Asynchronous Collaboration

Communicating Through Our Source Code

We hear a lot about how strong communication and collaboration are key to a successful project. We spend a lot of time focusing on stand-up meetings and pair programming, but there are potentially other very effective means of keeping the team on the same page that not only avoid daily interruptions but also provide long-term benefit.

The goal of this talk is to help your team improve its own collaboration and productivity with just a bit of discipline and relatively low overhead.

Transcript

1. Asynchronous Collaboration Ryan McGeary http://ryan.mcgeary.org @rmm5t http://www.flickr.com/photos/wwarby/4782904694/
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14. 1 Why is Asynchronous Collaboration Best?
15. syn•chron•ous |ˈsiNGkr!n!s| adjective existing or occurring at the same time.
16.   
    
         of or requiring a form of computer control timing protocol in which a specific operation begins upon receipt of an indication (signal) that the preceding operation has been completed. a•syn•chron•ous |āˈsiNGkr!n!s| adjective
    
17. (of two or more objects or events) not existing or happening at the same time. a•syn•chron•ous |āˈsiNGkr!n!s| adjective
18. Flow focused in the zone on a roll present in the moment wired in in the groove on fire in tune centered
19. Productivity development output effectiveness creativity innovation performance
20. Happiness! growth well-being achievement enjoyment success life satisfaction
21. Happiness! Flow Productivity
22. How Do We Achieve Flow?
23. How Do We Achieve Flow? eliminate interruptions? shut out the world?
24. How Do We Achieve Flow? minimize interruptions maximize focus
25. How Do We Achieve Productivity without Flow?
27. What About Pair Programming?
28. 2 Minimize Synchronous Collaboration
29. Minimize Phone Calls
30. Minimize Direct Chat
31. Turn Off Notifications 1
32. Avoid Daily Stand-ups http://www.flickr.com/photos/angel_medinilla/2283716967/
33. Wait, WHAT!?!?
34. Scrums are one of the most dangerous phases in rugby... -Wikipedia http://www.flickr.com/photos/williampaulking/5636394420/
35. http://www.flickr.com/photos/angel_medinilla/2283716967/
36. http://www.flickr.com/photos/angel_medinilla/2283716967/
37. http://www.flickr.com/photos/angel_medinilla/2283716967/
38. http://www.flickr.com/photos/angel_medinilla/2283716967/
39. If you miss a stand-up meeting, you miss out.
40. 20% of us are Larks 20% of us are Owls http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lark http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owl
41. Happiness! Flow Productivity
42. Synchronous Collaboration yields interruption.
43. Happiness! Flow Productivity
44. This is why hackers give you such a baleful stare as they turn from their screen to answer your question [interruption]. Inside their heads a giant house of cards is tottering. -Paul Graham http://www.flickr.com/photos/rocor/5610373534/
46. 3 Maximize Asynchronous Collaboration
47. Email use when appropraite keep it short stay on topic well-named subjects no thread- jacking
48. Group Chat
49. Campfire IRC
51. IN: Finishing test refactors from yesterday... STATUS: Back later. Taking my wife to lunch. OUT: Finished refactors; Started to fix...
52. http://www.flickr.com/photos/angel_medinilla/2283716967/
53. rmm5t pushed 2 new commits to master
54. ryan deployed 5915b03 to staging
55. ...the build has passed
56. ...ticket sold to John Doe totaling $319
57. Group Chat build status deployments team status subscription upgrades customer support sales git commits daily reports cancellations questions
58. Feature/Issue Tracking
59. Issues & Pull Requests
60. pivotaltracker.com
61. apptrajectory.com
62. planscope.io
63. Issues & Pull Requests github.com
64. Bug Reports & Feature Requests
65. Bad Bug Reports lacking context bulleted list of unrelated issues “it didn’t work” outside the issue tracker blame
66. Good Bug Reports steps to reproduce what actually happened what you expected screenshots screencasts
