Reflections on Tech, Security, Leadership, and Life
At the recent 2019 Capability Counts conference, hosted by the CMMI Institute, I presented a session related to Enforcing Quality with DevOps Pipeline gates, where I provided an introduction to the concepts and technologies of DevOps, and how to use the concepts of Continuous Quality to improve software quality earlier and throughout the application lifecycle.
Here are the slides, published on SlideShare, if you’re interested.
I recently chatted with Tom Cagley on the Software Process and Measurement Podcast (SPaMCAST) about some of my experience helping scale operations at Halfaker using best practices from various business books (e.g. Good to Great), frameworks (e.g. CMMI), techniques (e.g. Agile Scrum), and tools (e.g. JIRA). I really enjoyed our discussion on why I was excited to JIRA, a tool that is not very opinionated, so we could configure it in some specific ways for individual Halfaker departments and projects.
The SPaMCAST is a great resource for learning more from great thought leaders in the Agile, Process Improvement, and Software Engineering world. Check out the interview at:
And if you’re looking for a Podcast app recommendation, check out Castro for iPhone/iPad. It has this great “Inbox” concept (works like an Agile backlog, where you can accept things into the backlog and then prioritize/re-prioritize them.
Here’s a list of books, podcasts, conferences, frameworks, methodologies, models, and other resources related to designing and building great organizations that I think are worth checking out.
If you have any recommended additions, please email or send me a tweet.
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Scaled Agile Framework |
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| Software and Process Measurement Podcast (SPaM CAST)
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| Agile Alliance’s Annual Conference | ||
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| CMMI Capability Counts Conference | ||
| DevOpsDays |
I recently spoke at the 2017 Capability Counts conference, put on by the CMMI Institute. It’s a great event that isn’t focused just on CMMI maturity models — instead it’s a conference where a few hundred people get together to discuss process improvement, Agile, software engineering processes, and a variety of other related topics.
Here’s a packed room with Tom Cagley presenting on how to use storytelling to create better requirements:
Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) is a great set of Agile and engineering best practices, pulling together great ideas from Lean, Scrum, eXtreme Programming, DevOps, and many others. That said, I’ve found it to be a great mental model on how to structure large Agile programs and a useful of great ideas to pull from, rather than a framework to deploy entirely. 
I gave a presentation at the conference on some of the great ideas we’ve found in SAFe and how we’ve deployed them, while also giving a bit of a SAFe 101 for those interested.
Please note: I’m not a SAFe certified trainer, nor do I speak on behalf of SAFe.
I recently spoke at the 2017 Capability Counts conference, put on by the CMMI Institute. 
It’s an interesting event that isn’t focused just on CMMI maturity models — instead it’s a conference where a few hundred people get together to discuss process improvement, Agile, software engineering processes, and a variety of other related topics.
The keynote (shown in the picture above) is David Anderson of LeanKanban University talking about the core concepts of Kanban, which go far beyond most people’s understanding of 3 column boards.
I spoke on using Atlassian’s JIRA product to help an organize scale — sharing some best practices/recommendations on how to use a tool like JIRA to get information out of email, hallway conversations, and meetings and into a system where work can be clarified, prioritized and tracked.
There are a lot of ways you can measure and categorize organizational maturity. I’m sure
there are several classes you can take on it if you get a MBA. The CMMI Institute, as an example, talks about how organizations move from being managed, to defined, to starting to self-optimize. These frameworks are all valuable, but I like to think of this concept as a simple spectrum between two extremes:
Another great way to think about this is Tuckman’s Stages of Group Development (forming, storming, norming, and performing) is a great framework to understand how a group develops, and how you can help move a group through those phases.
Where does your organization (whether it’s a company, or a meetup group, or a church) fit on this spectrum? How could you move it a little more to the right and out of the chaos?
The CMMI process improvement model is focused on improving the overall processes involved with designing, creating, and supporting technology products and services. While the overall framework can be confusing, I enjoyed Watts Humphrey’s explanation of the focus for each of the maturity levels in Looking Ahead:
