Bounded Context Canvas by Nick Tune (https://training.dddeurope.com/strategic-ddd-using-bounded-context-canvas-nick-tune/)

Gien Verschatse (@selketjah) is a software developer with 10 years of experience, mainly in a .NET environment, who likes to start her day with coffee. She specialises in bridging the gap between users and developers by practising Domain-Driven Design. Besides that, she loves to learn how teams can improve the way they make decisions both on a technical and organisational level.

She is a strong believer of continuous learning by deliberate practice and sharing knowledge, which is why she dedicates a lot of her free time speaking at conferences and user groups. She also helps to organise F# conferences: Open FSharp and F# Europe.

When she is not busy with all of the above, you will find her on the sofa, reading a book (yes, with coffee).

In this episode, Joost van Wollingen will share his insights about the heuristic “Think of code and test as one” from the Xebia Essentials repository (https://essentials.xebia.com/test-code-one/). We shift left and right regarding testing practices, and Joost shares the principles and practices that he learned over the years.

Joost recommends:

• “Modern Testing Principles” from Alan Page (https://www.angryweasel.com/ABTesting/modern-testing-principles/), including the podcast

Joost (@jpjwolli) is Head of Test Engineering at iptiQ. He is active in the community, sharing his knowledge, but also organising community events. He is a passionate advocate of modern testing practices, with a track record of helping organisation and teams in their adoption.

For episode number 4 we have Krisztina Hirth. See will share (pun intended) her insights about the heuristic “Share the design” from the Xebia Essentials repository (https://essentials.xebia.com/shared-design-understanding/). We will discuss why titles don’t matter, what is the role of a leader in a digital world, and last but not the least why the team is the most important unit.

Krisztina shared two resources with us:

• “Accelerate” book from Nicole Forsgren, Jez Humble and Gene Kim
• Martin Fowler blog (https://martinfowler.com/),  namely the article on IEEE Software magazine “Who needs an architect?” (http://files.catwell.info/misc/mirror/2003-martin-fowler-who-needs-an-architect.pdf)   

Krisztina is a software developer for 15 years, always looking for the right way to build reliable, resilient and expandable software. She worked in all kind of teams, mostly in an agile manner, always looking for improvements and for ways to achieve these. Big fan of feedback/customer-driven development, no fan of story-points, opponent of “scaling agile frameworks”. She is convinced that the key to great software is an excellent team succeeding together and also failing together.