WhereDoIStart

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Where Do I Start

Andy Longshaw, Nick Rozanski, Eoin Woods.


Overview

Whatever level you work at in an organization it is challenging to become effective quickly when you first arrive.

In this session we looked at gathering a mixture of technical and non-technical practices that will help people to overcome this problem. For example, from a technical perspective, if there is no system architecture diagram it might be useful to create one, from a non-technical perspective you might want to make an organisational map of individuals and responsibilities.

The goal of the session was to draw on shared experience to reflect on what has worked for people in different contexts and to define a toolkit of techniques that people can try to apply in their own work environment. The practices that were identified in the session are described below.


Group 1 - Permanent Team Leader (joining from outside)

Possible practices:

  • Senior manager's view of each team member
  • Team member 1:1s - Show and tell
  • Presentation of function of team
  • Review existing docs


Senior Manager View of Each Team Member

Description: senior manager goes through each team member talks about their strengths, weaknesses, history, personality, satisfaction levels, comfort

Benefits:

  1. Learn about the individuals and team mood
  2. Know the capability of the team

Challenges:

  1. Only a top down view, skewed by hierarchy
  2. subjective, the managers own agenda can come through and secrets remain secret!

Applicability:

-DeveloperTeam LeaderAnalystCoach / MentorArchitectProject Manager
New Job-X-X-X
Promotion-X-X-X
Job Move-X-X-X
Consultant-X-X-X

Team Member 1-to-1s

Description: two way introduction between team lead and team members

Benefits:

  1. Start to build raport
  2. Find historical content

Challenges: team members could be cagy with new starters

Show and Tell

Description: each team presents the good, the bad and the ugly of their curent and last deliverables (project, application, documents)

Benefits:

  1. context of your team, what they do
  2. reputation of team, motivation

Challenges:

  1. how honest and open people area (trying to impress)
  2. people deliberately create challenges (as tests) for new TL to respond to (dumping challenges or "we're great already")


Group 2 - Developer, New Joiner, Large Organisation

Possible practices:

  • Do NOT keep saying "on my last project ... "
  • Update/create architecture diagrams
  • Update/create new joiner instructions
  • Development process documentation
  • Meet the business people
  • Social bonding


Update/Create Architecture Diagrams

Description: draw an architecture diagram of your system and its external connections Benefits:

  1. help to understand the architecture
  2. helps to speak to the team and find expertise
  3. it helps the next new joiner

Challenges:

  1. Getting buy in and time to do it

Applicability:

-DeveloperTeam LeaderAnalystCoach / MentorArchitectProject Manager
New JobXXX-X-
PromotionXXX-X-
Job MoveXXX-X-
ConsultantXXX-X-


New Joiner Instructions

Description: update or create wiki notes to documents the steps and software require to build a new development environment

Benefits:

  1. provides reusable guide for new joiners
  2. catalyst for team conversations

Challenges:

  1. documentation viewed a low priority
  2. process subject to change

Applicability:

-DeveloperTeam LeaderAnalystCoach / MentorArchitectProject Manager
New JobXX----
Promotion------
Job MoveX-----
ConsultantX-----

Social Bonding (Lunch and Booze)

Description: organise or suggest social activities

Benefits:

  1. meet colleagues out of office context
  2. improve sense of team membership

Challenges:

  1. some activities won't suit everyone

Applicability:

-DeveloperTeam LeaderAnalystCoach / MentorArchitectProject Manager
New JobXXX--X
PromotionXXX---
Job Move-XX--X
ConsultantXXXXXX
  • New Job: developer, team leader, analyst, project manager
  • Promotion: developer, team leader, analyst
  • Job Move: team leader, analyst, project manager
  • Consultant: developer, team leader, analyst, coach, architect, project manager

Development Process Documentation

Description: create documents which explain the process used to checkout, maintain and commit code

Benefits:

  1. consistent and common approach for development
  2. exposes the process and allows review, improvement and refinement if necessary

Challenges:

  1. ensuring that the process is rigourously followed
  2. can become obsolete if the docment is not maintained (low priority document?)

Applicability:

-DeveloperTeam LeaderAnalystCoach / MentorArchitectProject Manager
New JobXX----
PromotionX-----
Job MoveXX----
ConsultantXX----


Team 3 - Developer, New Job, Mid-Size Company

Possible practices:

  • Show and Tell
  • Community of Interest
  • Pair programming promiscuously
  • Talk to test, support and operations teams
  • Conduct a retrospective
  • Whiteboard an architecture diagram
  • Ask questions
  • Start putting a glossary together
  • Find out where people go for lunch


Go for Lunch or Drinks

Description: socialise with colleagues as a way to orient yourself Benefits:

  1. build trust
  2. pleasant way to gather information
  3. obtain "privileged" (off the record) information

Challenges:

  1. costs money and personal time
  2. might exclude key individuals

Applicability:

-DeveloperTeam LeaderAnalystCoach / MentorArchitectProject Manager
New JobXXXXXX
PromotionXXXXXX
Job MoveXXXXXX
ConsultantXXXXXX


Discover a Community of Interest

Description: identify groups of people trying to solve problems similar to yours in the same organisational context


Benefits:

  1. problem shared is a problem halved
  2. obtaining answers to questions

Challenges:

  1. finding these people
  2. channels of communication

Applicability:

-DeveloperTeam LeaderAnalystCoach / MentorArchitectProject Manager
New JobXXXXXX
Promotion-----X
Job Move--X-X-
ConsultantXXXXXX

Put a Glossary Together

Description: create a dictionary of domain terms and acronyms

Benefits:

  1. Understand the application domain better
  2. Good excuse to go asking "stupid" questions

Challenges:

  1. Obtaining authoritative answers
  2. Finding a suitable platform (such as a wiki) to share the answers

Applicability:

-DeveloperTeam LeaderAnalystCoach / MentorArchitectProject Manager
New JobXXXXXX
Promotion-XX-X-
Job MoveXXX-X-
ConsultantXXX-X-