Every team has them. The “Ism” – the CodeIsm, the EnterpriseIsm, the SupportIsm. They are the ideas, the culture, the vernacular that makes your team, your team and separates it from everyone else. They are the rallying cry for getting things done and delivering. They are a good thing to have as long as they project the good of your team and not the “that’s the way we have always done it”, “that’s how it…

What I admire most about video games, is their resiliency to consistency deliver updates.  Maybe I’ve been lucky but when I look at the games I’ve played, and how they are updated I can’t help but think that this is where the time was spent first – on the Updates. The team figured out the problem they hoped they would have forever. Pushing out changes and ensuring they don’t impact their customers from using their…

After one release that goes well, you’re perfect. If your second and third ones go just as well, you’ll maintain that perfection. But eventually, the more you do, the greater you open yourself up to the chance that something will go wrong, that you won’t have the perfect release. That your code might blow up. That a bug might get missed. What factors outside of your control will cause you to slip? Because presumably, you…

If you’re in a room and everyone is staring back at you blankly, you’re not all on the same page. If you’ve just had a call and discussed half a dozen ideas with no confirmation as to who is doing what, you’re not all on the same page. You can tell the teams that are on the same page from afar, they are all working together, each person knowing their part and role that is…

Team Leads and Tech Leads are two critical roles in any software development team. But go from team to team and you’ll find the roles and what is required of them are drastically different.  Here’s my take on the difference between a great Tech and Team Lead.