Metrics
Derek Huether
Most Important Metric for an Enterprise

As an executive, you will be faced with the choice to do the pivot (if you can) or persevere (if you have no other choice). This will lead to a series of “bets”. You lead with a hypothesis that the things you change will allow you to operate at pre-event levels. But, how long will it actually take for you to validate your hypothesis and have a bet pay off with pre-event levels? If you run out of time to figure it out or run out of bets you can place, then you either lose your standing in the market or worse risk going out of business.

Derek Huether
How to identify dependencies with Tableau and ...

Regardless of the organization or institution, there will always be dependencies. The larger the organization, the greater chance of the existence of dependencies.
This template is available for download from Tableau Public

Video
Derek Huether
Value Stream Management

In the following interview (both video and audio), Dave Prior and I explore why Value Stream Management is so important, how it works, the connection to Value Stream Mapping, and how you can get started with it.

Derek Huether
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

Key performance indicators (KPIs) are metrics that are used to evaluate the performance of an organization or individual. They are used to measure progress towards achieving specific goals or objectives and to determine whether an organization or individual is meeting their targets.

Enterprise Insights, Jira Align, Metrics, Tableau
Derek Huether
How Atlassian Jira Align Supports Flow Metrics

I keep getting asked, does Jira Align support Flow Metrics, as defined in the Flow Framework and SAFe? The short answer is yes. If you believe these metrics will help unlock the potential of your teams, use this community post to see working examples of Tableau reports I have created using Jira Align and Enterprise Insights.

How Atlassian Jira Align Supports Flow Metrics

Pairing

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TDD - Tool Driven Development

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In order to realize the greatest benefits in application development, it is recommended that you use good engineering practices.  Those practices include continuous integration, paired programming and TDD (Test Driven Development).  Unfortunately, when arriving at a new coaching engagement, it is common that a tool vendor has arrived on the scene before the Agile (engineering and process) coaches.  Just as many are sold on Agile being a silver bullet, I find people are equally sold on the idea that a tool can solve all of their problems. Are clients wrong to assume an enterprise “Agile” tool can transition them away from a “Waterfall” tool?  I'm sure that is what the tool vendor told them.  Though I would agree some of the leading providers do offer more lightweight solutions, the truth is some people (after the sale) get frustrated when they realize their tools need to be customized, to align with their business processes.  Unfortunately, I have seen that customization not happen.  Instead, customers struggle with the tools they have implemented.  They change their development and delivery process so they can use the tools.  They start to practice TDD (Tool Driven Development).

When I show customers they can accomplish what they need with index cards, painters tape, and Sharpies, the next question is how can they modify the tool to align with reality.

Always remember the first value of the Manifesto: Individuals and interactions over process and tools.  Fix your processes first.  Then, and only then, should you look to a tool for efficiencies.

Image Source: Pictofigo

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A Strategy for Code Reviews

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I was coaching an organization the other day where they are trying to increase code quality. They believe they can accomplish this by increasing the frequency of code reviews. Currently, their solution is to get everyone into a room on a weekly basis, with junior developers demonstrating what they did and senior developers offering constructive feedback. If you've been reading my blog for a while now, you'll know that I usually find structured lengthy meetings as a wasteful activity. I'm not saying there isn't value in them. I'm just saying their cost is too much, relative to the value.

Weekly Code Review

Because the teams are trying to increase their delivery velocity, they are being forced to review their code delivery policies and rules. The weekly code reviews are creating too much of a delay. If a developer finished his or her feature on day one, they have a whole week to wait for the code review. If any changes are recommended, they lose an entire week because they still have to make the updates and get another review. The quality may be high but the velocity is low.

Pairing

My recommendation was the teams should begin pairing.  Upon review of their defined policies, it did not say they had to have a formal weekly code review meeting.  What it did say was no code would be merged into the trunk until another set of eyes had reviewed it.  By having a "code review" developer sit with the active developer, as he or she wrote code, it could be reviewed in real time and satisfy the policy.  The one week feedback loop would be shortened to an immediate feedback loop.

The Compromise

Paired programming can be a hard sell.  Management can find it hard to understand having two perfectly capable developers working on one piece of code.  But, if you look at the cost of waiting an entire week to get feedback and also having a group of developers stop work to attend a code review meeting, you can see there is a lot of wasted time and effort.  When I asked about this, I was told that the meeting was also an opportunity for developers to learn about other areas of the system.  My counterpoint was to rotate the pairs, to also offer a learning opportunity.

Because the teams would not agree to do formal pairing, but they certainly see the value in it, they decided to have a different (floating) code reviewer every day.  He or she will make themselves available the entire day to review code as needed.  I don't completely agree with this approach but it's certainly better then a weekly code review meeting.  They will be exposed to new areas of the system and the feedback loop will be shortened.  My hope is, in time, they will realize that having that second set of eyes sitting there full time will be the most efficient appraoch.

Image Quality by Pictofigo