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AgileNZ - Towards Mastery: Establishing Craftsmanship Culture in a Team

AgileNZ - Towards Mastery: Establishing Craftsmanship Culture in a Team

“We need software developers who are professionals and view their work as a craft!”. This is often heard in development teams as a reaction to fragile systems built on messy codebases. This statement also often implies a yearning for a certain type of developer… those (lucky ones) who go home and hack until the early hours of the morning to pursue their thirst for knowledge.

In reality, many developers don’t have the time to build their skills and some others see their job as something confined to 9 to 5. This is ok, but it results in teams that don’t grow which exacerbates the problem where companies rely more and more on ‘ninjas’ and ‘rock stars’. This has to stop! We need an alternative. Let’s build our people within their constraints and let’s figure out how to do it well!

This talk explores techniques that the speaker has successfully applied to help many companies and teams improve the quality and effectiveness of their engineering efforts: creating a culture of learning with techniques such as code dojos, katas and other intentional learning activities. Helping developers learn and apply practices such as clean code, refactoring, TDD, pair- and mob programming and continuous integration. Overcoming common arguments against intentional learning and improvement.

Martin Cronjé

November 30, 2016
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  1. @martincronje
    Establishing a craftsmanship culture in a team
    Martin Cronjé
    Development Manager - MYOB
    @martincronje [email protected]

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  2. @martincronje
    Who are you?

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  3. @martincronje
    .01 WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT?

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  4. @martincronje
    Skills
    shortage

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  5. @martincronje
    We live in
    exponential times

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  6. @martincronje
    47% jobs have a high chance of
    being computerised by 2023
    From: The Future of Employment: How Susceptible are Jobs to Computerisation

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  7. @martincronje
    Number of software developers
    are doubling every 5 years
    From: StackOverflow Developer Survey

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  8. @martincronje
    Most systems
    are in disrepair
    312 Billion USD spend debugging of which 52% are spend on Architectural defects
    – Deloitte research on Tech Debt reversal

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  9. @martincronje
    Discussion: Why do teams struggle
    with keeping systems clean?

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  10. @martincronje
    People are
    our greatest asset

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  11. @martincronje

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  12. @martincronje
    3,768 pages

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  13. @martincronje
    Reading non-stop, how long does it take you to read a 300
    page book?
    Poll on goodreads.com (6342 responses)
    2.40%
    17.3%
    36.8%
    21.5%
    10.0%
    12.0%
    An hour or less
    1-3 hours
    3-6 hours
    6-9 hours
    9-12 hours
    More than 12 hours

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  14. @martincronje
    Discussion: How do we help teams
    acquire this knowledge?

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  15. @martincronje
    Problem #1
    People have lives

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  16. @martincronje
    Problem #2
    No opportunity to apply it

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  17. @martincronje
    /takeaway WE NEED TO GROW PEOPLE
    @martincronje [email protected]

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  18. @martincronje
    .02 WHAT CAN WE DO ABOUT IT?

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  19. @martincronje
    Learning about learning

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  20. @martincronje
    CodeRetreat

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  21. @martincronje
    • Day long event with 5-6 seperate 45 min sessions.
    • Attempt to implement Conway’s Game of Life in each session.
    • Do not have to complete anything. Delete code every sessions
    • Different pairs per session with people you don’t normally work with.
    • Get out of your comfort zone. Experiment and learn. Try different paradigms.
    Deliberate Practice: Coderetreat

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  22. @martincronje
    Code Katas
    and more

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  23. @martincronje
    • Direct application of the principles on deliberate practice.
    • Started as simple coding exercise focused on learning specific skill from TDD to
    Refactoring and Emergent Design.
    • Architecture, analysis and design katas have also been developed.
    Deliberate Practice: Katas

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  24. @martincronje
    Coder Dojos

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  25. @martincronje
    • 1-3 hours session with retro every 45 minutes.
    • Work on any kata that the group thinks is relevant for them.
    • Repeat katas over numerous sessions.
    • Done using Mob Programming with 4-7 min turns at the keyboard.
    • Use strong pairing technique.
    • Run a retro at the end.
    Deliberate Practice: Coder Dojos

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  26. @martincronje
    Learning by doing

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  27. @martincronje
    “…Activities designed, typically by a teacher, for the sole
    purpose of effectively improving specific aspects of an
    individual’s performance…”
    K. Anders Ericsson, Psychologist

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  28. @martincronje
    • Target specific skill
    • Repeated a lot
    Deliberate Practice
    • Continuous feedback
    • Must be hard

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  29. @martincronje
    /takeaway PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE
    @martincronje [email protected]

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  30. @martincronje
    .03 HOW DO WE MAKE IT WORK?

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  31. @martincronje
    Discussion: How will you
    apply this in your company?