67. Bad Feature Requests no detail bulleted list of unrelated topics “because I said so” outside the issue tracker too generic
68. Good Feature Requests detailed discrete gather buy-in screenshots in story form
69. 4 Collaboration Through Source Code
70. Readable Code small methods less code well-named KISS YAGNI match you domain
71. def gets(separator="\n", length=nil) if separator.nil? read_all elsif separator.is_a?(Integer) read_length(separator) elsif separator.length > 1 result = '' len = 0 match_idx = 0 match_num = separator.length - 1 to_match = separator[match_idx].chr if length matcher = lambda {|idx, num| idx < num && len < length } else matcher = lambda {|idx, num| idx < num} end while matcher.call(match_idx, match_num) && char = getc result << char len += 1 if char == to_match while match_idx < match_num do match_idx += 1
72. def gets(separator="\n", length=nil) if separator.nil? read_all elsif separator.is_a?(Integer) read_length(separator) elsif separator.length > 1 end end read_to_string(separator, length) else read_to_character(separator, length)
73. Testing functional unit acceptance system end-to-end integration black-box load stress
74. Remove Technical Debt code is a liability
75. Commit Messages BONUS TALK
76. Do Your Commit Messages Suck? Ryan McGeary http://ryan.mcgeary.org @rmm5t A Public Service Announcement BONUS TALK
77. The Bad
78. dfe4c3e Staging Bad
79. dfe4c3e Staging af0a3bb More staging fixes Bad
80. dfe4c3e Staging af0a3bb More staging fixes e5a524a More staging cap setup Bad
81. dfe4c3e Staging af0a3bb More staging fixes e5a524a More staging cap setup 19900ba More Bad
82. dfe4c3e Staging af0a3bb More staging fixes e5a524a More staging cap setup 19900ba More 0841841 More fixed Bad
83. dfe4c3e Staging af0a3bb More staging fixes e5a524a More staging cap setup 19900ba More 0841841 More fixed dffb0db Again Bad
84. dfe4c3e Staging af0a3bb More staging fixes e5a524a More staging cap setup 19900ba More 0841841 More fixed dffb0db Again 8a0f74c Updated scripts Bad
85. dfe4c3e Staging af0a3bb More staging fixes e5a524a More staging cap setup 19900ba More 0841841 More fixed dffb0db Again 8a0f74c Updated scripts 587a09c deploy script cleanup Bad
86. dfe4c3e Staging af0a3bb More staging fixes e5a524a More staging cap setup 19900ba More 0841841 More fixed dffb0db Again 8a0f74c Updated scripts 587a09c deploy script cleanup 9f474bc More staging Bad
87. dfe4c3e Staging af0a3bb More staging fixes e5a524a More staging cap setup 19900ba More 0841841 More fixed dffb0db Again 8a0f74c Updated scripts 587a09c deploy script cleanup 9f474bc More staging c3f7275 Again more staging Bad
88. dfe4c3e Staging af0a3bb More staging fixes e5a524a More staging cap setup 19900ba More 0841841 More fixed dffb0db Again 8a0f74c Updated scripts 587a09c deploy script cleanup 9f474bc More staging c3f7275 Again more staging 3ee25cd Read from env file Bad
89. dfe4c3e Staging af0a3bb More staging fixes e5a524a More staging cap setup 19900ba More 0841841 More fixed dffb0db Again 8a0f74c Updated scripts 587a09c deploy script cleanup 9f474bc More staging c3f7275 Again more staging 3ee25cd Read from env file 0328c7c again Bad
90. dfe4c3e Staging af0a3bb More staging fixes e5a524a More staging cap setup 19900ba More 0841841 More fixed dffb0db Again 8a0f74c Updated scripts 587a09c deploy script cleanup 9f474bc More staging c3f7275 Again more staging 3ee25cd Read from env file 0328c7c again d5e07c7 whoops Bad
91. dfe4c3e Staging af0a3bb More staging fixes e5a524a More staging cap setup 19900ba More 0841841 More fixed dffb0db Again 8a0f74c Updated scripts 587a09c deploy script cleanup 9f474bc More staging c3f7275 Again more staging 3ee25cd Read from env file 0328c7c again d5e07c7 whoops 0536fc7 Again Bad
92. dfe4c3e Staging af0a3bb More staging fixes e5a524a More staging cap setup 19900ba More 0841841 More fixed dffb0db Again 8a0f74c Updated scripts 587a09c deploy script cleanup 9f474bc More staging c3f7275 Again more staging 3ee25cd Read from env file 0328c7c again d5e07c7 whoops 0536fc7 Again 8af6da0 More Bad
