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@fmendes6

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“The resistance to documentation among developers is well known and needs no emphasis.” - D.Herbsleb & D. Moitra, 
 Global Software Development, IEEE, 2001

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Have you ever needed some form of information from someone that was unavailable?

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What is this system? How does it work? Why was it created this way?

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2017

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Mar ‘18

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A vailable
 Documentation

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Detailed Jira tickets, user stories, regression suites, glossaries, etc.

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Documentation
 Android team

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No content

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Problem 1 Lack of knowledge 
 about the app

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Filipe, can you look at ticket X?

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Hum…suuuure!

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Ask And Continue Do not Ask and Continue Quit

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I’m sorry, can you please help me?

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What if your colleagues 
 are unavailable?

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A dependency is a 
 problem if it blocks you 
 from progressing

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Wiki

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“Just finished, now what?”

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Different people use different tools, have different backgrounds 
 and ways to work.

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No content

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Wiki Overall architecture of our system URLs to external services and 3rd-party libraries Development process and how to setup all the tools

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Apr ‘18

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Problem 2 No process for 
 tech planning

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Filipe, can you look at ticket X?

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Sure!

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I don’t like this approach..

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There is an easier way to do that!

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But I’ve just spent 2 days…

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Request for Comments

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No content

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Code
 Review Start
 Feature Merge
 Feature Implementation phase

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Create
 RFC RFC
 Approved Merge
 RFC Merge
 Feature Code
 Review Start
 Feature Implementation phase Design phase

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Request for Comments Fosters discussion within the team Serves as a historical report Newcomers can learn from previous colleagues

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Jun ‘18

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Jul ‘18

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Problem 3 Lack of information about past incidents

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All of us had incidents in production or bugs 
 that lasted for a while

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In teams that change frequently, information and learnt lessons get lost

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The past years are a blackbox for me.

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We will be destined to make the same mistakes if we don’t know what happened.

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…even though the client expects that you know.

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Postmortem

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Postmortem Clarifies and documents what happened Can potentially be shared with the management team or even the client Your future colleagues can learn from past mistakes

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Dec ‘18

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Problem 4 Pull Requests with 
 no description

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In a mobile application, a simple change can have a big UI impact

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Descriptive Pull Requests

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No content

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Mar ‘19

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New team means new dynamics

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I prefer to discuss face to face

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Results Saved my future self countless times Wrote reports of problems we had in production Documented processes, architectures, integrations etc.

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My first month Need to mental-map the interactions..

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Colleague’s first Month Yes, it was easy to pick-up!

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Colleague’s first Month YAY, first time in 3 years that it was easy!

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Former colleague’s 
 last week Wish we had RFCs when I started

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Former colleague’s 
 last week It would’ve prevent a few discussions

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We do a great job if our team is not dependent on us

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Documentation is for the team/project, not the individuals

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Slowly introduce documentation in your team

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I have an RFC for you to review

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Im writing a Doc for the Redesign

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Thank him, it’s been very useful! ?

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No content

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Thank you Filipe Mendes @fmendes6
 medium.com/@fmendes6

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References https://buriti.ca/6-lessons-i-learned-while-implementing- technical-rfcs-as-a-management- tool-34687dbf46cb, Juan Buriticá (2017) https://github.com/rust-lang/rfcs, Rust Language https://csse.usc.edu/events/2002/arr/letters.pdf, Manifesto Elicits Cynicism, Steven Rakitin (2002) https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/914732, J.D. Herbsleb, D. Moitra (2001) https://zeldauniverse.net/media/fonts, Zelda Universe https://proandroiddev.com/perfecting-process-for-presenting-prs-7b3c63cd2848, Perfecting process for Presenting PRs, Ataul Munim (2019) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSlqpsdBQx4, Game Over - Zelda, PenguinIceNinja (2007) https://www.candyspace.com/team/, Candyspace (2019) https://github.com/novoda/novoda/blob/master/.github/PULL_REQUEST_TEMPLATE.md, Novoda (2017)