Programming with Palermo

By: Jeffrey Palermo
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  • Summary

  • You deliver software. That's what you do. And it can be frustrating when things take too long, when bugs pop up, or when things break in production. But you have what it takes. Programming with Palermo can help improve your confidence by delivering timeless knowledge, moving unnecessary obstacles, and regaining excellence within your development team; opening up to their full potential. Simply - simplify!
    2022
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Episodes
  • Lowering Developer Onboarding Costs- Episode 34

    Lowering Developer Onboarding Costs- Episode 34
    Apr 17 2023

    You can find the code used in this video at the Clear Measure github

    In this episode, Jeffrey shares how to lower developer onboarding costs

    Situation

    Custom software is inherently expensive but there are plenty of easy things that your team can do to reduce those costs. I'm going to talk about one of them that aids tremendously when it comes to adding or replacing a developer on your software team. That is the one click build.

    Mission

    Anyone overseeing a software team cares about quality, efficiency and productivity. These are important because they translate directly to labor costs. Software teams are already expensive. What really hurts is when the team has suboptimal processes that balloon already high costs. When a new developer joins a team, many spend days or weeks onboarding until he can start working on the code and contributing code changes. It doesn't have to be this way. You should expect a new developer to be able to contribute code changes on the first day.

    Execution

    Let's go through a scenario. A new developer is ramping up on the team and he is eager to start making contributions. He wants to get the code up and running on his computer quickly. So, what's the first thing we do? We clone the repository from source control and then try to run the application. Invariably this fails. Why? Well, first off, there's plenty of dependencies that the local developers workstation doesn't have.  Namely, the SQL Server database and then probably several other dependencies that must be installed or must be set up in a certain way. The experienced members of the team have these steps memorized in their heads but of course, this is super secret tribal knowledge to the newcomer. Maybe there is a documented list of things that are necessary for proper developer workstation setup. If the list is kept properly then the new developer can follow the steps and get the application working. What invariably happens every time is that a more tenured member of your software team takes time out and helps the new developer get the software running on his workstation. You're always going to have the overhead of explaining to the new developer what the application is and how it's put together and the thought process behind it, but the time that is wasted is just the mechanics of getting the application running on a new workstation. This cost also exists when an existing team member is setting up a new computer. When setting up a new computer for the first time, the same setup has to happen.

    It's all unnecessary. What you should expect from your team is that the new computer or new team member experience is quick and automatic. The process should be two steps. First, clone the source code. Second, run a single command and then the application works. The one click build, as it is called, is a very simple script that checks for the needed dependencies on the local computer and installs them. If it's a dependency that does not have an unattended install, then it can prompt the developer with a clear error message with what software needs to be installed. But in today's day and age, most developer dependencies can be installed automatically. The most basic of these is the SQL Server database that all net applications connect to. Even small microservices are responsible for their piece of data and require some type of data store to be set up. 

    Conclusion

    To conclude, expect new software team members to contribute code changes immediately. Equipping them with the right onboarding process is your key to this reality. And a one-click build is a tool no software team should be without.

     

    Thanks to Clear Measure for sponsoring this sample and episode of Programming with Palermo.

    This program is syndicated on many channels. To send a question or comment to the show, email programming@palermo.network. We’d love to hear from you.

     

    To use the private and confidential Chaplain service, use the following:
    Gentleman: 512-619-6950
    Lady: 512-923-8178
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    13 mins
  • How to Measure a Software Team- Episode 33

    How to Measure a Software Team- Episode 33
    Feb 23 2023
    In this episode, Jeffrey shares how to measure a software team. Situation  Many software team lead architects don't implement management practices that are standard in other parts of the business. Whether it be OKRs (Objective, Key Results), EOS, Scaling Up's Scoreboard, or Kaplan's Balanced Scorecard, business measurement has long been a staple of ensuring that a part of a business was functioning well. But executives overseeing software teams often don't have a tool for measuring the effectiveness of a team or an entire software department. Mission Anyone overseeing a software group of any kind needs a way to measure the effectiveness of that group. Let's zoom down to a single software team and look at what must be measured at a minimum for a single software team. Once the measures are identified, the team can then report them weekly to the appropriate layer of management. And just like every other department, if the measures are aligned with business objectives, then the reports can be relied on to know that the objectives are on track to be accomplished. Execution The tool you need in order to measure a software team is a good, old-fashioned scorecard. It's not high-tech. Every business methodology in the last 3 decades has employed some format of the scorecard for the purposes of measurements that are tracked over time and given thresholds of acceptable values. We'll go over the Clear Measure Way scorecard template and how to use it. Mental Model From cash flow forecasts to sales pipelines and order shipping, most businesses are used to tracking numbers weekly. Some numbers are tracked monthly, but in software, weekly is better aligned with the normal flow of a software team. You can obtain the Clear Measure Way scorecard template for free from the Clear Measure website. It's a Microsoft Excell worksheet. The first tab is the scorecard itself. The next tab is instructions for how to use the scorecard. It comes prepopulated with the minimum suggested measures for a software team. As you become more comfortable with it, you'll undoubtedly add more measures to it. The researched DORA metrics are part of our minimum, so you'll find those on the scorecard. At the top of the scorecard template, you'll find a link to a tutorial article that explains how to use the scorecard and how the Excel template is put together. Each week, you'll have the team populate the numbers in the column that represents the current week. Over time, you'll probably choose to hide the rows in the past so that you can glance at the current week and probably the trailing 12 weeks, thereby getting a good glance as a rolling quarter of performance. Team Alignment The measures on the scorecard are divided by the pillars of the Clear Measure Way but are preceded by a Team Alignment section. We suggest that the software team's scorecard include the top-level business measures that are managed by the executive overseeing the team. Without tracking the impact the software team is making in the business, it's easy to become misaligned with business objectives. If you don't already have these quarterly targets, I'd invite you to use the free Team Alignment Template, also provided by the Clear Measure Way. We have plenty of information about how to align a software team to become effective. Once it's clear what the team is trying to accomplish, add those few measures to the scorecard. If the measures have an acceptable threshold, add that into column F. This will cause the auto highlighting to work, coloring green for numbers within the thresholds and red for numbers outside the threshold. Establishing quality The first pillar we suggest you measure is quality. This should be the first priority of any software team. Without it, a team cannot be effective. Without consistently high quality, the team will constantly be circling back to diagnose, analyze, and fix defects. This tends to accumulate, and teams without quality end up having little time left over to actually work on new features or valuable changes. We recommend a few essentials when it comes to measuring quality. - Defects Caught - Defects Escaped - Defects Repaired - Mean Time to Resolve Ultimately, you want zero defects to escape into production. But you also want to track the defects caught before production. Think about it, every time to move a card to the left on your work tracking board, that signifies a problem that has to go backward in your process to be corrected. That's a defect. Track it. Achieving stability The stability pillar looks at what is happening with software running in a production environment, serving customers. Two of the DORA metrics live here as well as a couple of others. Our goal is to empower our team to deploy changes frequently to production and at any time during the week, all without business disruptions. Additionally, we want to know that the software runs in a way that supports the users, again, without business disruption. Software spends ...
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    14 mins
  • How an Executive Oversees a Software Team- Episode 32

