Bits and Pieces
What is Chunking? Chunking refers to how our brains prefer to group information. Our working memory can hold about 3 pieces of information simultaneously, with the ability to stretch to 5. So our brain is pretty bad at handling lots of information at the same time. Chunk information to retain it faster If we have a large amount of information in front of us, we can group or chunk the information…
Information is instantly accessible and with the coming of ChatGPT, now everyting is instantly understandable. I can type "Explain quantum physics to me like I'm a five year old" and I get back a cohesive answer. Is it correct? I don't know - who cares! Since we have instant access to information we can instantly understand, can't we remove the need for memorising? We never liked it in school…
The word "Safe" keeps appearing as I read about complex systems - system safety, safety actions, safety models, STAMP. In the exciting space of high-risk systems, it's pretty boring to think about "Making things safer". It evokes imagery of someone in too-tight clothing saying "No!" to every little change. "Safety" is also a cost to the business where we should instead be thinking about revenue…
Many people are convinced they cannot learn, citing things like "I'm not gifted enough" or "That other person is naturally great at what they do". This is a terrible self-deprecating philosophy. Worst of all - it's false. Think of the people you admire - Michael Jordan, Albert Einstein, Wolfgang Mozart, surgeons, teachers, sports people... Are these people naturally gifted? Maybe. Did all of them…
Problem Statement Flagship engagement with 4 teams (32 engineers) in highly regulated banking environment had no delivery governance. Our client, a Tier-1 bank, operated with a top-down hierarchy, resulting in slow decision making and siloes. We needed to establish engineering excellence from scratch to prove extreme value in this flagship engagement. Challenges No continuous improvement culture…
Problem Statement Company had significant engineering capacity between client engagements but no way to convert that capability into new business opportunities. With a 12-18 months sales cycle in our domain and no sales function in the business, we needed a proactive approach to generate sales leads. The challenge was to transform our bench resources into a revenue-generation function. My Approach…
Problem Statement Recurring bugs were drowning engineering teams in reactive patch fixing. Across 6 teams (~60 engineers), the same categories of bugs kept reappearing because teams fixed symptoms instead of root causes. Business Impact €15 million in annual recurring revenue at risk: Clients refused new software or bug fixes due to reliability issues and downtime risks. 120% capacity on bug…
Problem Statement A €3 million project ran 3+ months late due to scope creep, undefined design principles and no risk tracking, missing the initial deadline by over 90 days. Repeated occurrences of these failures across subsequent projects would cost us over 7 figures in lost income. Root causes: No design phase: The company signed the contract and launched straight into development. No designs,…
What is deliberate practice? In a previous post , I explored what deliberate practice looks like and how it is the fastest route to mastery. Developed by Anders Ericsson, deliberate practice is a combination of: Focus: The learner must be completely focused on their objective. Expert: The learner has access to a good teacher or mentor. Difficult goals: The bar for achievement must be high.…
So far, we've covered what mastery looks like and why you might want to master something. Now, let's look at what the journey of mastery might look like. Overview In this post, we will look at the different stages of mastery and explore some elements of effective practice at the different stages of mastery. The different stages of mastery Although mastery is an endless journey, we can still say…
What are the benefits of mastery? Previously , we discussed "What is Mastery": A difficult, obsessive journey in the pursuit of becoming highly proficient in a person's craft. Masters take their craft and read about it, study it, practice it and spend tens of thousands of hours at it. To go on that journey, it's important we see the benefits that come with it. If the great masters often hated…
What does mastery look like? Think about a few people you consider masters of a craft, sport or science. Who are they? Einstein, Beethoven, Usain Bolt. Maybe you had a great music teacher growing up or a friend who became a professional sportsperson. What makes that person a master? Why do they stand out to you? Think about that answer for a few seconds... Great masters have a few attributes in…
