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 “rockstars”. 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.

Transcript

1. @martincronje TOWARDS MASTERY
2. @martincronje .01 .02 .03 .04 WHY THIS TALK? WHAT CAN WE DO ABOUT IT? TIPS FOR THE ROAD HOW DO WE MAKE IT WORK?
3. @martincronje .01 WHY THIS TALK?
4. @martincronje Legacy code everywhere
5. @martincronje “Legacy code is valuable code that we are afraid to change” J.B. Rainsberger
6. @martincronje Legacy code kills agility
7. @martincronje How, not the Why and When
8. @martincronje Teams struggle to avoid messy code
9. @martincronje Why do they struggle writing simple clean code? Is it… • The problems can’t be fixed • Not the right people • They don’t know it is a problem • Not enough time on training • The wrong culture • No budget for doing a good job • Don’t see the value
10. @martincronje An education problem
11. @martincronje
12. @martincronje 4,031 pages! Very few people have read those books. Looks like the avg. attendee read two of them
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
14. @martincronje Only a handful know this stuff * * Anecdotal evidence from colleagues with teams in RSA, UK, USA, and NZ Pool with together with others | Frustrated and having a negative impact
15. @martincronje Most developers don’t know it… This is just a day job | Other responsibilities | Don’t know the importance
16. @martincronje Most also haven’t learnt how to apply it!
17. @martincronje What can we do about it? Can we… • Hire better people • Training and mentoring • Craftsmanship culture • Better definition of done • Refactoring • Hands-on learning
18. @martincronje /summary WE NEED TO GROW PEOPLE
19. @martincronje .02 WHAT CAN WE DO ABOUT IT?
20. @martincronje “…with the rise of industrialization there are fewer and fewer craftsmen. One of the biggest remaining groups is computer programmers.” Paul Graham, YCombinator
21. @martincronje Learning about learning
22. @martincronje CODE RETREAT KATAS CODER DOJOS
23. @martincronje CODERETREAT 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 KATAS CODER DOJOS
24. @martincronje KATAS CODERETREAT CODER DOJOS
25. @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 CODER DOJOS CODERETREAT
26. @martincronje CODER DOJOS CODE RETREAT KATAS
27. @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 CODERETREAT KATAS
28. @martincronje “…Activities designed, typically by a teacher, for the sole purpose of effectively improving specific aspects of an individual’s performance…” K. Anders Ericsson, Swedish psychologist DELIBERATE PRACTICE
29. @martincronje Target specific skill Repeated a lot DELIBERATE PRACTICE Continuous feedback Must be hard
30. @martincronje /summary PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE
31. @martincronje .03 HOW DO WE MAKE IT WORK?
32. @martincronje Story of a group at MYOB
33. @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
34. @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
35. @martincronje
36. @martincronje • photo
37. @martincronje Deliberate practice principles as a baseline. Group sessions are focused on building collaboration within the team. Sessions should be focused on areas where team needs grows. Strongest developers should be open to support people around them. MAKING IT WORK PRINCIPLES EXECUTION LOGISTICS
38. @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 MAKING IT WORK PRINCIPLES EXECUTION
39. @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) MAKING IT WORK EXECUTION LOGISITICS PRINCIPLES
40. @martincronje Working across teams Knowing what I don’t know Trying out different techniques Variety is great Collaborating for the first time FEEDBACK
41. @martincronje /summary CREATE SPACE FOR LEARNING
42. @martincronje .04 TIPS FOR THE ROAD
43. @martincronje GETTING BUY-IN SUSTAINABILITY PRODUCTION CODE TIPS FOR THE ROAD INVENTORY 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 2015 Developer Survey ** http://blog.cleancoder.com/uncle-bob/2014/06/20/MyLawn.html
44. @martincronje StackOverflow 2015 Developer Survey 26.5% 23.2% 32.1% 12.4% 5.8% 11+ years 6-10 years 2- 5 years 1 - 2 years Less than one year Years experience
45. @martincronje The Future of Employment: How Susceptible are Jobs to Computerisation Job computerisation • Out of 700 jobs listed • 25% have 90% probability by 2023 • 50% have 66% probability by 2023
46. @martincronje 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. TIPS FOR THE ROAD SUSTAINABILITY PRODUCTION CODE INVENTORY GETTING BUY-IN
47. @martincronje 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. TIPS FOR THE ROAD PRODUCTION CODE INVENTORY GETTING BUY-IN SUSTAINABILITY
48. @martincronje Test-driven design • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway's_Game_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 TIPS FOR THE ROAD INVENTORY PRODUCTION CODE GETTING BUY-IN SUSTAINABILITY
49. @martincronje .01 .02 .03 .04 LEGACY CODE KILLS AGILITY PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE MAKING IT LAST CREATE SPACE FOR IMPROVEMENT
50. @martincronje