Continuous Architecture and Code Modernization With Team Habits and the 1% Method

This presentation aims to motivate you to consider modernizing architectures and codebases in small, continuous steps with the help of two ideas. These ideas are: team habits and the 1% method. The combination of both will enable you and your teams to establish a sustainable practice of ongoing modernization with very small steps that accumulate continuously, ultimately resulting in better architectures and more maintainable codebases without risking much disruption, risk, or even large budgets and the associated politics.

The basic ideas behind this approach come from the book “Atomic Habits” by James Clear, who presented them in the context of personal processes in private and business life. However, many of these approaches can also be applied to software engineering teams, which is what this presentation is about.

The goal is to establish improvements in the team on a regular basis, ideally daily, in the smallest possible steps. These steps should be so small that they have no significant impact on day-to-day business and that each of these steps, taken in isolation, does not represent a significant/noticeable improvement. However, if these micro or nano improvements accumulate across the entire team over a longer period of time, you will see that their effect grows exponentially. This presentation introduces the idea, motivates you to implement it, and helps you establish it in your teams.

Transcript

1. CONTINUOUS MODERNIZATION WITH TEAM HABITS AND THE 1% METHOD Michael Plöd - Independent Consultant
2. MICHAEL PLÖD INDEPENDENT CONSULTANT & INNOQ FELLOW HTTPS://WWW.MICHAEL-PLOED.COM
3. RETHINK MODERNIZATION 01. 1% METHOD & HABITS 02. CONTINUOUS ARCHITECTURE 03. GETTING STARTED 04.
4. THE MODERNIZATION PARADOX
5. WHAT DO YOU READ FROM THIS? 0 200 400 600 800 t1 t2 t3 t4 t5 t6 t7 t8 t9 t10 t11 t12 t13 t14 t15 Quality Price per Feature Point
6. COMPLEX MODULES UNCLEAR BOUNDARIES HIGHLY COUPLED //TODO REFACTOR EVERYWHERE DOCS OUTDATED BUILDS WITH SKIPPED TESTS
7. “WE WANT TO MODERNIZE BUT THE DAILY BUSINESS ALWAYS GETS IN THE WAY” – Some Architect at some company A QUOTE
8. “THE SYSTEM IS SO SCREWED, THERE IS NO WAY AROUND A BIG BAG” – Some Architect at some company A QUOTE
9. “TECHNICAL DEBT IS GROWING FASTER THAN WE CAN REDUCE IT” – Some developer at some company A QUOTE
10. THERE ARE MANY MID TO LARGE SCALE APPROACHES TO MODERNIZING SYSTEMS AND MANY HAVE A LOT OF GREAT IDEAS
11. WE NEED A BIG CLEAN-UP, BUT NOT RIGHT NOW. A LOT OF MY CLIENTS TELL ME BUT 'RIGHT NOW' LASTS FOR YEARS
12. THE LONGER WE WAIT FOR A MODERNIZATION PROJECT, THE WORSE IT GETS AND THE HARDER IT IS
13. LET'S LOOK AT MODERNIZATION TROUGH A DIFFERENT LENS
14. REQUIREMENTS, TEAMS, AND SYSTEMS CHANGE CONTINUOUSLY MODERNIZATION MUST MATCH THAT CADENCE CONTINUOUS MODERNIZATION IS NOT ABOUT CHASING CHANGE IT’S ABOUT ABSORBING CHANGE SAFELY.
15. 1% MODERNIZATIONS AS A CONTINUOUS TEAM-HABIT
16. KEY INSPIRATION TO THIS TALK
17. Where will a plan from LA to NYC land if it is only 3.5 degrees off course?
18. IN WASHINGTON DC. THAT IS 360KM AWAY
19. Quality index THIS HAPPENS WHEN WE CHANGE SOMETHING BY 1% EVERY DAY
20. THE RELATIONSHIP TO CODE AND ARCHITECTURE?
21. IMAGINE EVERY TEAM MEMBER SPENDING 10 MINUTES PER DAY ON… Improve naming Extract a method Remove dead code Add a missing test Add a value object Delete a dependency Update a dependency Fix one warning Improve Documentation
22. Quality index YOU WILL WITNESS A COMPOUNDING IMPROVEMENT
23. SMALL IMPROVEMENTS ARE EASY TO DO, EASY NOT TO DO, AND IMPOSSIBLE TO IGNORE OVER TIME.
