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Category Archives: Coaching

SpringOne 2019 Links

09 Wednesday Oct 2019

Posted by claire in Coaching, Context, Developer Experience, Events, Personas, Speaking, SpringOne2019, Training, User Experience

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Thanks to everyone who came to our Time to Good DX presentation!

Time to Good DX

We often hear focus on the customer, but what do you do when you
customers are your coworkers? Developers are the largest group of
individual contributors in software teams. It’s about time Developer
Experience (DX) got the focus it deserves! Devs are users, too!
Wouldn’t it be great if your user needs were met?

DevNexus – TimeToGoodDX – HandoutDownload

I know an hour isn’t enough time to delve deeply into this area, so here are some links to help you to explore this important subset of UX!

Articles

Time to Hello World and this

Drink your own champagne

API docs as affordance and this

Communication and this

Development pain points

Characteristics of good DX

Great APIs – heuristic analysis

Developers as a special case of users

Product management in platform products and in API products

API model canvas

(Vanilla UX)

UX personas

Presentations

Great DX in 5 minutes!

Platform as Product

More platform as product

DX Segments

DX Principles

DX Trends

UX tools for Developer users

Lean Enterprise

Reports

Developer Skills [PDF]

Podcasts

Don’t Make Me Code

Greater than Code

Tooling

git-utils

assertj-swagger

Examples of DX

Jest automation framework

Netflix DX

Faster deployment

Visualizing metrics

Stripe API docs

Twilio API docs

Open source triage

Apigee DX

Salesforce DX and this

Work Horde, Play Horde

02 Monday Sep 2019

Posted by claire in Coaching, DeliverAgile2018, Events, Experiences, Experiments, Mob Programming, Protip, Publications, Soft Skills, Speaking

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I recently hosted a Magic-the-Gathering-themed tween party for 8 players.

Yes, you read that correctly. 8 players in a format I later learned is called Free-for-All (a.k.a. Circle). Little did I know that most MTG games were smaller, with an “epic” game being maybe 6 players… 🤦

While my husband did some excellent turn-based coaching for the new players – about half of the assembled – I noticed something essential was wrong. The kids were disengaged from the game unless it was their turn to play. Considering they’ve been rabid Pokémon fans, I couldn’t understand how they could completely check-out from a “grown up” monster beatdown game…

Then it dawned on me: the turn rotation was too long. The kids had enough time between turns to be restless from the sugaring-up and general high energy of being together outside of school.

This distraction is the same issue that I’ve seen with attempts at mob programming!

For any reasonably sized team (let’s assume <= “2 pizzas”) trying to mob program, short turns are essential. In fact, I’m not sure that group size figures into the turn duration calculation – short turns are just better!

How long is too long? For me, 15 minutes! Bias yourself to less than 10 minutes, preferably 2-5 minute turns. I’m aware that at-a-glance this feels absurd, but let me explain.

The basics of mob programming are 3+ people programming together at a single computer with 1 person directing the current activity, 1 person hands-on executing the current activity, and 1 person observing/commenting/contributing from the “mob” crowd seated around the computer. (In some descriptions, the “mob” may also be considered as part of directing the activity, but 1 person makes the decision about what to do/try next, so I prefer to differentiate between these roles.) Unlike strong-style paired programming, these roles are insufficient to be mob programming: for a mob, you must also have rotation!

As “circus performers” (a.k.a. mob programming facilitators) for Bryan & Bill’s Three-Ring Design Circus at deliver:Agile 2018, my pair Tim Ottinger and I instituted a 5 minute rotation schedule for our mob of conference session attendees (read: strangers). Our task was test-driven development (TDD) and refactoring of a sample programming project.

Short rotations encouraged:

  • low barrier-to-entry experimentation with TDD and mobbing
  • selecting and trying an idea quickly
  • refining communication patterns
  • collective ownership of goals
  • fast feedback

Tim and I were a bit more merciful with our 5 minute rotations in that we encouraged participants to continue the execution of the previous driver where another “circus performer” insisted on a fresh start (read: deleting code) when TDD automation wasn’t passing/green at the end of a 2 minute rotation (the hard-core strategy of one of our other performers). So much excitement!

