You Cannot Buy Technical Excellence

transcript

It’s Impossible to Buy Technical ExcellenceAntti Kirjavainen

It’s really

freaking madness to try to buy for or control Technical ExcellenceAntti Kirjavainen

Photo by Casey Konstantin

Respect

From buzzfeed.com

Inbox ZeroFrom Inboxzero.com

Technical Excellence

Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility.

quality code, sound architecture, good test automation and coverage, continuous integration and continuous deployment.

Examples of Technical Excellence

Emphasis on Flow over Batches

Photo by Daniele Zedda

Photo by Daniele Zedda Infographic from People10

Jan-2013 Feb-2013 Mar-2013 Apr-2013 May-20130

Ratio of Value Adding and Fixing Work

Feature work Fixing work Number of defects

building it right

maximize delivery potential

Traditional “Solutions”

Alert!

Your organizationmight be suffering from a

Legacy mindset.Photo by Jeremiah Owyang

ProcessesAndpolicies

Test Coverage Policy: The Idea

>60% Unit Test Coverage

Regular reports

Quality

Test Coverage Policy: The Reality

Regular reports

Lots of tests doing

nothing but adding % of test coverage

Alert!

Your organizationmight be suffering from a

Legacy mindset.

Contract clauses

Contract with a Warranty Period

Development

Acceptance Testing

Support, warranty period

6 months

We’ll fix all the defects for free during these periods!We’ll fix all the defects for free during these periods!

Contract with a Warranty Period

Development

Acceptance Testing

Support, warranty period

6 months

Prioritization by Business value

High risk, low

High risk, High value

Low risk, low

Low risk, high value

Example from Real Life: The Plan

Backlog A

Feature 1

Feature 2

Feature 3

Feature 4

Feature 5

Feature 6

Backlog B

Feature 1

Feature 2

Feature 3

Feature 4

Backlog C

Feature 1

Feature 2

Feature 3

Feature 4

Feature 5

Feature 6

Feature 7

Example from Real Life: The Reality

Backlog A

Architectural feature I

Feature 1

Feature 2

Architectural feature II

Feature 3

Feature 4

Feature 5

Feature 6

Backlog B

Integration work I

Feature 1

Feature 2

Additional feature I

Feature 3

Feature 4

Backlog C

Architectural feature III

Feature 1

Feature 2

Integration work II

Feature 3

Additional feature II

Feature 4

Feature 5

Feature 6

Feature 7

Example from Real Life: The Decision

Backlog A

Architectural feature I

Feature 1

Feature 2

Feature 3

Feature 4

Feature 5

Feature 6

Backlog B

Integration work I

Feature 1

Feature 2

Additional feature I

Feature 3

Feature 4

Backlog C

Architectural feature III

Feature 1

Feature 2

Feature 3

Additional feature II

Feature 4

Feature 5

Feature 6

Feature 7

itectu

ral featu

Integration work II

Duct tape & chewing gum solutions

Old approaches do not solve the problem

Processes and policies

Business value prioritization

Contract clauses

High risk, low

Low risk, low

Traditional Management Paradigm:Extrinsic motivation

Desire to achieve goal GReward result RAssume R leads to G

Problems with non-linear effects

From Management 3.0 by Jurgen Appelo

Non-linear effects in SW dev

We are here

New Management Paradigm:Intrinsic motivation

Desire to achieve goal GWhere G is its own reward

No non-linear effects

Nurturing Technical Excellence

Photo by D Sharon Pruitt

Intrinsic Motivation

From buzzfeed.com

Understanding

SkillsFrom Inboxzero.com

Autonomy

Discipline

Antti Leinonen, Sirkus Magenta, photo by Tuomas Stenbäck

MotivationUnderstandingSkillsAutonomyDiscipline

Requires

Contracting Point of View

Shared

Motivation

Understanding

Discipline

Trust enables

Autonomy

Contractor brings

Skills

+Understanding

+Discipline

Good Patterns

Contracting

Contractor dev team

IT (customer)

Business (customer)

Contracting: Lead from customer

Contractor dev team

IT (customer)

Business (customer)

Joint dev team

IT (customer)

Business (customer)

Who should define indicators / metrics?