24. "FORGET ABOUT GOALS, FOCUS ON SYSTEMS INSTEAD. … SUCCESS IS NOT A GOAL TO REACH OR A FINISH LINE TO CROSS. IT IS A SYSTEM TO IMPROVE, AN ENDLESS PROCESS TO REFINE" Quoted from James Clear - Atomic Habits
25. WHEN YOU TALK TO ENGINEERS, EVERYONE AGREES THAT We should improve the code a little every day We should refactor small bits as we touch them We should avoid letting small problems accumulate
26. EVERYONE HAS GOOD INTENTIONS
27. REALITY CHECK On Call Duty Failed Sprint "one more feature ASAP" Team member falls sick Critical Production Bugs Deadlines Change of plan Team member chooses another job
28. INTENTIONS ARE WEAK UNDER STRESS
29. IF IMPROVING CODE OR ARCHITECTURE DEPENDED ON MOTIVATION, OUR CODEBASES WOULD LOOK LIKE GYMS IN MARCH: EMPTY AND NEGLECTED.
30. TEAM HABITS SMALL BEHAVIOURS DONE CONSISTENTLY EMBEDDED INTO ROUTINES THAT DON'T REQUIRE MOTIVATION
31. THE HABIT LOOP CUE CRAVING RESPONSE REWARD PROBLEM SPACE SOLUTION SPACE
32. CUE CRAVING RESPONSE REWARD You open a file to work on a taks You want to leave it in a slightly better state than you found it You spend 5 minutes on a tiny improvement The code feels cleaner, the diff is nicer, reviews are easier IMAGINE: THAT’S NOT A BIG REFACTORING PROJECT THAT’S ONE TINY HABIT REPEATED HUNDREDS OF TIMES ACROSS THE TEAM
33. THE FOUR HABIT RULES CUE: Make it obvious CRAVING: Make it attractive RESPONSE: Make it easy REWARD: Make it satisfying
34. THE HABIT LOOP CUE CRAVING RESPONSE REWARD PROBLEM SPACE SOLUTION SPACE Make it obvious Make it attractive Make it satisfying Make it easy
35. MAKE IT OBVIOUS 1. 2. 3. 4. Visible micro-improvement backlog PR template includes “Improvement done?” Daily Slack Reminder Architecture Dashboards
36. MAKE IT EASY 1. 2. 3. 4. 10 Minutes per day per team member No meetings, no approvals No "modernization tickets" High degree of autonomy
37. MAKE IT ATTRACTIVE 1. 2. 3. 4. Celebrate improvements Highlight wins in standups Visualize progress Turn it into a team craft
38. MAKE IT SATISFYING 1. 2. 3. 4. Metrics turning green / better Fewer Warnings Cleaner dependency graph Better usability of documentation
39. “THE EASIEST WAY TO BUILD A NEW HABIT IS TO ATTACH IT TO AN EXISTING ONE.”
40. HABIT STACKING Daily Standup Documentation Minute Each team member works 10 min on documentation improvement
41. 1% METHOD AND TEAM HABITS WITH REGARDS TO CONTINUOUS ARCHITECTURE
42. ARCHITECTURE IS NOT JUST DECISIONS. IT IS THE ACCUMULATION OF EVERYDAY BEHAVIOR.
43. TEAM HABITS BUILD ARCHITECTURAL MUSCLE MEMORY
44. • • • • • ARCHITECTURE BECOMES "SAFER" OVER TIME FEWER HOTSPOTS LOWER COMPLEXITY TIGHTER BOUNDARIES PREDICTABLE DEPENDENCIES BETTER DOCS
45. BIG ARCHITECTURAL CHANGE DOESN’T START WITH BIG ARCHITECTURAL DECISIONS
46. IT STARTS WITH SMALL ARCHITECTURAL BEHAVIORS, DONE CONSISTENTLY
47. THAT EVENTUALLY MAKE BIG CHANGE SAFE
48. Quality index YOU WILL WITNESS A COMPOUNDING IMPROVEMENT INVISIBLE NOTICABLE MEASURABLE TRANSFORM- ATIONAL
49. TEAM HABITS FOR CONTINUOUS ARCHITECTURE CREATE A LEVERAGE FOR SAFE LARGE-SCALE MODERNIZATIONS
50. HOW TO START?
51. START RIGHT AFTER THE CONFERENCE
52. IDEAS FOR FIRST WEEK 1. 2. 3. 4. 10 min improvement per person per day No permissions No approvals Just go
53. AFTER THAT 1. 2. 3. Establish a habits-board Start working with metrics, track what matters Talk about it in retrospectives
54. Example Habits Board
55. OVER TIME WEEKS: Cleaner diffs, better team mood MONTHS: Architectural clarity grows YEAR: Compounded momentum is felt
56. KEY TAKE AWAYS Small 1% improvements will compound exponentially Habits: make them obvious, attractive, easy and satisfying Architecture is not just decisions. It is the accumulation of everyday behavior.
57. FOLLOW ME ON LINKED IN ARCHITECTURE BECOMES WHAT YOU DO EVERY DAY. NOT WHAT YOU PLAN ONCE. MICHAEL PLÖD - WWW.MICHAEL-PLOED.COM