In the workplace, over the years, I have participated in pseudo-mobs wherein a single programmer or a pair of programmers consult another team member on particularly challenging aspect of a programming problem. Often, this results in another programming team member chiming in with insight or advice and now we have an amorphous gathering around a single programming work station where the work is being implemented. This is even more likely when the consulted team member is also paired programming (i.e. 2+ pairs collaborating on a complex issue in the code).

While pseudo-mobs definitely help with resolving an issue, we miss out on some of the benefits of the mob structure:

  • explicit statements of intent through navigator-driver pattern
  • everyone having hands-on time implementing a solution
  • everyone directly participating in the decision-making and experimentation
  • single piece flow / avoiding merge conflicts (since only 1 unit of work in-progress)
  • novice or new team members developing shared understanding and receiving training opportunities from the explicit exchange of multiple points of view and potential solutions

Now back to the Magic game! Upon reflection, how would I have changed the game play to optimize for faster turns/better rotation?

The common wisdom seems to be smaller groups for quicker decision-making and turn progression, e.g. 2 player (1v1) games or team play (e.g. 2-headed giant, emperor).

I could also imagine a simplification of rules for younger/newer players to lower the barrier to entry…

  • Maybe removing the complexity of the “advanced topics”
  • Constructing “beginner” decks without cards that have complex abilities/rules
  • Visible structure or cues, e.g. instructional playmats for easy reference along the way

Upon further investigation, I discovered a co-operative format for MTG: Horde Magic!

All the players form a group working to defeat an automated “horde” deck. The team members all take their turn together to attack and block. (This reminds me a lot of the mob programming format with a product team assembled to “defeat” a difficult software problem.)

In Horde Magic, if some aspect of game-play isn’t fun or isn’t working well within the rules, the team members come to a consensus as to what works best for them. (The mob can iterate on their working agreements as they work through the problem in order to work more effectively together.)

Given what I know so far, I’m looking forward to trying some new things, both at work and at play. Having a good mobbing experience takes a bit of planning and some skillful facilitation, but it’s the game for everyone!

Attending to networks

06 Tuesday Aug 2019

Posted by claire in Approaches, Change Agent, Coaching, Context, Experiments, Soft Skills

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Martin Grandjean [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)]

I have been following Esther Derby with interest for years. I find her wise counsel refreshing and I admire her ability to connect deeply with attendees at conferences and training sessions. You can imagine my excitement upon finding her new book 7 Rules for Positive, Productive Change in my mailbox!

I sat down that evening and applied my customary approach to getting the lay of the land: starting with the index and moving backward to the table of contents. I had one major problem: I kept getting caught on helpful diagrams and interesting anecdotes. Still, I managed to charter a line of inquiry that led me to deep-dive in several parts of the book: networks of relationships in organizations and how they influence the success of change. I didn’t realize how long I’d been at reading up on Rule 4 until I looked up to see it was past midnight!

I love the idea of change by attraction. Change that people want to be part of is the kind of change I want to be an agent of. As I’ve previously written, I have sometimes seen an attitude of “not invented here” that corresponds to the “It won’t work here” argument that Esther’s approach debunks. Experimentation within the walls produces examples of what can work in this context.

I agree with a heuristic approach to figuring things out, so I wondered about the “rules” part of this book’s title. Happily, Esther recognizes that these rules are for “learning and problem-solving, especially when a bit of trial and error is involved… when there isn’t an obvious path.” Accordingly, I found helpful heuristics to guide my questioning when trying to understand how to help others with change.

In particular, I’ve become quite curious about the informal networks that quickly spread ideas, the people “whose opinions are trusted and respected and whom people go to for advice.” I couldn’t help geeking out about the graph theory aspects of the organizational network analysis (ONA), but strategies to “reshape the network to make it more useful both for sharing information about the teams and for sharing ideas and expertise” really got my attention. So I ordered a spare copy of this book to share with my local network.

I’m already thinking up different experiments that I might try to increase information sharing and connectedness of communities, both at work and among professional contacts. Now that my initial investigation has been fruitful, I’ve switched to working my way methodically through each page of the 7 Rules for Change and it’s helping me to sort out and prioritize those potential interventions. Providing more serendipity and more informal opportunities to connect with each other matters to me – and I’m so glad to have Esther’s insights to help guide my exploration. As she says, “Heuristics point a way, and methods and models guide action.”

