The Pragmatic Lead Podcast

Each year Apollo organizes the GraphQL Summit to pull like-minded professionals together to explore, celebrate and learn about GraphQL. John Masse had the opportunity to speak at this year's conference to share his lessons learned as an early adopter of GraphQL. In this episode of the Pragmatic Lead podcast, Alex and John discuss GraphQL as a transformational technology while re-reviewing the early adopter talk.

We are drawn to patterns and recipes to help us solve problems in our work, but in reality, what works for one case does not always work for another. Many times when leaders apply their recipes to new environments, unexpected consequences emerge. Humans habitually leverage patterns almost exclusively, blinding us by our own intellectual biases. Developing a mindset that welcomes complexity science into our minds will unlock our ability to apply leadership skills to many types of situations. We believe there is something here to uncover. Dave Snowden, Founder of Cognitive Edge and inventor of the Cynefin Framework, joins us to discuss complexity and human nature. In this episode, we still explore the high-level nuances of complexity thinking and some of the language around Cynefin and Complexity. By the end of this episode, we hope you find enough value to explore Cynefin and Complexity Science independently. Related articles A leader's framework for decision making. Resources Cognitive Edge Cynefin on Google Scholar The Sense Maker Application Connect with Dave Snowden Dave Snowden on Twitter Dave Snowden on LinkedIn  

In episode 11 of the Pragmatic Lead Podcast, Alexander Omeyer, CEO and Co-Founder of StepSize, joins us to dive deep into the meaning of technical debt and argue the nuances of what it takes to manage technical debt well. Are we filing for bankruptcy each time we rewrite an application? Is it really considered debt if we are spending time reshaping the code to accurately represent the business domain we are creating for?   StepSize Measure and prioritize technical debt with StepSize. The website https://www.stepsize.com/ Alexandre Omeyer LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexandre-omeyer-060a0175/    Twitter https://twitter.com/AlexOmeyer    Managing Tech Debt Blog https://www.stepsize.com/blog  

Join us in an exploratory conversation Join us on our journey into Cynefin, a framework for sense-making. For over twenty years, Dave Snowden has been helping leaders break out of a tendency to use the same solutions for different settings. Cynefin is the first, and this time the only, framework that allows leaders to ground their leadership skills in the reality of what is going on around them. Join us in a conversation as Alex and John do their best to explore the Cynefin map and real-world design stories to help apply the complex thinking that Cynefin requires. Additional resources The Cynefin Framework described on Wikipedia Our recommended starting point for Cynefin: Making Sense of Complexity - an introduction to Cynefin The enabling constraint as defined by Tom McCallum Dave Snowden on LinkedIn

Even though infrastructure problems are different from the front end, they are still relevant and important to solve, in some cases, it's even more fun because the impact can be much greater. Creating and maintaining consistency through constraints in order to provide a better experience for end-users. Or improving productivity for developers through consistent tools and standards.

AI is new, lots of people are struggling to understand what it means, where the benefits are. When engineers, leaders, business people hear AI they may get excited by the opportunity to innovate and intimidated by the lack of understanding at the same time. Engineering (AI) managers play an important role to be a bridge between business, product, and technology. It's also the case with any technology but AI being new, requires a more delicate approach. AI transformation and the common misconceptions around AI. Challenges when it comes to AI transformation. The role of an AI translator and a career path to get there.

Being a parent is difficult. Being a parent with a full-time job at the time of COVID makes it very difficult. There are many challenges we all have to face when working from home. We're talking to Tara about her experience being an engineering manager and staying with 2 kids at home at the same time, and how she was able to make it work. There is also a fun side, since kids are active and creative they will make anyone smile.

Dev sprint is a dedicated time for the engineering team to come up with a technical plan, better prepare for the execution of the goals, address technical debt, and more. John and Alex are discussing how they work with their teams and some ideas for dev sprint and how it went for them.

Not everyone is comfortable with the business side of the software. Many people charge less than they should. You're providing the value to somebody, something that they can't do or won't do themselves. We take for granted the fact that we can do it. We discuss our past experience, how started in the industry, and our thinking on setting your price.

Know how to measure technical debt. It's usually an umbrella term to describe different risks and complexities in the software.   Instead of re-writing a legacy system consider evaluating its current state and looking at the product and business goals. Interviewing the people who work on the system can give you a good sense of the urgency. Look how many escalations or production issues the product has over the past months or years. Use retrospectives with your team to understand what can we do to make us more productive, to increase the velocity.   You can divide the tech debt into engineering and business debt. The latter is measuring the time to market, end-user experience, and stability. Software is enabling the business and that's why it needs to be ahead to provide the right opportunity for the business.   Identify and prioritize the work. In order to get buy-in from the stakeholders, you need to back it up with the data, estimates, and return on investment.   Big migration and refactoring are not always the right solution and even can introduce more problems. Because the complexity in the legacy system is hidden until you open it up during the migration. This can lead to the increased scope and more pressure to deliver.

