On Stanier (2020), 14th chapter:
Nurturing a culture of talks within a company
The author suggests this to be done in two steps:
- Foster team lightning talks (5min)
- If those pick up, try department-wide talks (20/30min)
For this to succeed we need to be sure to have a proper environment for talks. We should:
- Set a fixed time and cadence
- Set a rotation of people
- Take the first slot yourself to encourage your team in the future
- Make it enjoyable (not formal and loose on topics)
- Give incentives for providing feedback
As ideas go, the author suggests some topics:
- Show and tell
- Deep dives
- Success stories
- Horror stories
- Introduction to new tech
- Cultural and well-being elements
Approaching problems with 5 whys
A good way to approach problems and learn from them is asking 5 subsequent "why"s. This will facilitate getting to the bottom of issues and extracting learning from those.
Architectural Decision Records (ADRs)
To solve the common problem of not knowing why some cryptic piece of code is the way it is, the author suggests using Architectural Decision Records (ADRs for short). In these you should document:
- When the decision was made
- Status of the ADR (proposed, accepted, rejected, superseded, etc)
- Current context and business priorities
- Consequences of the decision
A team could create those and insert a link in comments. To get more examples on ADRs, please go to https://adr.github.io/