DevNexus 2019 links

20 Wednesday Mar 2019

Posted by claire in Coaching, Context, Developer Experience, DevNexus2019, Events, Personas, Speaking, Training, User Experience

≈ Leave a Comment

Thanks to everyone who came to our Time to Good DX presentation!

Time to Good DX

We often hear focus on the customer, but what do you do when you
customers are your coworkers? Developers are the largest group of
individual contributors in software teams. It’s about time Developer
Experience (DX) got the focus it deserves! Devs are users, too!
Wouldn’t it be great if your user needs were met?

DevNexus – TimeToGoodDX – HandoutDownload
Time to Good DX from Claire Moss

I know an hour isn’t enough time to delve deeply into this area, so here are some links to help you to explore this important subset of UX!

Articles

Time to Hello World and this

Drink your own champagne

API docs as affordance and this

Communication and this

Development pain points

Characteristics of good DX

Great APIs – heuristic analysis

Developers as a special case of users

Product management in platform products and in API products

API model canvas

(Vanilla UX)

UX personas

Presentations

Great DX in 5 minutes!

Platform as Product

More platform as product

DX Segments

DX Principles

DX Trends

UX tools for Developer users

Lean Enterprise

Reports

Developer Skills [PDF]

Podcasts

Don’t Make Me Code

Greater than Code

Tooling

git-utils

assertj-swagger

Examples of DX

Jest automation framework

Netflix DX

Faster deployment

Visualizing metrics

Stripe API docs

Twilio API docs

Open source triage

Apigee DX

Salesforce DX and this

Agile Testing Days USA links

27 Wednesday Jun 2018

Posted by claire in Agile, Agile Testing Days USA, Approaches, Coaching, Context, Experiences, Experiments, Exploratory Testing, Podcast, Publications, Soft Skills, Speaking, Training

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Refactoring Test Collaboration from Claire Moss

Here are some resources we’re using in my Agile Testing Days USA workshop Refactoring Test Collaboration

Slides

Abstract

Collective ownership for testing starts with understanding testing. Rework your team dynamics to evolve past duplication and improve performance through whole team testing. Take home practical patterns for improving your team’s collaboration on testing. Because teams who own testing have more confidence in the customer value of their results.

As the Pragmatic Programmers say, “refactoring is an activity that needs to be undertaken slowly, deliberately, and carefully,” so how do we begin? In this session, we will experience the complex interactions of an agile team focused on demonstrating customer value by answering a series a questions:

  • Where do testers get their ideas?
  • How are you planning to accomplish this proposed testing, tester?
  • Why not automate all the things?
  • Who is going to do this manual testing and how does it work?
  • How do we know whether we’re testing the right things?

Build your own list of TODOs from these various practical collaboration approaches and begin deduping your team’s testing for a better first day back at the office.

Key-Learning

  • Approaches to handle objections to executing the testing work
  • Ways to mentor test helpers, including pairing
  • Investing in testing the team believes in
  • Understand how other team members have been testing the work so far
  • Advising on opportunities to inject test thinking into all of the team activities, from story writing through to unit testing, to make the system more testable

Resources

Refactoring

Collaboration + failing at collaboration

WHOSE testing skills + Exploratory testing + Elisabeth Hendrickson’s Test Heuristics Cheat Sheet [PDF] + book Explore It!

Agile Manifesto

Walking Skeletons, Butterflies, & Islands + my blog post elaborating on the conference

Big Visible Testing + my blog post elaborating on the presentation

Testing pyramid + critique of the testing pyramid/alternatives

Extreme programming lifecycle

eBook: Katrina Clokie’s A Practical Guide to Testing in DevOps + Role mapping

Westrum model + organizational culture & safety

Linda Rising’s change patterns & books on Fearless Change

Deployment pipeline

High Performance Practices [PDF] + book Accelerate

Continuous Testing

Empathy-Driven Development + empathy practices

Many interactive aspects of my workshop were inspired by Sharon Bowman’s book Training From the Back of the Room

facilitation book Collaboration Explained

metrics book Measuring and managing performance in organizations

book Testing Extreme Programming + some follow-up thoughts

Soon to come! Claire Moss on Let’s Talk About Tests, Baby podcast

deliver:Agile2018 Links

02 Wednesday May 2018

Posted by claire in Agile, Coaching, DeliverAgile2018, Design, Experiences, Experiments, Exploratory Testing, Publications, Speaking, Training