We're discussing how to assess the culture when you're just joining a new team. Edgar's advice is to ask all the stupid questions in the first few months.   Find deeper questions as you get to know the people, and what their roles are. Get a sense of how people think about their teams. Do they use a specific language that excludes the partners like product or DevOps, creating them vs us mentality? Do people understand what they're working on and if there is a culture of accountability.   There is some good advice in the book "The first 90 days" book:   - What are the strengths and weaknesses of our strategy? - What are the biggest challenges and opportunities we have on the team? - What resources can we leverage more effectively? - How can we improve the process? - What should be my priority as a manager?   Some indicators Edgar uses to think about culture:   - Have goals, and not just worry about promotions as their goal. Teams are driven by making a bigger impact have healthier cultures than those who only work on projects that will get them promoted. You still want to know what the expectations are and work on your career growth, but it shouldn't be the culture of checking the boxes and avoiding everything else. - Individuals should be open to a positive change and have aspirations. - Know the expectations from the team, the manager, and the organization.   To keep your culture healthy while working remotely in the COVID times, Edgar recommends using video calls to your advantage. Schedule time to be silly since we don't have the luxury of bumping into each other for a casual chat and ideate on the whiteboard. For example, Google Earth trips to museums around the world or pair programming.   As a manager, you want to be vulnerable and admit you're making plenty of mistakes to let your team know it's ok to not know everything. And being remote made it easier for people to reach out for help 1:1. One person may be better at solving specific problems just because they've faced similar problems before. Think of it as components or puzzles of problems that you solve over time and it makes it easier to solve similar problems in the future.   Also, don't forget to schedule a time to discuss the problem statement before people start solving it. It's important for everyone to understand the bigger picture. This creates another problem, meeting overload. And we all have a meeting/zoom fatigue.   Some other ideas we discussed were - Having running zoom call with no agenda. - Having lunch together over zoom. - Do 2-minute team call to wish a happy birthday. - Ship some fun t-shirts to people. - Organize the team's internal hackathons. - Gift lootcrate boxes for birthdays - Create virtual birthday cards.   Invest in the documentation. You can't just lean over and ask for stuff. It's also should be easy to find. So discoverability is important too.   Resources we mentioned in our conversation: The first 90 days Google Earth trips to museums around the world Lootscate subscription boxes Tribute LinkedIn Kudos Kudos.com Github's recommendation on ADR Camp Yampire

In this episode of Pragmatic Lead, we're talking to Frank Lacalamita about digital transformations. Change management is hard, especially when stakes are high. Innovation requires changes. There is a lot that goes into planning and organizing big migrations, like hiring and training people, getting buy-in from the leadership, managing stakeholders' expectations, and more. We talk about our experiences as well as challenges. You can find the full transcript on PragmaticLead.com About the guest Frank Lacalamita is a software architect and a technical leader in Toronto CA. He has been working on technical transformations in multiple industries over the past decade.   Notes There are multiple management frameworks we can use to manage transformations in companies. We mentioned the ITIL Framework, PMO, and Agile. Any change starts with assessing the current state and target state. And then when going through an evaluation, you end up with the roadmap on how to get from point A to point B (target state). Change is necessary to drive innovation. Successful businesses embrace change. In our industry, there is always something new, a better, more efficient way to do solve problems. You have to adapt. Especially with the explosion in open source projects. You can do so much more than proprietary software in early 2000-2010. But it's not always easy to convince the leadership that there is value in doing the transformation. Even though there are obvious wins, if you can improve time to market, developers' productivity, automate certain tasks and save money on hardware. Some companies that missed the opportunity paid the price by falling behind in the industry. Some of the most common transformation these days is probably cloud migrations. And there is some push back, questioning the value of this massive undertaking. There are a lot of changes happening during the transformation, it's not only affecting business and technology, but also people and their jobs. Sysadmins become SREs, network engineers transition to cloud architects, and so on. Any transformational program has three pillars: People Process Technology Think where the business wants to go, how to adapt the process and technology to accomplish that. Evaluate individuals, their skills, and responsibilities. Process and people are more difficult than technology. You have to invest in their careers, education, training.

Welcome to the PragmaticLead podcast and our very first episode.  Our guest is Mike Gertrudes, VP, Head of Engineering at Billie | The Body Brand. We speak with Mike regularly, and recently Mike shared with us that a change in his office dynamics had a significant effect on his engagement at work and quality of life. When we asked him what changed, Mike told us it was about a new product owner that recently joined the company.  We had to book Mike for this chat; we believe that a strong team requires everyone to participate. From this episode, we hope to inspire you to see how powerful a united team can be for the sake of creating excellent products and enjoying professional relationships.    Guest Mini-Profile Mike Gertrudes Current role: VP, Head of Engineering at Billie Previous roles include Director of Engineering for brands like Priceline.com, tech leader, and entrepreneur.    Additional notes Around the 7:30 mark during our conversation, we couldn't remember Conway's Law. "Any organization that designs a system (defined broadly) will produce a design whose structure is a copy of the organization's communication structure." — Melvin E. Conway   Contact Mike Gertrudes for Coaching and advice for professional development. Join Mikes's team at Billie. How to contact Mike Gertrudes Email: mikegertrudes@gmail.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikegertrudes/   Have a story to tell? If you are interested in joining us for a conversation on the podcast or if you are looking for professional coaching, connect with us at: PragmaticLead@gmail.com More content For more content just like this, check out PragmaticLead.com; we hope you find something here that unlocks the next step in your professional development.