What have you always wanted to do but didn't give yourself time for? What skills have you wanted to master in the past but never spent the energy doing so? Have you ever looked at your skills and thought "I should have done more". It's common to look back on our education or personal development and think we could have done better. We look at ourselves now and think "Ok - I'm going to fix this and…
Slowness is a virtue Speed is important. Life passes quickly, so we need get things done. We need to build things. We need to meet deadlines. We need to uphold our responsibilities. The kids need to be dropped to school before school starts. The assignment needs to be submitted on a Friday. The work needs to be completed by end of Q2. Time is of the essence for many things. But not for everything.…
One of the greatest superpowers that a leader can unlock at any moment is to write stuff down. Here are a few reasons to do so. Make more decisions People confuse talking with decision-making. While it is true that talking is part of the decision-making process, if your decision is not written down, it will be forgotten and you will have to revisit the same conversation in the future. Once a…
Effective Marketing Here is a sales funnel: On the left, we see all the opportunities for potential new business. As our target market become aware of what I offer them, I work with them to get their interest and hopefully a decision for them to do business with me. Good sales strategies will aim to be specific. If we make generic statements about what I sell, it's going to fall flat in the sea of…
Intro Reading through Make It Stick , I keep coming across misconceptions I have about effective learning. Here are a couple of antipatterns I've fallen prey to. Learning Antipattern: The Path of Least Resistance ...where I choose to learn things that are easy to avoid anything difficult, tedious or tiring. The Path of Least Resistance: Problems Easy learning gets lost. Reading a book cover to…
This is a post from a larger series entitled A Path to Learning+dev Mastery . The path to mastery looks something like: Understand the business objectives and strategy Develop a learning+dev strategy that supports the business strategy. Consult and receive feedback from stakeholders Define the backlog of initiatives to meet your strategy Design the initiatives - we will explore this here Execute…
The Sunk Cost Fallacy applies to almost every discipline you can think of. Even in the Silicon Valley world of startups, success is only about 10% . Most companies don't succeed. Most projects don't work out. Most initiatives don't last. Maybe your project lacks engagement, stakeholders or customers. Maybe it didn't address its objectives. Maybe it was a great initiative but the wrong time. Maybe…
This is a post from a larger series entitled A Path to Learning+dev Mastery . The path to mastery looks something like: Understand the business objectives and strategy Develop a learning+dev strategy that supports the business strategy. Consult and receive feedback from stakeholders Define the programs to meet your strategy - we will explore this here. Execute the programs and track success.…
This is a post from a larger series entitled A Path to Learning+dev Mastery . The path to mastery looks something like: Understand the business objectives and strategy Develop a learning+dev strategy that supports the business strategy. Consult and receive feedback from stakeholders - we will explore this here. Define the programs to meet the strategy including success criteria. Execute the…
This is a post from a larger series entitled A Path to Learning+dev Mastery . As mentioned before, the path to mastery looks something like: Understand the business objectives and strategy Develop a learning+dev strategy that supports the business strategy - we will explore this here. Consult and receive feedback from stakeholders. Define the programs to meet the strategy including success…
This is a post from a larger series entitled A Path to Learning+dev Mastery . As mentioned before, the path to mastery looks something like: Understand the business objectives and strategy - we will explore this here. Develop a learning+dev strategy that supports the business strategy. Consult and receive feedback from stakeholders. Define the programs to meet the strategy including success…
What is learning+development? Learning+development is a strange concept. Learning+development (L&D) has its beginnings in corporate training programs in the industrial revolution where initiatives were created to ensure workforces could keep up with the pace of change. Henry Ford has the historical quote: "The only thing worse than training your employees and having them leave is not training your…
Benefits of GenAI I've been using ChatGPT consistently for about 5 months now. I experience about 20-30% extra value output each day for my management responsibilities. That means I get an extra week's work done each month - well worth the €25 investment! With this level of extra productivity, I presumed everyone else was doing the same as me and using ChatGPT for as much work as possible. But it…
