Upgrade to Pro
— share decks privately, control downloads, hide ads and more …
Speaker Deck
Speaker Deck
PRO
Sign in
Sign up
for free
Optimize for Developer Happiness
Ben Balter
April 26, 2016
Technology
0
190
Optimize for Developer Happiness
Why how you work is as important as what you work on
Ben Balter
April 26, 2016
Tweet
Share
More Decks by Ben Balter
See All by Ben Balter
benbalter
0
560
benbalter
0
84
benbalter
1
85
benbalter
1
190
benbalter
0
50
benbalter
2
210
benbalter
3
1.4k
benbalter
0
90
benbalter
6
550
Other Decks in Technology
See All in Technology
yosuke_matsuura
PRO
0
3.6k
torisoup
0
310
oracle4engineer
0
2.7k
sakon310
4
4.3k
sasakendayo
2
440
nkjzm
1
860
fu3ak1
0
350
kawaguti
0
120
sky_joker
0
120
shimacos
2
360
nozomiito
0
120
yasuakiomokawa
0
380
Featured
See All Featured
eileencodes
113
25k
matthewcrist
73
7.5k
keithpitt
401
20k
ddemaree
274
31k
roundedbygravity
84
7.8k
cromwellryan
101
5.9k
revolveconf
200
9.6k
kneath
219
15k
rasmusluckow
318
18k
gr2m
83
11k
carmenhchung
26
1.3k
jrom
114
7.1k
Transcript
! Optimize for developer happiness Why how you work is
as important as what you work on @benbalter
CONWAY'S LAW "organizations which design systems... are constrained to produce
designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations"
! Developer-centric development
! STARTUP the fairytale
Low value High value Startup Established firm Ideas Process
Low value High value Startup Established firm Geeks Suits
! What does your organization optimize for?
! Happy shareholders Successful software Efficient developers Strategic management
! Happy shareholders Good software Happy developers Happy Customers
! You can make software without MANAGEMENT
! You can make software without COMPLIANCE AND OVERSIGHT
! You can't make software without DEVELOPERS
! DEVELOPER HAPPINESS Optimize for and the rest will follow
! Developer happiness (Inside|Outside) the firewall
! Inside the firewall
! Traditional software development
! When outcomes can't be measured, institute process
! Daily, synchronous meetings to manually shuttle information around the
organization
! Decisions made in person, in hour-long blocks with
all stakeholders present
! Blocking, human-based processes
! Email as the least-common denominator
! Organizational knowledge lives (and dies) with employees
! bus_factor++
! Open-source development
! Transparency solves for process
! The constraints of open source
! Electronic
! Available
! Asynchronous
! Lock-free
! Prefer systems that naturally CAPTURE AND EXPOSE PROCESS
! Open source inside the firewall
! Open source is a PHILOSOPHY AND A WORKFLOW
not as an alternative technology
! How to WORK LIKE AN OPEN SOURCE PROJECT
! 1. Share to the widest extent possible
! Openness breaks down silos, reduces duplication, and minimizes on-boarding
time
! 2. Minimize developer friction
! Friction (n) the time it takes to go
from "I want to contribute" to "I have contributed"
! Common scripts to rule them all http://githubengineering.com/scripts-to-rule-them-all/
! PREFER CULTURAL CONSTRAINTS to technical and administrative constraints
! Non-blocking is better than blocking
! Never force a human to do what a robot
can
! ChatOps, DevOps, Hubot, and CI
! If you liked it you should have PUT AN
API ON IT
! Outside the firewall
! APIs make developers happy
! Openness makes developers happy
! Two caveats
! 1. Open up almost everything
! 2. Openness is about more than just throwing 0's
and 1's over the firewall
! Treat your data with the same respect that developers
treat code
! Open source, inner source, APIs, & open data all
foster communities around shared challenges
! Be the hub, not the single point of failure
(or innovation)
! Adopt an expanded definition of stakeholders
! Ensure all stakeholders have the opportunity to contribute
on equal footing
! Decentralize governance
! Minimize information imbalance
! 1. Work in the open
! 2. Propose and discuss improvements in the open
! 3. One shared, public issue tracker
! 4. Minimize synchronous meetings (and memorialize them when necessary)
! 5. Extensive, automated tests
! How do you optimize for developer happiness?
! Inside the firewall systems that capture and expose process
! Outside the firewall treat external stakeholders as internal stakeholders
! No really, how do you optimize for developer happiness?
! TECHNOLOGY is the easy part
! Bureaucracy is an organism
! Inoculate with small doses of culture and innovation
! Involve all stakeholders early on
! Start small and go through the motions
! Create a "feedback" repository both internally and externally
! Open data Open governance Open tooling
! DEVELOPER HAPPINESS Optimize for and the rest will follow
! Optimize for developer happiness Why how you work is
as important as what you work on @benbalter