Growing the Developer Experience

Given at Nor(Dev)Con 2020: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdsR0NNo8hU&list=PLc8-tQY65nvUAZEezrXhzY50-OHovjdfv&index=4

Transcript

1. Growing the Developer
   Experience
   Chris O’Dell
   https://www.flickr.com/photos/spurekar/45888718075/
   

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2. https://twitter.com/einarwh/status/1197468002670788615
   

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3. 3
   Chris O’Dell - @chrisannodell
   Chris O’Dell
   @ChrisAnnODell
   Backend Engineer at Monzo
   

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4. 4
   Chris O’Dell - @chrisannodell
   Chris O’Dell
   @ChrisAnnODell
   Backend Engineer at Monzo
   

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5. 5
   Chris O’Dell - @chrisannodell
   Chris O’Dell
   @ChrisAnnODell
   Backend Engineer at Monzo
   

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6. 6
   Chris O’Dell - @chrisannodell
   Chris O’Dell
   @ChrisAnnODell
   Backend Engineer at Monzo
   

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7. 7
   Chris O’Dell - @chrisannodell
   Chris O’Dell
   @ChrisAnnODell
   Backend Engineer at Monzo
   

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8. 8
   Chris O’Dell - @chrisannodell
   Chris O’Dell
   @ChrisAnnODell
   Backend Engineer at Monzo
   

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9. Who’s heard of
   Monzo?
   
   

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10. Monzo - Banking made easy
    

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12. https://monzo.com/blog/2016/09/19/building-a-modern-bank-backend
    

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13. https://twitter.com/JackKleeman/status/1190354757308862468
    

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14. 1500+ Microservices?
    

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15. https://www.flickr.com/photos/yenidem/2642922427/
    1500+ Microservices!
    

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16. https://twitter.com/JackKleeman/status/1190973434601324544
    

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17. Developer Experience?
    
    

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18. https://www.flickr.com/photos/shelingraziela/6818740028/
    We think of the customer experience
    

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19. Tools, tools, tools
    

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20. Tools tend to be neglected
    

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21. Bottlenecks only visible to the developers
    https://www.flickr.com/photos/pasukaru76/3536398005/
    

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22. Why focus on Dev Experience?
    ‍
    

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23. The science of devops
    

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24. https://puppet.com/resources/report/2017-state-devops-report/
    

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25. https://puppet.com/resources/report/2017-state-devops-report/
    

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26. Continuous Delivery
    

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27. 27
    Chris O’Dell - @chrisannodell
    Continuous Delivery Principles
    Build quality in
    Work in small batches
    Computers perform repetitive tasks, people solve problems
    Relentlessly pursue continuous improvement
    Everyone is responsible
    ✅
    
    
    ‍
    
    

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29. Theory of Constraints
    

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30. 30
    Chris O’Dell - @chrisannodell
    Theory of Constraints
    Identify the constraint
    Exploit the constraint
    Subordinate everything to the Constraint
    Elevate the constraint
    Repeat
    
    
    
    
    
    The Five Focussing Steps
    

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31. 31
    Chris O’Dell - @chrisannodell
    Theory of Constraints
    Identify the constraint Find the weakest link in the chain
    Exploit the constraint
    Subordinate everything to the Constraint
    Elevate the constraint
    Repeat
    
    
    
    
    
    The Five Focussing Steps
    

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32. 32
    Chris O’Dell - @chrisannodell
    Theory of Constraints
    Identify the constraint Find the weakest link in the chain
    Exploit the constraint Use it to its maximum
    Subordinate everything to the Constraint
    Elevate the constraint
    Repeat
    
    
    
    
    
    The Five Focussing Steps
    

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33. 33
    Chris O’Dell - @chrisannodell
    Theory of Constraints
    Identify the constraint Find the weakest link in the chain
    Exploit the constraint Use it to its maximum
    Subordinate everything to the Constraint Make everything else wait
    Elevate the constraint
    Repeat
    
    
    
    
    
    The Five Focussing Steps
    

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34. 34
    Chris O’Dell - @chrisannodell
    Theory of Constraints
    Identify the constraint Find the weakest link in the chain
    Exploit the constraint Use it to its maximum
    Subordinate everything to the Constraint Make everything else wait
    Elevate the constraint Pay to expand the bottleneck
    Repeat
    
    
    
    
    
    The Five Focussing Steps
    

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35. 35
    Chris O’Dell - @chrisannodell
    Theory of Constraints
    Identify the constraint Find the weakest link in the chain
    Exploit the constraint Use it to its maximum
    Subordinate everything to the Constraint Make everything else wait
    Elevate the constraint Pay to expand the bottleneck
    Repeat Start again (maybe there’s a new bottleneck)
    
    
    
    
    
    The Five Focussing Steps
    

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36. https://www.flickr.com/photos/dizmangphotography/15147528554/
    Developer Platform Team
    

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37. https://flickr.com/photos/usdagov/16868596822
    Treated it like Engineers
    

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38. Collecting data
    

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42. https://www.flickr.com/photos/boston_public_library/4660693196/
    Treat Dev Experience like a product
    

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43. https://www.flickr.com/photos/sitsgirls/8634796850/
    User Research Starter Kit
    

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44. 44
    Chris O’Dell - @chrisannodell
    User Research Starter Kit
    https://monzo.com/blog/2019/05/30/everyone-does-user-research-at-monzo
    Cognitive Psychology Research Methods Open Office Hours
    ‍
    ‍♀
    

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45. A touch of Cognitive Psychology
    https://www.flickr.com/photos/nymphofox/6865406105/
    