We hate them, but timelines are important Most things have timelines. Projects, tasks, meetings - nearly everything has an end date. Timelines are needed to clarify expectations and let people know when things will happen. Without timelines, dependencies can't be managed and communication breaks down. Your colleagues need to know what time you'll arrive at work. Your manager needs to know what…
Communicate by Default A manager's default task is to communicate. If the manager finds themselves prevented from communicating to their stakeholders by more "productive" tasks, they risk failure in their role. All managers face this challenge at some point or another and fall into the "I'm too busy leading to lead" trap. Managers should communicate all day, everyday. They should overcommunicate…
Most of the time, we focus on the biggest problems of the moment. What's the biggest headache today? Who is causing me inconvenience? When will this pain and stress end? It's no surprise that focusing on the negatives all the time leads to increased stress and burnout. It reduces motivation and engagement with our lives and the people in it. We forget the good things we have and wish everything…
What is L&D Theatre? I'm approaching 1 year as an L&D manager. Mentorship and community are an important part of learning any new role, so 12 months ago I joined a virtual L&D community. I attended some meetups but didn't enjoy them. I couldn't take the community seriously. Everyone had the voice of a teacher talking to a young child. That condescending tone that high-fives everyone and says…
What is an L&D vision? A Learning and Development vision is one of the most powerful tools you can use to improve your organisation's learning culture. An L&D vision describes the future you want to create for your organisation. A good vision depicts 2-5 years into the future. Anything shorter term is more a short-term goal than a vision. For example, your short-term goal might be to increased…
Difficulties of retro participation The team retro is the sacred space where all team members bring improvement ideas to the table. Team retros are not complicated. But it can be difficult to participate given all the distinct personalities in a team. A great retro will leave all team members satisfied that they have spent their time productively. Unfortunately, my experience tells me that many…
Given the success of my previous post on hackernews , here are 3 more onboarding antipatterns. Onboarding Antipattern: Obvious Blindspots ...where the company assumes that obvious information is obvious and the onboarder will 'just know it'. Problems with this antipattern Less experienced people have less knowledge. Something that is obvious to a 20 year senior is not obvious to a junior fresh out…
Effective Onboarding A good onboarding experience will get the new-joiner up and running quickly. A great onboarding experience will stay with them forever. A terrible onboarding experience will leave a horrible taste in their mouth about their new company on their first day. They will lose confidence in themselves and the people around them. The onboarding experience is a litmus test for how…
Using root cause analysis for people problems Let's say James (a manager) pulls me aside for a talk. "David, my teams just don't collaborate . They work by themselves and only talk together in their morning standups. Even their planning sessions and retrospectives are silent. Because of this, the team is duplicating their work. People find out they are working on the same code as their teammate.…
How to know you're not focusing Do you ask yourself any of these questions? Where am I going in my job? Why do I feel demotivated even though I have the position I always wanted? How do I get rid of the feeling of being stuck? Why am I not motivated to improve anything? Why do I feel the need to try everything? I've had some of these questions in the past. Sometimes, I've achieved exactly what I…
Get better results by focusing on what's working In his book, Extreme Programming Explained, Kent Beck describes how Extreme Programming was conceived: "My goal in laying out the project style was to take everything I knew to be valuable about software engineering and turn the dials to 10." Woody Zuill, the author of Mob Programming, took this idea with one of his teams, running a short retro at…
Posting a Question on Hackernews I posted a question to the hackernews community asking them " Ask HN: What's the best lecture series you've seen? ". Here are the highlights. You can read the full list in the comments . Results Free Courses Andrej Karpathy: "Neural Networks: From Zero to Hero ". Andrej Karpathy: "Let's build GPT: from scratch, in code, spelled out. " Classical Physics by V.…
I've taken this workshop format from the videos on the HBS Case Method . Use this template to facilitate an in-person or remote learning lab where the group explores a case study. I've run this with a group of 4-6 people, but larger groups are possible. Details 45 minutes 4-10 people In-person Use powerpoint to display details Use whiteboard to brainstorm with the group Agreements Treat each other…
