I write regularly about improving software development and delivery. These are typically summarised and commented on in my regular newsletter.
This is the full archive of articles.
2023
Sunday, March 12 - What is Infrastructure as Code? (Infrastructure) Wednesday, March 1 - Developer Productivity is Not a Helpful Label (Observability) (developer productivity) Thursday, February 23 - Is Splunk better than Datadog? (Observability) Thursday, February 23 - Why Wait to Discover Mistakes? (Software Delivery) (continuous delivery) Tuesday, February 21 - Fear-Driven Development: When You Work Against The Flow (Everything Else, Organisation and Culture) (banking) Tuesday, February 14 - They Made a Documentary about React (Software Development) (front end, react) Thursday, February 2 - The Why of Building Software (Architecture) (DDD) Wednesday, February 1 - What can we learn from a WordPress upgrade? (Tools & Technology) (configuration management) Thursday, January 26 - Building Software in a Post-Agile World (Software Delivery) Tuesday, January 24 - Learning to Fight Complexity (Leadership) Saturday, January 21 - 2023: So Where Now? (Organisation and Culture) Sunday, January 15 - QUEST: How To Build Great Software (Software Development) Thursday, January 12 - The Language of Change (Leadership) Thursday, January 12 - Creating a DevOps Culture? (Leadership) Wednesday, January 11 - Reducing Complexity in Software Configuration (Software Development) Friday, January 6 - Loving the Legacy Rabbit Hole (Legacy)
2022
Saturday, December 31 - Time to Take a Deep Cleansing Breath (Everything Else) (ai) Friday, December 23 - The Social Legacy of Code (Legacy) (adventofcode) Wednesday, December 21 - Advent of Code 2022: Into The Valley of Self-Doubt (Software Development) (adventofcode, algorithms) Sunday, December 18 - Do You Still Need ITIL and ITSM? (Organisation and Culture) (customer focus, itil, itsm) Thursday, December 15 - Causes of Tech Debt and Legacy (Legacy) Monday, December 12 - Software Engineering Happiness: The Five Ideals (Software Delivery) (5 ideals) Monday, December 5 - Skating on Thin Ice (Legacy) (tech debt) Sunday, December 4 - The Advent of Code and GPT-3 (Software Development) Tuesday, November 29 - Lines of Code: How to Feel Good About Yourself (Software Development) Thursday, November 24 - Rust Code Analysis in SonarCloud using GitHub Actions (Software Development) (code analysis, rust, sonarcloud) Wednesday, November 23 - How to Tackle a Legacy Codebase (Software Development) (Legacy) Tuesday, November 22 - Find Your Unique Perspective (Leadership) Monday, November 21 - Kubernetes or Serverless and When Should You Care? (Infrastructure) (kubernetes, serverless) Saturday, November 12 - When you code. Mean it. (Software Development) Thursday, November 10 - DDD, Refactoring and Legacy Code (Legacy) (DDD, Java, Kotlin, Legacy) Wednesday, November 9 - What Do You Need To Get Started in Software? (Software Development) Tuesday, November 8 - Team Topologies (Strategy) Tuesday, October 25 - Colouring Outside the Lines (Software Development) Friday, October 21 - Do you have CTO Problems? (Leadership) Monday, October 17 - The Fundamentals of DevOps (Software Delivery) Friday, October 14 - The Sunk Cost Fallacy, Fallacy (Architecture) Wednesday, October 12 - You Need Better Linux Logging (Infrastructure) Tuesday, October 11 - Designing Your Release Process (Software Delivery) Thursday, October 6 - Can You Release When You Want To? (Software Delivery) Wednesday, October 5 - Do You Have Hidden Delivery Debt? (Software Delivery) Tuesday, October 4 - How To Win At Jira (Tools & Technology) Friday, September 30 - Software as a Product or as a Service? (Product) (SaaS) Thursday, September 29 - How to Build Maintainable Software (Software Development) Wednesday, September 28 - Are You Seeing The Whole Picture? (Product) (architecture, operations, support) Tuesday, September 27 - Is It Time For A New Challenge? (Leadership) Monday, September 26 - What is Software Delivery? (Software Delivery) Friday, September 23 - Is There a U-Turn on Open Source? (Software Delivery) (log4j, security) Wednesday, September 21 - How To Be A Good Developer (Software Development) (personal development) Tuesday, September 20 - Just Fix One Thing (Software Delivery) (backlog, software development, strategy) Monday, September 19 - Software isn’t a Liquid (Software Delivery) Saturday, September 17 - The SaaS Product Risk Trajectory (Strategy) Friday, September 16 - The Magic of Wardley Maps (Strategy) (mapping) Wednesday, September 14 - The Streisand Effect (Organisation and Culture) Tuesday, September 13 - Are You Happy With Your Front-End? (Architecture) (front-end, ux) Monday, September 12 - Is The Path of Least Resistance Sometimes The Right Choice? (Software Development) (css, motivation) Sunday, September 11 - The Eight Rules of Good Construction (Software Delivery) Friday, September 9 - Do You Love Story Points? (Project Management) Wednesday, September 7 - Approvals Come First (Software Delivery) Thursday, September 1 - Are You An Engineer or A Dreamer? (Software Development) Tuesday, August 30 - Do You Have To Use Innovative Technology? (Tools & Technology) Saturday, August 27 - Is Your CI Doing Valuable Work? (Software