DevelopersBusiness

IT / architectsManagers

Test Coverage Policy

Regular reports

Lots of tests doing

nothing but adding % of test coverage

What would the Experts choose instead?

Leading Indicators

Lagging Indicators

Technical Quality

Sound Architecture

Developers

Let excellence grow in circles or guilds!

Team A

Team C

Team B

Team D

DevOps Circle

Team A Team B

Team C Team D

Houston Inc. Frontend Circle

Frontend Circle

Board ofdirectors

Houston Personn

Customers & sales

invest

Outside world

Houston Inc.

ProtosTraining

Feedback

Visibility

Outside frontend

Conferences + events

Involve devs on left side of value stream

Initiatives Validation Portfolio Backlog Preparation Developme

nt Deploy Learn

developersbusiness IT / architects

nt Deploy Learn

Options for solution

Concept

Breakdown of Work

Vision

Business Goals

Capabilities

Features

Adapted from BDD in the Large by Liz Keogh

Option for Solution Study

Goal Who HowWhat

Deliverable

Impact Mapping

From Impact Mapping by Gojko Adzic

Impact Mapping

Goal Who How What

Improve time to market of big

features in service A

Developers

Do major refactoring of the

Refactor high-priority areas

Do a complete rewrite of the

system

Build new system

Do the data migration

Replace the backend with a

new system

Build API over backend

Develop new backend for high-

priority stuff

BusinessLimit new features in progress

Prioritize new feature requests

Impact Mapping

Improve time to market of big

features in service A

Developers

Do major refactoring of the

Refactor high-priority areas

Do a complete rewrite of the

system

Build new system

Do the data migration

Replace the backend with a

new system

Build API over backend

Develop new backend for high-

priority stuff

BusinessLimit new features in progress

Prioritize new feature requests

Goal Who How What

Things to Consider

Hiring

Picking a contractor

Individuals and interactions

Close collaboration

Get to know your prospective contracting developers well

Conclusions

building it right

maximize delivery potential

Jan-2013 Feb-2013 Mar-2013 Apr-2013 May-20130

Ratio of Value Adding and Fixing Work

Feature work Fixing work Number of defects

Old approaches do not solve the problem

Processes and policies

Business value prioritization

Contract clauses

High risk, low

Low risk, low

Traditional Management Paradigm:Extrinsic motivation

Desire to achieve goal GReward result RAssume R leads to G

Problems with non-linear effects

New Management Paradigm:Intrinsic motivation

Desire to achieve goal GWhere G is its own reward

No non-linear effects

Intrinsic Motivation

From buzzfeed.com

Understanding

Inbox ZeroFrom Inboxzero.com

Autonomy

Discipline

Antti Leinonen, Sirkus Magenta, photo by Tuomas Stenbäck

Contracting Point of View

Shared

Motivation

Understanding

Discipline

Trust enables

Autonomy

Contractor brings

Skills

+Understanding

+Discipline

Joint dev team

IT (customer)

Business (customer)

Involve devs in choosing indicators

Leading Indicators

Lagging Indicators

Technical Quality

Sound Architecture

Developers

DevOps Circle

Team A Team B

Team C Team D

nt Deploy Learn

Options for solution

Concept

Hiring

MotivationUnderstanding

Discipline

Skills Motivation Understanding Discipline

Nurture Technical Excellence

Photo by D Sharon Pruitt

Maximize the ImpactPhoto by Spettacolopuro

Thank you for your attention

Antti Kirjavainenantti.kirjavainen@houston-inc.com@anttiki

http://www.slideshare.net/AnttiKirjavainen/http://learninggamedev.wordpress.com/http://www.houston-inc.com/