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  32. @martincronje
    As a coach

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  33. @martincronje

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  34. @martincronje
    CLIENTS
    COLLABORATE
    SIMPLIFY
    INNOVATE
    RESULTS
    PASSION
    MYOB’S
    VALUES
    DRIVE OUR WORLD
    WE’RE BETTER TOGETHER
    MAKE IT EASIER
    FIND NEW WAYS
    ACHIEVE OUR GOALS
    LOVE YOUR WORK

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  35. @martincronje
    CLIENTS
    SIMPLIFY
    INNOVATE
    RESULTS
    DRIVE OUR WORLD
    MAKE IT EASIER
    FIND NEW WAYS
    ACHIEVE OUR GOALS
    COLLABORATE
    PASSION
    MYOB’S
    VALUES
    WE’RE BETTER TOGETHER
    LOVE YOUR WORK

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  36. @martincronje

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  37. @martincronje
    • photo

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  38. @martincronje
    Feedback…
    • Working across teams
    • Knowing what I don’t know
    • Trying out different techniques
    • Variety is great
    • Collaborating for the first time

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  39. @martincronje
    • Deliberate practice principles as a baseline.
    • Work in groups to encourage shared learning
    • Single objective for exercise
    • Known tech if we are learning a new practice
    • Focus on areas where we need to grow
    • Be open to try things radically different
    Making it
    work
    Principles Execution
    Logistics

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  40. @martincronje
    Logistics
    • Everyone from the team involved
    • 3 hours every Friday afternoon after
    retrospectives and showcases
    • No work normal production work unless there is
    a production outage
    • If coding session, Everyone should already have
    a working environment with test-runner in their
    desired platform
    Principles
    Execution
    Making it
    work

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  41. @martincronje
    • Remind everyone of the principles.
    • Remind team of the outcomes from the previous
    dojo and get input for current day.
    • Set constraints for the day such as exercise,
    coding session length, platform, pair vs. mobs.
    • Run coding sessions and end each with a quick
    retro. (30, 45 or 60 minutes)
    Execution Logistics
    Principles
    Making it
    work

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  42. @martincronje
    /takeaway CREATE SPACE FOR LEARNING
    @martincronje [email protected]

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  43. @martincronje
    .04 MAKING IT LAST

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  44. @martincronje
    Then things
    became shaky

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  45. @martincronje
    • Learning new things
    • Having fun
    What worked…
    • Collaborating as a team

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  46. @martincronje
    • Different learning styles
    • Different needs per team
    • BA’s and QA’s excluded
    • Practices vs. Technologies
    What didn’t work

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  47. @martincronje
    Different
    needs and styles

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  48. @martincronje
    What worked
    for BA’s and QA’s

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  49. @martincronje
    Practices vs
    Technologies

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  50. @martincronje
    Practices vs. technologies

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  51. @martincronje
    /takeaway KEEP ON EXPERIMENTING
    @martincronje [email protected]

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  52. @martincronje
    Tips for the road

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  53. @martincronje
    .05 TIPS FOR THE ROAD

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  54. @martincronje
    Tips for the road: Getting buy-in
    Growth:
    • Software will be able to do 25% of job within 10 years*
    • Number of developers are doubling every 5 years **
    Hiring:
    • Hiring developers who learn on their own time is not sustainable. Their personal conditions
    change and the hiring pool is limited.
    • Hiring the best developers is become an arms race of who has the best offices, salaries,
    work.
    * The Future of Employment: How Susceptible are Jobs to Computerisation
    ** StackOverflow 2016 Developer Survey
    ** http://blog.cleancoder.com/uncle-bob/2014/06/20/MyLawn.html

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  55. @martincronje
    Tips for the road: Sustainability
    • Same place, same time every week as with retrospectives and stand-up.
    • Teams may not see value initially, give it a month or two.
    • One stabilised start coaching others to run the sessions.
    • Practices the katas with a smaller group ahead of the time to get an idea on what they are
    about.

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  56. @martincronje
    Tips for the road: Production Code
    TDD and emergent design:
    • Create a kata out of a recent story and experiment on a detached branch
    Refactoring:
    • Use scratch pad refactoring to experiment with different ideas on detached branch.
    • Take the best most recent code created by the team and refactor it.
    • Also take the oldest messiest code.

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  57. @martincronje
    Tips for the road: Inventory
    Test-driven design
    • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway's_G
    ame_of_Life
    • http://codekata.com
    Emergent Design
    • http://codekata.com (Checkout Kata)
    Refactoring
    • https://github.com/jbrains/trivia
    • https://github.com/emilybache (Especially
    Gilded Rose)
    Architecture
    • https://archkatas.herokuapp.com
    Story Mapping
    • https://archkatas.herokuapp.com

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  58. @martincronje
    .01
    .02
    .03
    .04
    WE MUST INVEST IN OUR PEOPLE
    PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT
    KEEP ON EXPERIMENTING
    CREATE SPACE FOR GROWTH

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  59. @martincronje
    Thanks for listening
    Any Questions?
    @martincronje [email protected]

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