93. dfe4c3e Staging af0a3bb More staging fixes e5a524a More staging cap setup 19900ba More 0841841 More fixed dffb0db Again 8a0f74c Updated scripts 587a09c deploy script cleanup 9f474bc More staging c3f7275 Again more staging 3ee25cd Read from env file 0328c7c again d5e07c7 whoops 0536fc7 Again 8af6da0 More 9052cb8 Again Bad
94. dfe4c3e Staging af0a3bb More staging fixes e5a524a More staging cap setup 19900ba More 0841841 More fixed dffb0db Again 8a0f74c Updated scripts 587a09c deploy script cleanup 9f474bc More staging c3f7275 Again more staging 3ee25cd Read from env file 0328c7c again d5e07c7 whoops 0536fc7 Again 8af6da0 More 9052cb8 Again 7587f8b Working? Bad
95. dfe4c3e Staging af0a3bb More staging fixes e5a524a More staging cap setup 19900ba More 0841841 More fixed dffb0db Again 8a0f74c Updated scripts 587a09c deploy script cleanup 9f474bc More staging c3f7275 Again more staging 3ee25cd Read from env file 0328c7c again d5e07c7 whoops 0536fc7 Again 8af6da0 More 9052cb8 Again 7587f8b Working? 9770886 g Bad
96. dfe4c3e Staging af0a3bb More staging fixes e5a524a More staging cap setup 19900ba More 0841841 More fixed dffb0db Again 8a0f74c Updated scripts 587a09c deploy script cleanup 9f474bc More staging c3f7275 Again more staging 3ee25cd Read from env file 0328c7c again d5e07c7 whoops 0536fc7 Again 8af6da0 More 9052cb8 Again 7587f8b Working? 9770886 g Bad
97. More Bad 3a61755 what a hassle
98. More Bad 3a61755 what a hassle eec60db what a stupid hassle
99. More Bad 3a61755 what a hassle eec60db what a stupid hassle bf77372 seriously a fucking hassle
100. More Bad 3a61755 what a hassle eec60db what a stupid hassle bf77372 seriously a fucking hassle 8b48352 this is a fucking hassle
101. More Bad 3a61755 what a hassle eec60db what a stupid hassle bf77372 seriously a fucking hassle 8b48352 this is a fucking hassle eb7cdd7 wtf dude
102. Again Bad 18c3f84 Huge commit
103. Whoops 17cb2a1 Fix a bug that Tommy missed fixing after he wrote this code last November.
104. Huge Whoops More Again Serious Hassle Bad c1c38fc Update deploy recipe with some stuff. I dunno. it's late
105. The Good
106. Good 0835022 Updated basic auth prompt to reflect app name
107. Good 0835022 Updated basic auth prompt to reflect app name 950b8de Fixed password reset for users who use the same email on multiple accounts [Fixes #11102389]
108. More Good 3224fff Added an extra 10s while sleeping after a Twitter rate-limit error * Twitter isn't always ready immediately after sleeping the advertised amount of time.
109. More Good 3224fff Added an extra 10s while sleeping after a Twitter rate-limit error * Twitter isn't always ready immediately after sleeping the advertised amount of time. 334a2c4 Fixed bug related to contact syncing [#9190663] Contacts that should have been tagged both friend and follower were having those tags toggled on each #profile_sync run. If the contact had "follower", and profile_sync was run, then the code would set the system_tags to ["following"], blowing away the "follower" tag. It would do the same thing vice versa for the "following" system tag.
110. Template Moved all static pages into a generic PagesController [Finishes #6375] * Cleaned up the routes * Simplified static page creation
111. Template Moved all static pages into a generic PagesController [Finishes #6375] * Cleaned up the routes * Simplified static page creation DETAILS SUMMARY
112. Template Moved all static pages into a generic PagesController [Finishes #6375] * Cleaned up the routes * Simplified static page creation VERB FRAGMENT TICKET # WHY
113. Verbs 184 Added 85 Fixed 76 Upped 31 Removed 24 Switched 21 Improved 20 Updated 16 Renamed
115. /)),2
116. Happiness! Flow Productivity
117. Minimize Synchronous Communication 1
118. Tools for Asynchronous Communication
119. Source Code is Communication
120. Ryan McGeary ryan.mcgeary.org @rmm5t ryan@mcgeary.org McGeary Consulting Group Tack så mycket