Team-Driven Developer
A newsletter with tips and tools for building software as a team
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Imagine reading a technical design document or RFC. As you read, you notice that the language in the document is a bit confusing.
For example:
Requests likely need to be authorized using standard HTTP auth mechanisms
What does this “requirement” mean? Are we using “standard” Authorization headers with base 64 encoded usernames and passwords? I don’t see a mention of HTTPS. And I also don’t know what “likely” is meant to convey...
The author of the document isn’t trying to be confusing, but they lack the practices and tools to help make their document effective.
A key tool that I have repeatedly turned to for help with my technical writing is RFC 2119. It’s a short one (you should go read it!) that provides a prescriptive set of terms and writing style to help make requirements and details clear.
Let's dive into how this RFC can improve your writing!
Team-Building Exercise
This week's Team-Building Exercise: perform a technical document together, post-implementation review!
- Pick a previous technical design document or ADR
- Pick a timeslot of about 30 minutes
- Review the document in light of how the project went (obstacles you faced, ambiguity encountered, etc.)
The goal is to learn if there were places where the document could have been clearer or improved based on how the project went.
The point is to identify if there were significant gaps that slowed the project down or left people unsure of what to implement. An example might be that an API was described ineffectively, and a developer missed a vital use case as a result. Or perhaps there wasn't a lot of clarity on what to do in a specific edge case, and a significant amount of rework was required.
Of course, you can never fully anticipate every issue with a project. So keep that in mind as you review. You aren't trying to point out every detail that was missed.
Remember to perform these in the same way as blameless post-mortems. We aren't trying to point fingers at the author for missing a detail (the team might have failed to ask proper clarifying questions!), but rather learn what sorts of things the team should be more thoughtful about in the future.
You don't need to do this all the time, but for a project that struggled to be delivered, this can be a good tool to spark learning.
Here are some more resources from me to help you build better teams!
- 📕 Code Review Champion - My book on code reviews will help you become a world-class code reviewer. From giving kind feedback to navigating conflict, this book can help anyone wanting to sharpen their code review skills.
- ❓Questions for Devs - Building a team takes more than catching up about your weekend at standup. I've used these questions to build relationships with my team and push past the same old surface-level conversations.
- 📋 Pull Request Template - Maximize your efforts in pull requests by giving context right at the beginning of a new pull request. Copy and paste this template into your repo, and voilà!
- 📊 Code Review Metrics - Start measuring how your team tracks against a few common code review metrics. This python script will pull your GitHub pull requests and generate a CSV you can slice-n-dice to get the data you want. It also has graphs! As this is an open-source project, your contributions and feedback would be great!
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Looking for your next tech job?
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The Mindful Dev
Dagna is an Engineer turned Coach for ambitious professionals in Tech. She has transitioned from programming computers to reprogramming human minds.
Her book Brain Refactor is a recognized Amazon bestseller, helping professionals optimize their internal programming to thrive in tech. |
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