Working With the Garage Door Open
Working in the open lets people help while the work is still shapeable. The real skill is pushing the right signal to the right room.
Topics
communication 
50 posts
The art of clear communication in teams and beyond.
People Skills
You have mastered the code, but technical skill alone will not carry you. If you cannot work with others, nobody wants to work with you.
Prisoner's Dilemma
The Prisoner's Dilemma, where cooperation and betrayal collide, and what it reveals about self-interest against collective benefit.
What Kills Agility?
Why Agile if you already do Scrum, Kanban or SAFe? How you manage an organization defines its quality, and what really kills it.
Radical Candor
Kim Scott, former Google leader, on being a great manager: empathetic and results-oriented, where people can speak freely.
Effective Pair Programming
A practical guide to pair programming that works: roles, rotation, when to pair, common pitfalls, and how to make sessions productive.
Great Engineering
Coding is not just another job. In the right environment it is fun, and even a hobby. On levelling up your craft on purpose.
Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing
Tuckman's five stages, and practical strategies for each one: forming, storming, norming, performing and adjourning.
Crucial Conversations
The tools to handle life's hardest conversations: say what is on your mind and still reach the resolution you want.
Unhealthy Working Environment
An unhealthy working environment can have various symptoms that negatively impact both the physical and mental well-being of employees.
It's Your Ship
Michael Abrashoff on how he transformed the performance and culture of the USS Benfold, and the leadership principles behind it.
How Do You Get Everyone on Board?
From my talk at the WeAreDevelopers World Congress: my experience with Extreme Programming and the benefits of embracing change.
Agile Project Management
Waterfall projects ran over budget and shipped software nobody wanted to use. In 2001, a 68-word manifesto changed that.
Effective Remote Work
An effective remote work environment is about treating everyone as remote, with everyone in mind having the same level, equality, and information.
Introducing a New Tech Stack
Introducing a new tech stack affects everyone, so it needs a clear why and a strategy the whole team can get behind.
Great Leadership
As organizations grow, leaders must shift focus from customers to employees. Key principles for scaling leadership effectively.
Adapt or die
Told through the story of People First IT, this book lays out The Algorithm of Success for changing every part of an organization.
The infinite game
From the bestselling author of Start With Why and Leaders Eat Last, a bold framework for leadership in today's ever-changing world.
Interview About XP and Agile
My interview with devm.io regarding Agile and Extreme Programming. Agile is more about HOW you do certain things, rather than WHAT things you do.
Ignoring Scrum to Get More Agile?
Boring meetings are killing agile. When the process stops helping the team and starts owning it instead.
Working Agile with Non-Agile Teams
You apply the extreme programming values and practices. So how do you work with the teams around you that are not agile?
Different Beliefs About Software Quality
What to do when working on "bad software" and you can't improve it because it is against the beliefs of your peers? Should you change the company?
Dare to lead
Leadership is not about titles or power. It is about recognising potential in people and developing it. Courage over comfort.
The Beauty of Leadership
Leadership is action, not a title. It has nothing to do with management or hierarchy. What it really means and how anyone can lead.
Understanding People
One of the most complicated challenges for everyone is avoiding misunderstandings and being aware that other people don't think the same way as you do.
The Great CEO Within
How to scale from startup to company with a system of accountability, real problem solving and transparent feedback.
The Path to Seniority in Software
Real seniority goes beyond job titles. It's about impact, mentoring others, owning outcomes, and raising the bar for your entire team.
Bikeshedding
Bikeshedding explains why teams waste time on trivial decisions while ignoring complex, important ones. Learn to recognize and avoid it.
Dunbar Number
Dunbar's number is a suggested cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships.
The Power of Authority and Obedience
Milgram wanted to know how far people obey an order that means harming someone else. What he found, and why it still matters.
Modern CTO
Joel Beasley maps the jagged transition from developer to CTO: the challenges, the lessons and the things worth avoiding.
Leaders Eat Last
A company's real strength is never its products. It is its people, and their willingness to rally together when it gets hard.
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team
A leadership fable about a tech company whose C level cannot agree on anything, and the new CEO who names the five dysfunctions.
Start with Why
Why are some organizations more innovative and profitable? Why do so few repeat their success? Sinek starts from the why.
Leadership is Language
Marquet dives into the sinking of the El Faro and surfaces with new ideas on how the language we use defines our leadership.
Turn the Ship Around!
Marquet turned the submarine Santa Fe around by moving from leader-follower to leader-leader. On the limits of top-down hierarchy.
Responsibilities of a Tech Lead
The Trident Career Model by Patrick Kua has three tracks. Each track represents where people spend most of their time or energy.
Become an Effective Software Engineering Manager
A solid compilation for engineering managers: 1:1s, performance reviews, hiring and firing, politics and remote work.
Conformity Experiments
How far do social forces bend your opinion? What matters more: the size of the majority or its unanimity. Asch's experiments, explained.
Peopleware
Software development is about people: when, how and where they work best together. Not about languages, tools or fast machines.
The Art of Leadership
Leadership practices are small things done repetitively over time. Managers tell you where you are, leaders tell you where you're going.
97 Things Every Engineering Manager should know
As a manager your work is to create clarity, clarity, and more clarity.
Pull Requests vs Pair Programming
Let's talk about the benefits of Pull Requests and Pair Programming, and my thoughts on these after some years of experience with them.
Sharing Your Git Patches
Discover another way of sharing suggestions with your development team.
Never split the difference
Chris Voss, former FBI lead kidnapping negotiator, on negotiation techniques tested across the full spectrum of human stakes.
The Manager Path
Camille Fournier maps the path from engineer to CTO: 1:1s, mentoring, and what changes at each level of technical leadership.
Extreme Programming Explained
Kent Beck on XP, the most specific agile framework about engineering practice, and how it raises software and team quality.
How to Improve Your Tech-Talk (or Any Other Presentation)
We have all sat through a talk that was hard to follow. How to prepare and deliver a tech talk people actually want to hear.
The Clean Coder
Uncle Bob on professional behaviour in software: time management, handling pressure, TDD, and what a craftsman actually owes.
How to improve your tech talk
How to get on a stage and talk to 5, 50 or 500 people. What it actually takes to prepare and deliver a talk worth hearing.