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SITE: "At Work"

This is encouraged as a constant ongoing process and is best updated during the sprint retrospective.

This document lives at yieldmore.org and is on bitbucket here.

Imran - 4th Sep 2024 - How Can I help?

Company Background

What is the story of how you grew and how fast you grew? What did they have to skip to grow?

If you had time, what would you have done differently?

What would have been different if you had more money or resources?

Is there an about the company presentation or video that can be shared with me?

Immediate Requirement

Do you have any Code Debt? How would you define it?

Are there and new technologies you would like to implement? How much time will this require for investigation, training and developing?

What are the immediate milestones?

What all is needed to achieve them?

Rather than train after delivery (by Imran), can we do pair programming, learning together and a healthy amount of documentation so everyone is up to speed? Will the deadlines allow for this?

Intangibles

How does engineering team delivery need to ramp up to meet the 3, 6, 9 and 12 month goals?

What is the current team composition? What is the desired one?

Can we create a skill matrix? How do we track result and improvement areas? If Imran is to stay on to train, hence asking. What's the roadmap for skill matrix?

Does anything need to be done for acquisition, professional development and attrition management?

How often does HR engage the team? What sort of activities in a typical year?

Process, Quality amd Tech Expertise

How extensive is current documentation? How do developers convey happy path, gaps, bugs and todos to the qa team?

Is the seating / interaction cross functional or in separate silos?

What habits do we cultivate with the dev team? Is there like a fun Friday allotment? How ofter does pair programming and peer review happen?

What about coding guidelines? Separation of concerns? Organisation and Functional vs Technical code?

Is enough effort being made for framework or infrastructure code development which avoids repetitive boilerplate code? Are only seniors confident of writing this or can juniors be trained to think this way?

What about code quality, test coverage and regression issues? Do developers make a tech spec before they begin?

Are we doing sprint retrospectives? Are we getting to root cause analyses not just for bugs, but at the process, training, scheduling levels?

What about performance and security? Do we have audits? ADA or accessibility compliance.

Is there a devops practice?

To assess samples of existing code base, can we ask developers to walk us through best and messy code? This is supposing quality is an area of improvement.

In conclusion

Areas Imran is needed to focus on

Milestones and targets for him

Key seniors he will be working with. More detail on this.

Who are the stakeholders for his area of responsibility? Who does he report to?

What are the agenda points for the next few meetings?

What factors will determine whether he is selected or not?

ChatGPT - 4 Sep - Understanding the Challenges

Prompt: As a consultant meeting with a customer running a software product firm suggest questions to ask to get an understanding of what challenges they are facing with regard to development quality and overall situation they are in. I need to frame a training program to support them in improving their current state.

To gain a thorough understanding of the challenges the customer is facing in terms of development quality and their overall situation, consider asking the following questions:

Development Process & Quality

  1. Can you describe your current software development lifecycle? - This helps understand their process maturity and identify any gaps.

  2. What metrics do you use to measure code quality and overall development success? - Identifies whether they are tracking relevant KPIs (e.g., defect rates, code coverage).

  3. How do you handle code reviews and testing (unit, integration, and regression)? - Reveals their approach to ensuring code quality and catching issues early.

  4. What are the most common issues you encounter during the development process? - Pinpoints recurring problems that might indicate deeper systemic issues.

  5. How do you manage technical debt? - Understanding their approach to technical debt gives insights into potential long-term quality issues.

Team Dynamics & Skills

  1. What are the current skill levels of your development team, and are there any skill gaps? - Helps in identifying if there’s a need for upskilling or training.

  2. How do you onboard new developers, and how effective is this process? - Understanding onboarding can highlight potential inefficiencies or gaps in knowledge transfer.

  3. Do your developers feel confident in the tools and technologies they are using? - Checks for any discomfort or lack of expertise with the current tech stack.

Tools & Infrastructure

  1. What tools do you currently use for version control, continuous integration, and project management? - Identifies the technological landscape and any potential limitations or inefficiencies.

  2. How well do your current tools integrate with each other? - Addresses potential integration issues that could be slowing down development or causing errors.

  3. Are you facing any challenges with your current infrastructure (e.g., server reliability, cloud services)? - Looks at whether infrastructure is causing bottlenecks or quality issues.

Collaboration & Communication

  1. How do your development, QA, and operations teams collaborate? - Explores potential silos or communication breakdowns.

  2. What are the biggest communication challenges between different teams? - Identifies areas where cross-team collaboration might be weak.

  3. How do you handle feedback from customers, and how is it incorporated into the development process? - Ensures customer feedback loops are effective and contributing to product quality.

Overall Business Context

  1. What are your top business goals and how do you align development activities with them? - Understands how well development is supporting the overall business objectives.

  2. Are there any specific external pressures or constraints (e.g., regulatory, market demands) impacting your development process? - Identifies any external factors that could be influencing quality or timelines.

Training Needs & Expectations

  1. What specific outcomes are you hoping to achieve through this training program? - Directs the focus of the training program to meet their expectations.

  2. Have you conducted any previous training programs? If so, what were the results? - Helps gauge their prior experience and what might need to be done differently this time.

  3. How do you currently support ongoing learning and development within your team? - Checks if there are existing structures that can be enhanced or if new ones are needed.

These questions should provide you with a comprehensive understanding of the customer's challenges and help you tailor a training program to address their specific needs.

ChatGPT - 4 Sep - Trainings Needed

ChatGPT: What training programs would I need to create to support the above challenges faced if they are mentioned by the customer?

Based on the potential challenges the customer might mention, here are some tailored training programs you could create to address their needs:

1. Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) Optimization

2. Code Quality & Best Practices

3. Test-Driven Development (TDD) & Testing Strategies

4. Technical Debt Management

5. Skill Development & Upskilling

6. Onboarding & Knowledge Transfer

7. Tool Integration & Automation

8. Collaboration & Communication

9. Customer Feedback Integration

10. Aligning Development with Business Goals

11. Compliance & Regulatory Training

12. Continuous Learning & Development

These training programs can be customized and combined based on the specific challenges and needs identified during your consultation with the customer. Each program should include practical exercises, real-world examples, and opportunities for the team to apply what they've learned to their current projects.