Daily Bookmarks to GAVNet 02/11/2021

Daily Bookmarks to GAVNet 02/20/2021

Daily Bookmarks to GAVNet 12/31/2020

Daily Bookmarks to GAVNet 01/15/2021

The MD guide to the top 40 household ornaments of our youth. In order.

Number 40.

The onyx cigarette box and matching lighter.

Box always empty. Lighter never worked.

Number 39.

The sinister mantle clock.

Number 38

The wondrous motion lamp

Number 37

The flintlock pistol lighter. Always going missing from the stand. Always found in the toy box.

Number 36

The curious castanets hung on a big hook.

So, here's my contrarian take on Why Trunk-Based Development Is Great But Probably Won't Work For You. Buckle up, it's a long one.

From time to time I talk about, or boost someone else's discussion of, "classical" continuous integration/trunk-based development/push-to-master/whatever. I do this because I've personally worked like this and I genuinely think it's a marvelous way to write software.

I've also, at this point in my career, failed—a bunch of times!—to bring this technique into practical use on the teams and organizations I've worked with. As a result, while I still do it myself, I don't focus as much on encouraging it in others.

The technoculture that's presently in vogue is what I think of as async/individual—optimize for the individual, performance-manage the individual, decouple the individual from others so they can be their best, most productive, most heroic selves.

This is in contrast to what I think of as sync/team—a culture that leans into interdependence and collaboration. If you've never worked on a team that collaborates very closely every day for months or years on end (and likes it) you've likely not experienced a team like this.

"The engineers on my team just want to code. They don't want to have anything to do with product. They just want specs. What do I do?"

1/n Are you asking them do to X *and* do their "day job" as defined by their managers (and frankly your roadmap) ?

If so, start there...

2/n Do they have a reason to believe that doing X will in any way improve the quality of the product and make their lives easier? Have they ever seen X "work" ?

Show don't tell.

3/n Is there average day/week a quagmire of unnecessary meetings, wading through tech debt, struggling to get *anything* to work ... and jumping through process hoops to prove their worth?

If so...no they will not have bandwidth.

4/n How do incentives work on the engineering team? Maybe they want to help, but their "grade" is determined by something altogether different.

"I'd love to, but I am on the hook to deliver [some project] this quarter to make a good impression..."

Talk to eng management.

5/n Have they had any time to practice?

Or did they get thrown into the deep end the first time they were given a shot ... expected to brainstorm on demand, be as vocal as practiced PdMs and designers, and "participate" !

Make it safe to practice. Reasonable expectations.

1/ The reality is that when Boehner and McConnell joined the Democrats in 2010, to thwart the impact of the tea party, they broke trust with the base.

The evils committed by Ravi Zacharias were enabled by a toxic organizational leadership that is evidenced by how these same leaders responded when confronted about the widespread and ongoing abuses being perpetrated by the namesake of the institution. 1/29

Please take time to read this piece by @DavideAFrench and the 26-page letter written by a first-hand witness. Here are just some of the excerpts: 2/29

"At one point, Ravi suggested to me that the Task Force “issue a statement that they [the Thompsons] are hooligans, they are scoundrels, they are thugs, they are serial extortioners.” If we didn’t do that, he told me, he would ask his attorney to do so on his behalf." 3/29

"...I distinctly recall Ravi & Sanj mocking the Thompsons’ marriage & scornfully predicting how soon Brad & Lori Anne would get divorced. “I predict their marriage won’t survive the year,” Ravi asserted with laughter. “A year?” replied Sanj. “I wouldn’t give it six months!” 4/29

"In 2017, in the early stages of his RICO against the Thompsons, Ravi would often invoke Kelly [his attorney], making statements such as “my attorney said we are going to crush them.”" 5/29