Unconscious Bias Training That Works
- Francesca Gino Katherine Coffman tl;dr: The following are elements of successful UB training detailed in this post: (1) You hold the power. Bias is often subtle and our brains are wired for change. (2) Create empathy by trying to understand where others are coming from. (3) Encourage interactions among people from different groups. (4) Encourage good practices and continued learning. (5) Set a broader strategy for more significant impact.featured in #275
Making Engineering Team Communication Clearer, Faster, Better
- Derek Parham tl;dr: Derek shares his design review process, starting with the design doc (he shares his template) through to the in-person meeting, where he outlines specifics around planning, moderation and process. This review process helps with org-wide comms, understanding of technical infrastructure, knowledge of legacy work & current projects, better design, and saves time.featured in #274
Software Development Pushes Us To Get Better As People
- Jessica Kerr tl;dr: Jessica discusses "participatory sense-making." In software, this is developing a shared mental model of the software we're developing, what it’s going to be, how it works. In humanity, participatory sense-making is our shared reality of made-up concepts i.e. money, economy, justice, etc... "When we’re good at participatory sense-making, we can build conscientiously, instead of reducing everything to numbers."featured in #274
ISO 27001 For Startups: What You Need To Know
tl;dr: Managing your startup has many challenges, including understanding your compliance needs. If you use secure data and you want to do business with any customers or partners outside the US, ISO 27001 certification will be among them. Consider this to be your introductory guide to ISO 27001 for startups.featured in #274
Leadership Word of the Day: DISAPPOINTED
- Ed Batista tl;dr: A common challenge for a leader it to express themselves effectively when dealing with the poor performance of an employee or team. The key is to convey the feeling, and evoke the right response, so the phrase "I'm disappointed" can be powerful. "It evokes an emotional response in employees, capturing their attention, and mobilizing them to take action, but it does not convey anger or generate distress."featured in #273
The Next Big Challenge For Data Is Organizational
- Bryan Offutt tl;dr: "Software development teams have a few key characteristics that make them efficient, even at scale:" (1) Specialization of specific roles. (2) Modularization, as problems are broken into chunks. (3) Clarity of ownership. (4) Organizational buy-in that tech debt needs management. Bryan argues that the structure around data teams are in different place for each of the above characteristic, and we are at a "tipping point" for this to change.featured in #273
What If You Dread 1:1s With A Direct Report?
- Lara Hogan tl;dr: Look at the patterns that come up in these 1:1s to identify what is proving dreadful i.e. how do you speak to each other? What topics do you cover? What’s the timing of your meetings? Which patterns bother you? Then you can reset your 1:1s by “designing your alliance” articulating what each person expects from the relationship, agreeing on how you’ll work together, and being clear about your boundaries. Lara explains in detail.featured in #273
featured in #272
Measuring Software Complexity: What Metrics to Use?
- Matthieu Cneude tl;dr: Complexity metrics are flawed but, can be "useful to isolate a part of your codebase which might be more prone to defect." Matthieu believes it's a combination of metrics, experience, and experiments that reveal complexity in a codebase. He explains and uses the following metrics in this order when analyzing complexity: (1) LOC. (2) Code shape. (3) Structural coupling (common and content coupling). (4) Logical coupling.featured in #272
An Intro To Designing Secure CI/CD Pipelines
- Juho Nurminen tl;dr: An introduction to how high-level infosec design principles apply to CI/CD, and some technical tips on securely configuring CI pipelines.featured in #272