Remote vs. In-person debate As lockdowns lifted, many companies have returned to in-person working with the belief that it is overall better for collaboration and delivering immediate value. This may or may not be true, or maybe it is true in some cases and not others, or maybe collaboration and immediate value should not be the only metrics to look at. Whatever the case may be, it strikes me as…
This template is inspired by a number of software coaches including Woody Zuill, Kevin Meadows and Llewellyn Falco. Background Many teams are called 'teams' by name only. From what I can see, this is because we often do not focus on building team-specific skills. In sports, we focus on growing and developing the team because it's obvious that's how games get won. But in the software industry, we…
Why use different retro questions? Most teams have workshops called 'retros' where they reflect on the previous couple of weeks and decide what to improve going forward. For most teams, the retro is treated as another obligatory meeting dictated to them by the scrum rules. Teams that have no experience in effective retros see these workshops as a waste of time, and why wouldn't they? The teams…
What are the rules of chess? Chess rules are simple: Trap your oppenent's king before they trap yours. Of course, there are other rules like how pawns should capture other pieces or how a king should castle. I know these rules and I know them well. My go-to method of procratination is to play a game of chess on lichess.org . So here's a question: If I know the rules of chess, why can't I beat an…
I wrote previously about lessons I wish I knew when onboarding to a new project. Using the information in that post (plus some more lessons I've learned along the way), here is a useful checklist to use when onboarding to a new project. Questions for the Team to Answer Question Details What are you building? Name of product List of use cases in the product What are your responsibilities? Your team…
What is a culture? If you want an equation, here's mine: Culture = Behaviours + Expectations + Wisdom Cultural Behaviours Pick any group and you will quickly see that each has their own ways of interacting and behaving with each other. Country County (especially in Ireland!) Village Local community Family Company Team Cultural behaviours are unconciously picked up when we integrate into a new…
What is a Learning Cluster? Below is the Learning Cluster template I use in my organisation. In a rush I'm interested Deep Dive Read Watch Listen Interact Live A Learning Cluster is a selection of learning assets given to the learner at their moment of need. The biggest benefit for both L&D and the learner is that whether the learner wants to watch a video, read a book or find a quick definition,…
This is a series of exercises in preparation for scrum.org's PSM certifications. I have gathered these scenarios from the internet together with my own experiences. Any answer will be based from my understanding of the Scrum Guide . Source by Alen Pekic on scrum.org. Scenario A Development Team, arguing it is self-organising, indicates it no longer needs the Daily Scrum; they collaborate…
This is a series of exercises in preparation for scrum.org's PSM certifications. I have gathered these scenarios from the internet together with my own experiences. Any answer will be based from my understanding of the Scrum Guide . Source by Alen Pekic on scrum.org. Scenario You are a Scrum Master working with a Scrum Team. The Development Team constantly complain that requirements are not clear…
What is Continuous Improvement? Continuous Improvement is often an abstract and vague term to describe better ways of working. Within the context of business and technology, Continuous Improvement seeks to enhance every aspect of value in a team's processes and products. By reducing waste, reducing burden, and increasing consistency, teams boost the value they produce towards their stakeholders.…
Retrospectives are the team’s most valuable meeting. They enable the team to inspect and adapt their ways of working on a regular basis. Small, regular retros bring small, regular improvements to the team. Teams often launch into their retrospective meeting without a plan. The team goes into a room, writes down some thoughts on sticky notes and categorises them into “Good/Bad/Improvement ideas”.…
Solving performance issues is a tricky business. Teams are often not knowledgeable in performance testing. When a performance bug comes in, it could be the team's first time to witness such an issue. Furthermore, performance bugs are always critical and need to be solved yesterday. If the team has the necessary skills to solve the issue, this would be manageable. However, many teams rarely have…