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46. Choosing a Research Method
    https://www.flickr.com/photos/andreas-kollmorgen/8215056162/
    

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47. 47
    Chris O’Dell - @chrisannodell
    Choosing a Research Method
    Discovery Design & Build Optimisation
    
    ‍♀ ‍♀
    https://monzo.com/blog/2019/05/30/everyone-does-user-research-at-monzo
    

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48. 48
    Chris O’Dell - @chrisannodell
    Choosing a Research Method
    Discovery
    ‍♀ ● Depth interviews (phone or in person)
    ● Field visits, or contextual observation
    ● Diary studies
    ● Surveys
    ● Desk research (secondary research)
    https://monzo.com/blog/2019/05/30/everyone-does-user-research-at-monzo
    

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49. 49
    Chris O’Dell - @chrisannodell
    Choosing a Research Method
    Design & Build
    ‍♀ ● User testing (in person, remote, lab-based, street)
    ● Unmoderated testing (task completion)
    ● ‘Pre-alpha’ diary study
    ● Tree-testing (findability in menus)
    https://monzo.com/blog/2019/05/30/everyone-does-user-research-at-monzo
    

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50. 50
    Chris O’Dell - @chrisannodell
    Choosing a Research Method
    Optimisation
    ● Emails
    ● Phone calls
    ● Surveys
    https://monzo.com/blog/2019/05/30/everyone-does-user-research-at-monzo
    

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51. 51
    Chris O’Dell - @chrisannodell
    Choosing a Research Method
    Discovery
    ‍♀ ● Depth interviews (phone or in person)
    ● Field visits, or contextual observation
    ● Diary studies
    ● Surveys
    ● Desk research (secondary research)
    https://monzo.com/blog/2019/05/30/everyone-does-user-research-at-monzo
    

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52. Surveys
    https://pixnio.com/science/aiktak-plant-identification-data-collection
    

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53. 53
    Chris O’Dell - @chrisannodell
    The first survey - we made a few mistakes
    Unnecessary questions
    Open ended questions
    Full text answers requiring manual review
    Difficult to see trends over time
    
    
    
    
    

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54. 54
    Chris O’Dell - @chrisannodell
    The first survey - we still learned things
    Majority of engineers felt set up for success
    Stability of the staging environment was a pain point
    The local development flow felt slow
    Web deployments felt slow and were not standardised
    And many other things
    
    
    
    
    ✨
    

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55. Interviews
    https://www.flickr.com/photos/garryknight/44234176112/
    

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56. 56
    Chris O’Dell - @chrisannodell
    Prepare for the interviews
    Define cohorts Prepare script Hold interviews
    ☕
    
    

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57. 57
    Chris O’Dell - @chrisannodell
    What are our cohorts?
    Backend Engineer
    Mobile Engineer
    Web Engineer
    Data Science Engineer
    
    
    
    
    < 6 months
    6 months <> 1 year
    1 year <> 2 years
    2 years+
    
    
    
    
    Cohort (noun): a group of people with a shared characteristic.
    Role Time at Monzo
    

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58. 58
    Chris O’Dell - @chrisannodell
    Preparing the script
    Introduction and why
    Simple starter questions
    Open ended questions
    
    
    
    Jumping straight in
    Interrogation feel
    Too many closed questions
    ⏩
    
    
    Include: Avoid:
    

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59. 59
    Chris O’Dell - @chrisannodell
    ☕ Arrange and hold the interviews
    Contact people from your cohorts
    Explain the purpose of the interview
    Book in a 30 minute chat
    Take lots of notes
    
    
    
    ✍
    

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61. 61
    Chris O’Dell - @chrisannodell
    ‍♀ Gather the findings
    Pull out common patterns
    Include some direct quotes
    Assign a severity (impact + repetition + frequency)
    Suggest a fix
    ➿
    
    
    
    Create a Findings Log
    

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63. What we changed
    https://www.flickr.com/photos/jesusbranch/4185211886/
    

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64. 64
    Chris O’Dell - @chrisannodell
    Continuous account signup in staging
    

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65. 65
    Chris O’Dell - @chrisannodell
    PR updates in Slack
    

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66. 66
    Chris O’Dell - @chrisannodell
    Web deployments standardised
    

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67. Not all changes were code
    https://www.flickr.com/photos/taedc/26736736825/
    

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68. 68
    Chris O’Dell - @chrisannodell
    Staging Helper
    
    

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69. Repeat the survey
    https://www.flickr.com/photos/janitors/14413221265/
    

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71. 71
    Chris O’Dell - @chrisannodell
    Positive Survey results
    78% satisfaction rating
    Satisfaction increased with tenure
    Problems with staging were not mentioned
    Trouble getting PR reviews wasn’t mentioned either
    
    ‍
    
    ⏩
    

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72. 72
    Chris O’Dell - @chrisannodell
    Survey results - requests
    Faster builds and rollouts
    More visibility around what has gone wrong so we can start debugging
    
    
    

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73. 73
    Chris O’Dell - @chrisannodell
    Improved log aggregation
    ‍
    

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74. What about the metrics?
    
    

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75. https://www.flickr.com/photos/26424952@N00/9813303983/
    More Platform Teams
    

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76. To summarise
    https://www.flickr.com/photos/skyseeker/10211713845/
    

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77. 77
    Chris O’Dell - @chrisannodell
    Summary
    Learn about your flow and find bottlenecks
    Borrow and apply techniques from User Research
    Treat the developer flow as a product to improve the experience
    ‍♀
    ‍
    
    

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78. Chris O’Dell @ChrisAnnODell Backend Engineer at Monzo
    Thank you
    ♀
    

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