    How an Executive Oversees a Software Team- Episode 32
    Feb 9 2023
    In this episode, Jeffrey shared how an executive oversees a software team Situation Our industry struggles mightily with failed software projects. On average half of the projects still fail. Failure is defined as the executive who authorized the budget wishing he hadn't. The project is so over budget and so over schedule, that the company would be better off having never started it. Even in the middle of these projects, executives can feel powerless to abort it for fear of sunk costs. And without knowing the right questions to ask or the right reports to demand, the executive in charge doesn't feel in charge at all. He's left choosing between trusting the team still longer or the nuclear option to scan the entire thing. Mission Right now, if you are an executive overseeing a software group, I want to equip you with the tools to do that well. If you work in a software team, use this video to give your software executive the information he needs to know the project is on track or the insight to know what the team needs to do a good job. From here out, though, I'll call you the software executive. Even if you've never programmed any code, you are running a software team. Their success will steer your future career, so this is important. Don't keep going on faith. Don't proceed merely trusting that someone else reporting to you knows how to do your oversight job for you. Lean in. And I'll give you the questions to ask, the tools to use, and the practices to deploy so that you can safely guide your software project to success. And most importantly, if your current software project is veering toward failure, I'm going to empower you to stop the bleeding and get it back on track. Execution Before diving into the guidance, I want to paint a mental model for you. Think of every other department in the company. Think of every group. Think of every team branch on the org chart. Each one of them is responsible for delivering some output valuable to the business. And each of these teams also needs some inputs in order to deliver those outputs. And if the outputs are not delivered, the team's leader is typically replaced. And the leaders who excel are the ones that can set up the team members for success. Mental Model The factory is arranged well and operates efficiently every day in a safe manner. The assembly line flows at a good speed with incoming materials being delivered at the right cadence to keep going. Quality issues are prevented and detected very early. Hourly and daily throughput measures are tallied and reported up the management chain. Quality and throughput measures are paired with acceptable thresholds and established as a standard with better numbers as stretch targets. Then, the executive in charge ensures that the factory or assembly line is organized in a way where each team member understands the job and what activities it will take to meet the targets. What we don't do is declare a building to be a manufacturing plant, ask a team to come to work inside it, and then come back to check in a month later. The people we staff on the team are typically not the same people needed in order to design the process for how the team should work. And Scrum has done the industry a disservice by spreading the notion of self-organizing teams. Even the certified ScrumMasters are trained to ask the team what they want to do and then work to remove blocking issues to what they want to do. This isn't leadership. Only when a team is working in an efficient manner can the lower-level details be turned over for self-organization. An appropriate leader (you) is always necessary to put the overall structure in place for the team so that real measurable throughput can build momentum. I started out with a factory and assembly line analogy. And many knowledge workers will rightfully object that the nature of the work is different. And it is. Earlier in my career, I was one of the self-organization promoters, and I was banging the drum about knowledge work being inestimable or unmeasurable. But speaking for myself, what I liked most about that message was that it gave me space to dive into the work without having to report up as much. It gave me more space as a programmer. But what it didn't produce was less risk for the executive who authorized the project budget in the first place. This challenge exists in all the fields of knowledge work as well. Managerial accountants and CPAs also have tough problems that don't have rote solutions. The rote solutions have been automated away by good accounting software. But if your CPA takes forever to figure something out and then bills you twice as much as what you budgeted, you still have a problem. Sales is another area that has some similarities with the "magic" of software development. You want a certain pace of sales. And the staff just wants to get to work. But seasoned sales executives know that without a good sales team process, closed sales won't happen. And even enterprise...
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    46 mins

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