Posts by Year

Pre-2013 blog archive @davemangot tweet archive

2024

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2023

Show me the tests

3 minute read

Feelings are an important part of engineering. But they don’t replace automated tests.

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2022

Agile Abuse

3 minute read

Agile is not to control, measure, or micromanage teams.

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2021

Two things that will never work here

4 minute read

When looking to create a more agile business, we can take inspiration from many sources. But ultimately, the problems we need to solve are our own.

Help a good Ops team be world class

3 minute read

If you want your company to be successful, give it something your competitors don’t have. A world class service delivery organization.

Get Good at Delivering Software

10 minute read

Survival in the digital age requires an emphasis on execution and speed, enabled by a DevOps approach across the business

The Service Delivery Assessment

4 minute read

There are many options for DevOps assessment, the best one also helps your organization get good at delivering software.

Process is a sign of success

5 minute read

Keeping up with growth in an organization is a GOOD problem. Process is a great solution, if done the right way.

Tech Debt and Company Growth

4 minute read

There are engineering concepts that are very difficult to quantify. Even if we could, does it make sense to aim for zero?

Growth culture in Westrum typology terms

5 minute read

Many teams in the alternative capital markets space talk about the elements of their culture that enable growth. This “conscious inquiry” approach is well known to high performing teams in the DevO...

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2020

Happy Holiday Hack Week

1 minute read

Engineers work hard all year. One of the best ways to be a high performer is to remember, downtime.

On Virtual Conference Speaking

5 minute read

Attending virtual conferences is a new experience. Presenting a virtual conferences requires a very different approach.

Managing work from the front

6 minute read

Being a frontline manager requires a careful negotiation between the business and the engineers. If we focus our efforts on needs, we’ll always be doing the right things.

How to bring order to Chaos

7 minute read

When taking charge of an organization characterized by chaos, use these principles to help quickly turn the ship get things under control.

Organizing around the Value Stream

11 minute read

When working on multiple projects at once, it is hard to make good progress. If we organize around the value stream, then we can help the work to flow through our system.

Engineering the hiring of engineers

20 minute read

Engineering is much more than just writing code – it’s about improving a system. By re-engineering our hiring processes, we can bring much-needed efficiency and results to the system.

Distributed, Not Remote

15 minute read

Every company may be a software company, but many software companies are now becoming distributed software companies. By adopting an everyone remote culture, we can hire, empower, and enable employ...

Plan the work, Execute the work

9 minute read

In our jobs, it’s not enough to be busy, we need to be productive. By being deliberate about choosing what to work on, we can make real strides for our product, our businesses and ourselves.

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2019

Make the right way, the easy way

6 minute read

If we want teams that are empowered to move quickly and safely, instead of giving them strict instructions on how to perform their jobs, we can make the right way the easy way, and allow the busine...

Moving Operations to Simple with Cynefin

9 minute read

Part of the responsibility of high-performing Operations teams is to keep the developers moving as fast as possible. Using the Cynefin framework, we have a way of characterizing our initiatives and...

Stability vs. Speed, Pick Two

9 minute read

When delivering software to our customers, in any capacity, we’re often faced with a false choice between focusing on stability or speed. With a high performing Operations organization, we can have...

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2018

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2015

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2014

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2013

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