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Beyond Waste: Exploratory Charters in Action from Claire Moss

Here are the links we’re using in my deliver:Agile2018 workshop Beyond Waste: Exploratory Testing Charters in Action

Slides

Abstract:
Think manual testing is waste? Think again! If you’re not learning when you’re testing, you’re doing it wrong! People exploring systems can be your best defense against unknown problems and your greatest way of finding unexpected opportunities.
While automation is well adapted for repeating the same thing over and over again, human beings are great at doing things differently.
Doing is not enough! We need to think during our review and examination processes to improve outcomes. How do we design manual exploration to provide value in today’s fast-moving development culture?
Come to this workshop for hands-on experience with the full lifecycle of exploratory testing charters.

Learning Outcomes:

  • Structuring manual exploratory testing for transparency
  • Charter guidance during test execution
  • Outcomes of exploratory testing
  • Value delivery through debrief of testing session

Elisabeth Hendrickson’s Test Heuristics Cheat Sheet [PDF]

Which world do you prefer?

UI: https://xkpasswd.net/

UI: http://correcthorsebatterystaple.net

UI: http://password.optionfactory.net/

NodeJS: https://github.com/fardog/node-xkcd-password

Ruby: https://github.com/rasmus-storjohann/xkcdpass

Python: https://github.com/redacted/XKCD-password-generator

Shell: https://github.com/danielmcgraw/xkcdpass

PHP: https://github.com/cesarzavala/xkcd

Perl: https://github.com/CS-CLUB/xkcd-936

Coaching and Coffee

24 Tuesday May 2016

Posted by claire in Approaches, Coaching, Experiences, Experiments, Protip, Soft Skills, Training

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coffee-coachOne morning, my office had a fancy coffee machine delivered. The machine was fancy enough that we had training sessions to learn how to use it. The machine’s controls involved a few pre-programmed settings for common usage scenarios. Not being a coffee drinker, I didn’t appreciate the intricacies of preparing a morning cup, so while I was interested in the training it was not particularly relevant for me. I just wanted to know where to get the hot water to brew my tea.

Then, we had a local barista Joseph Yancey join us for a morning of coffee coaching. It was his day off, but he loves the artistic aspects of preparing coffee and wanted to share that with coffee lovers. The coffee machine was still somewhat intimidating to me since I didn’t know how to judge the results of the preparation process. Out of curiosity, I hung around to listen to what the barista had to say.

Co-workers arrived at the office and were ready to start their day. They joined us in the break room and gathered around our visitor. Instead of expounding about the principles of great coffee and the brews and mixtures he preferred, Joseph focused on helping individuals to achieve their goals.

As each person explained the kind of outcome they were looking for, he was very patient in coaching. He noticed the intimidation of trying something out of the ordinary and reinforced the idea that no one should be concerned about failing to produce exactly what they hoped for. Instead, he emphasized making better and better approximations of the desired result to accomplish incremental progress. This created a safe space for individuals to develop new skills.

Each person explained what they wanted and he told them how to refine their techniques. He showed them motions with his gestures and posture as a model but he didn’t take over. Each pair of hands became surer by trying for themselves the motions and mixing. He paired with each participant and brought attention to key moments and opportunities during the process without talking down to anyone. Rather than doing it for them, as he expertly would during his day job, he coached them into greater competence and self-reliance.

I noticed his consummate skill in interpersonal interactions and asked him about it. He said that his love for his craft motivated him to help others to greater mastery. When I mentioned that I wasn’t in his core demographic (as a tea drinker), he was willing to tackle that problem as well, teaching me how to judge the heat of the water produced by an electronic kettle so that I could pair it with the various mixtures with more demanding brewing precision. Even I, an edge case, benefited from Joseph’s enthusiasm and understanding.

Now that’s a coaching experience to start your day off right.

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