Cultivate Excellence In Engineering Teams through Continuous Software Engineering

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Cultivate Excellence In Engineering Teams through Continuous Software Engineering Sebastiano Armeli “The Healthy Engineering Leader“ Substack @sebarmeli DevOpsCon San Diego May 2024

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Excellence in Engineering Teams Core Characteristic Effectiveness Craftsmanship & Quality Efficiency & Productivity Adaptability & Learning Collaboration & Communication

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Excellence in Engineering Teams Effectiveness Understanding Customer’s needs Building the right things Right Scope and Impact Correlation with Business Metrics Full context on Planning & Prioritization

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Excellence in Engineering Teams Craftsmanship & Quality Deep Tech Knowledge Low Tech Debt, balance KTLO & features Low number of bugs Continuous improvement and knowledge sharing High standards, no compromise on quality

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Excellence in Engineering Teams Building things right Cost and Time optimization, Velocity Focus on Processes Measurements, such as DORA metrics Efficiency & Productivity

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Excellence in Engineering Teams Learning from Experiments Data-driven decisions Continuous learning & innovation Knowledge sharing Flexibility & Resilience over changes Adaptability & Learning

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Excellence in Engineering Teams Teamwork Collective problem-solving Crisp communication Verbal, Written and Visual Timely & Contextual Healthy & Inclusive communication Collaboration & Communication

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How to cultivate excellence?

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C ontinuous Software Engineering (CSE) Paper (“Brian Fitzgerald, Klass-Jan Stol, Continuous software engineering: A roadmap and agenda, The Journal of Systems and Software (2015)”) Holistic view of a set of continuous activities divided in 3 main phases: Business Strategy & Planning, Development, and Operations C ontinuous *

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Continuous Software Engineering (CSE) Paper (“Towards a Framework for Continuous Software Engineering “) by Monalessa Barcellos (2020)”)

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Continuous Planning

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Yearly Planning

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Yearly Planning Continuous Changes

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Quarterly OKRs Continuous Planning with

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Objective Key Results The inspirational "what" The measurable "how" Initiatives

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Quarterly OKRs Planning Bi-weekly OKRs Reviews Quart erly OKRs Grading Communication Adaptability Effectiveness Continuous Planning Processes

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...from a personal experience Building Shop Tab Shop Tab Continuous Planning

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Continuous Prioritization every week or even every day

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Product Features & KTLO Tech Debt & Tech Strategy

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Weekly Planning XFN Staff Meeting Communication Adaptability Effectiveness Continuous Prioritization Processes Weekly Leads Pre-planning

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Continuous Development

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Continuous Integration Continuous Delivery Continuous Deployment Merge into master Automated tests CI tools (build, test, deploy) Multiple jobs Pushing code through different envs Manual step to push to prod Continuous Delivery + automatic push to prod Feature Flags

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Continuous Pull Request Development PR every day or every other day

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Continuous Security & Continuous Compliance

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Continuous Evolution

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Tech Design Documents Tech Strategy Docs Quarterly Tech Reviews Craftsmanship Collaboration Efficiency Tech Circles Continuous Development Processes

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Phase 1 “Alpha” version Phase 2 “Beta” version Ad Studio (Spotify Self-service ad platform) architecture ...from a personal experience Phase 3 Public Release

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Continuous Quality Assurance

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Continuous Verification Continuous Validation

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Dogfooding Documentation (Test Plans) Quality Effectiveness Continuous Quality Processes Automated Tests in CI

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“Dogfooding” Internal app before releasing was key in finding bugs proactively Re-architecture Messaging feature on iOS and Android ...from a personal experience

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Continuous Experimentation

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Data-driven approach A/B Testing

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The Hypex Model Strategy Goals 1. Feature Backlog 2. Feature Selection Based on Strategic Plan 3. MVF (Minimum Viable Feature) Build and Launch 4. Paper (“he HYPEX Model: From Opinions to Data-Driven Software Development”) by Olsson, Helena & Bosch, (2014)”) Hypothesis Experiment Data-Driven Development

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The Hypex Framework 5. Gap Analysis 6a. if (exp != actual) then develop Hypothesis and Alternative MVF2 , back to Gap Analysis 6b. if (exp == actual) then results feed into the Strategic Plan Paper (“he HYPEX Model: From Opinions to Data-Driven Software Development”) by Olsson, Helena & Bosch, (2014)”) Continuous Planning

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Weekly Experiment Reviews OKRs Planning & Reviews Communication Adaptability Continuous Experimentation Processes

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Experiment (MVF): PDP (Product Detail Page) Reviews ...from a personal experience Results: Actual != Expected Outcome: Keep Control

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Continuous Software Measurement

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Business Metrics Operation Metrics Execution Metrics

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Dashboards & DORA metrics Bi-weekly Eng Ops Reviews Weekly Business Reviews Alerts & On-call Communication Adaptability Effectiveness Continuous Measurement Processes

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Company-wide Weekly Business metrics reviews ...from a personal experience Timely Investigations around progressions & regressions

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Continuous Improvement & Innovation

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Continuous Learning

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Continuous Learning with clear goals and structured processes Paper (“A Practical Approach to Continuous Improvement in Software Engineering“) by Andreas Birk & Dieter Rombach Continuous Improvement

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Continuous Improvement “Challenges are seen as opportunities for growth.” Article (“The "Macros" for healthy engineering teams - part 2: Proteins”)

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Continuous Improvement & Growth Mindset

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Continuous Innovation Continuous Improvements Continuous Learning

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Book clubs Conference attendance and speaking Mentorship program Adaptability Craftsmanship Continuous Innovation Processes Hack Weeks

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Mobile Engineers learning C++ Initiative: Re-architecture Messaging feature on iOS and Android ...from a personal experience

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Continuous Knowledge Management

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Continuous knowledge management is the “ongoing process of capturing, organizing, sharing, and analyzing knowledge within an organization”.

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Automation Culture of Ownership Measurement Sharing Knowledge Sharing article (Humble, Moleski, “Why Enterprises Must Adopt Devops to Enable Continuous Delivery”, 2011)

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Trust & Psyche safety Curiosity & Reward Knowledge Sharing post (“How to Foster a Knowledge-Sharing Culture within Engineering Teams“) Empathy & Collaboration Innovation Emotional Well-Being

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Pair Programming Tech Talks Internal Wiki updates Craftsmanship Communication Productivity Continuous Knowledge Management Processes

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Thorough Confluence Wiki with all Technical Design Docs continuously updated in Wallet domain ...from a personal experience

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Continuous Planning Effectiveness Craftsmanship & Quality Efficiency & Productivity Adaptability & Learning Collaboration & Communication Continuous Development Continuous Quality Assurance Continuous Experimentation Continuous Software Measurement Continuous Improvement & Innovation Continuous Knowledge Management

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Thank You! Sebastiano Armeli “The Healthy Engineering Leader“ Substack @sebarmeli DevOpsCon San Diego May 2024