Expert DORA Tips; Applying Modularization; Your Brain Loves Breaks; Share Intentions Early
Issue #19 Bytes
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âșïž Typo Webinar: The Hows & Whats of DORA ft. DevOps expert, Bryan Finster
Typo was on-air with 2nd session of "The Hows and Whats of DORA" webinar, featuring DORA & DevOps expert, Bryan Finster, an exception Value Stream Architect at Defense Unicorns and co-author of 'How to Misuse and Abuse DORA Metrics', and Richard Pangborn, Manager of Software Development at Method
This session focused on understanding DORA metrics as indicators of overall health rather than set goals. It included an engaging Q&A segment that addressed audience queries. Bryan and Richard concluded by offering valuable advice on leveraging observability effectively and ensuring that metrics drive genuine improvements rather than merely satisfying compliance requirements. They both stressed the need for a supportive culture that views metrics as tools for growth instead of sources of pressure. Get to the full webinar recording below :
Article of the Week â
Simplification Through Modularization
Modularization is more than just a technical decisionâit is a management tool that enables a shift from top-down to center-out leadership â Mirek Stanek
Mirek Stanek breaks down how modularization simplifies complex systems. Breaking them into smaller, self-contained modules makes them easier to manage, scale, and innovate upon.
But youâve heard about this before! However, whatâs unique on Mirekâs idea is his approach to Modularization as a Leadership Strategy. Hm⊠what that?
By modularizing your systems, you create an environment where teams can operate with greater autonomy, make informed decisions, and collaborate effectively, all within a framework that aligns with the organizationâs overall goals.
Practically, modularization leaves footprints in an org, and the following evidence:
continuous delivery
usage analytics on key features
good technical observability practices
controlling rollout to separate deployments from releases (feature flags, etc.)
Lines of Communication
Avid readers will quickly find the intersection between Dunbarâs number, Team Topologies, Domain-Driven Design inspired Bounded Contexts and flow.
Amazonâs Two-Pizza-Team Rule along with similar lean approaches to team sizes in the industry are inspired by a concept called Dunbarâs number, estimated at 150.
Dunbarâs Number in social network theory is how many relationships a person can keep in their context without the relationships deteriorating significantly. But for software engineering, a key observation is that these 150 arenât qualitatively equal. They split up into different layers, like concentric rings, stronger at the core, weaker at the edges.
Mirek highlights three layers:
Support Clique: 5 core people you can turn to in a crisis. Remains stable over a long time span, even lifetime.
Sympathy Group: 15 close people, including family and friends who can reasonably understand what you are going through. These include your buddies and close peers at work.
Active Network: 50 people with whom you interact frequently, though with less emotional intimacy than those in your sympathy group. These phase in and out over time.
Designing teams such that the core collaborators form Sympathy group relationships are key for autonomy.
Aligned Autonomy
But what good is autonomy without alignment? Nobody wants hundreds of teams carrying two pizza boxes strolling off in random directions. The art of leaderships comes into play to align these autonomous teams with two key linelines:
Supportive Platforms to align Operating Procedures
A shared outlook for Strategic Objectives
When executed well, this allows Center-Out Leadership to emerge, in contrast to top-down which you no doubt have experiences as a primary friction point for burnout and lack of situational awareness.
Other highlights đ
Looking for inspiration? Do this.
Zac Beckman shares his early days as a lead developer, where biking up hills wasnât just for fitnessâit was the fuel for his best ideas.
When you're stuck on a problem, stepping away can work wonders. Turns out, science agrees: taking a walk can nearly double your creative output.
Why Your Brain Loves a Break:
Science Backs It Up: Marily Oppezzoâs research shows that a simple walk can do more for your creativity than hours of desk-staring.
Moderate Procrastination FTW: Adam Grantâs study reveals that delaying the grindâjust a littleâlets your subconscious chew on problems, leading to better, more original ideas.
Remember: Itâs not procrastination, itâs âthinking.â
So, to borrow a phrase from Marily, why not take advantage of the next 20 minutes, put your thoughts on a leash, and go for a walk?
Nostalgia moment from Denis: A startup I used to work at began in a co-working office where the trip to the bathrooms and kitchen took about 3 minutes along a long corridor. Best idea generator!
Guiding principle: Share our intentions early
Daniel Walters delights us with a tactical approach to making sure everyone in your org is up to speed with business strategy. This sets a healthy expectation of âno surprisesâ by keeping everyone transparently informed about laid out intentions.
When to Apply This Principle?
Works best when used with initiatives or changes to plans that affect other teams. This is usually experienced downstream by an increase in workload and inconvenience caused by looking for its root causes.
For example, if an IT policy change could increase workload for another department, share the intent early and seek feedback to avoid negative impacts.
How to Enable This Principle?
Communication of the Principle: Introduce the principle within leadership teams first, ensuring they embody it before rolling it out to the broader organization.
Visibility of Work/Change: Use visual management tools like Kanbans to track initiatives from inception to execution. This just makes everyoneâs life a little bit easier, but donât go overboard with analytics!
Integrating with Decision-Making: Embed into the formal decision-making processes. Update meeting charters and ensure thereâs an audit trail for decisions, making it clear how early sharing led to better outcomes.
Normalise Sharing Intent: Lead by example. As a VPE or CTO, regularly share your intentions, provide context, and engage other teams early. This keeps the habit strong and allows others to learn and pick up the principle through social learning.
Celebrate, remain proactive!
Over-communicating with compassion, rather than context dumping can be a great lubricant for remote teams that oft-experience friction and confusion. Keep the ball rolling to nearby teams wishing to adopt this principle by documenting and highlighting its impact, positive or negative, on overall communication flow, transparency and wellbeing.
đČđApparently, strawberries are extremely intelligentâŠ
OpenAI is developing a cutting-edge AI system, code-named "Strawberry," aimed at achieving human-level reasoning abilities. This breakthrough technology has the potential to transform fields such as software development and research by enabling AI to tackle complex problems and learn autonomously. While some argue that AI lacks consciousness and will never truly understand or grasp human experiences, others believe that the ultimate goal is for AI to understand humans and the world deeply, potentially managing it more effectively than we can.
What do you think?
Thatâs it for Today!
Whether youâre innovating on new projects, staying ahead of tech trends, or taking a strategic pause to recharge, may your day be as impactful and inspiring as your leadership.
See you next week(end), Ciao đ
Credits đ
Curators - Diligently curated by our community members Denis & Kovid
Writers of the week -
, ,Sponsors - This newsletter is sponsored by Typo AI - Ship reliable software faster.
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So what you are saying is if I want to enter flow state I should rub one out or drop a duece at will and not feel the need to just sit in one place?