Delivery) Friday, August 26 - How Easily Can You Deliver New Features? (Software Delivery) Wednesday, August 24 - The Power of the Business Case (Strategy) Tuesday, August 23 - Pull Requests cause Friction (Software Development) Monday, August 22 - Technology First Solutions (Product) Sunday, August 21 - The Lies We Tell Ourselves (Product) (automation, customer, jira) Saturday, August 20 - Customer-Centric Engineering (Software Delivery) Friday, August 19 - Say Yes to Different (Organisation and Culture) Thursday, August 18 - Why Vi or Emacs? (Software Development) Wednesday, August 17 - How Not To Worry About Agile vs Waterfall (Organisation and Culture) Tuesday, August 16 - The Emperor’s New Clothes (Product) Monday, August 15 - The Illusion of Control (Strategy) (software craftsmanship) Sunday, August 14 - The Four Ps of Automation (Tools & Technology) Saturday, August 13 - Why does Kubernetes even exist? (Infrastructure) Friday, August 12 - How to HumanOps (Organisation and Culture) (humanops, software development) Thursday, August 11 - When The Team is Scared (Leadership) (team dynamics) Wednesday, August 10 - Brazil 1986: State Management by Committee (Architecture) (conway's law, design by committee) Tuesday, August 9 - How to Know When the Team is Broken (Organisation and Culture) (Leadership) Sunday, August 7 - Do You Need The Default Clause? (Software Development) (personal development) Saturday, August 6 - I Wanna Be Adored (Software Development) Friday, August 5 - The Developer Mindset (Software Development) Thursday, August 4 - Software Delivery Club Pod: Getting your Evenings and Weekends Back (Organisation and Culture) (on-call, podcast, software delivery club) Tuesday, August 2 - Dave Farley and Allen Holub: Agile & Scrum – what doesn’t work (Organisation and Culture) (agile, DevOps, Leadership, scrum) Monday, August 1 - Creativity Not Always Required (Software Delivery) Sunday, July 31 - When the Weekend Isn’t Your Own (Organisation and Culture) Saturday, July 30 - When You Can’t See the Forest for the Trees (Software Development) Friday, July 29 - Refining the Big Scary Story (Organisation and Culture) Wednesday, July 27 - The Office: Dare to be Different (Organisation and Culture) Saturday, July 23 - Show No Fear (Product) Friday, July 22 - Delivery Wins (Software Delivery) Thursday, July 21 - Rust vs Go: Does it Matter? (Software Delivery) Wednesday, July 20 - Welcome to Software Delivery Club (Software Delivery) Tuesday, July 19 - Observability vs Monitoring (Observability) Monday, July 18 - Bullshit Jobs (Organisation and Culture) Sunday, July 17 - The Carbon Almanac (Everything Else) Saturday, July 16 - Are You Still Ignoring the Cloud? (Infrastructure) Wednesday, July 13 - What Happens When an Incident is Declared? (Organisation and Culture) Monday, July 11 - Building a Software Product (Product, Software Delivery) Sunday, July 10 - Cult of the Developer (Organisation and Culture) Friday, July 8 - How to Commit like Keith and Mick (Tools & Technology) Thursday, July 7 - Reimagining the High Performing Team (Organisation and Culture) Monday, July 4 - Managing Your Time & Managing Tasks (Project Management) (project management, projects, time management) Sunday, July 3 - How to get DevOps Insights You Can Trust (Software Delivery) (agile, DevOps, Leadership) Thursday, June 30 - Learning to Lead Through Technology (Organisation and Culture) Wednesday, June 29 - Does Your Sector Matter? (Product) Tuesday, June 28 - Anything That You Need To Avoid (Leadership) Monday, June 27 - Identifying The Busywork (Project Management) Sunday, June 26 - Are You Up For a Challenge? (Leadership) Friday, June 24 - Feeling Trapped and Unable To Speak? (Organisation and Culture) Thursday, June 23 - The Technical Details (Project Management) Wednesday, June 22 - Planning, Selection and Installation (Project Management) Tuesday, June 14 - The Level Playing Field (Product) Saturday, June 11 - Sunscreen vs Sunblock (Organisation and Culture) Friday, June 10 - How to Run a Successful Project (Project Management) (agile, developers, projects, scrum) Friday, June 3 - Please Don’t Explain It, Just Fix It (Project Management) Tuesday, May 31 - The Pros and Cons of Excel Spreadsheets (Tools & Technology) Saturday, May 28 - Build or Buy? Or Both? (Product) Monday, April 25 - What’s a professional association to do? (Organisation and Culture) Thursday, April 7 - That’s Just How It Works (Organisation and Culture) Friday, April 1 - Learn to speak like a digital native (Organisation and Culture) Monday, March 21 - Breaking the Reliance (Leadership) Wednesday, March 16 - How to Think Like a Developer (Organisation and Culture) Monday, February 28 - Dear IT Director (Organisation and Culture) Tuesday, February 22 - You’re a Knowledge Business (Leadership) Wednesday, February 16 - Tool Selection for your Business (Tools & Technology) Tuesday, February 15 - Thank you, Mr Conway (Strategy) Tuesday, February 8 - Getting Ready to Automate (Tools & Technology) Monday, January 31 - Time to Stop Overcomplicating (Leadership) Monday, January 17 - Brittle Systems (Organisation and Culture) Monday, January 17 - What’s wrong with your business? (Leadership) Tuesday, January 11 - Do you really need to hire a VA? (Everything Else)