Tag Archives: software

A Tech Lead Is Not A Manager: Influence vs. Authority On Agile Teams

Agile, Career, Leadership, Software Career, Software Development, Software Engineering, Team, Technology Career, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I previously wrote about how I worked on an agile team as a tech lead. The article focused on the things I recommend. Today, I’m going to take the opposite approach and share what to avoid: the misuse of authority including mistaking an influencing role for an authoritative one.

You can read the original article here.

Roles, Roles, Roles

On agile teams, a Tech Lead is far more like a Software Architect or an Agile Coach or a Product Owner or an Engineer than a Manager, Director, or another role with people reporting directly to them. You don’t have AUTHORITY as a Tech Lead, your weapon of choice is INFLUENCE. Of course, even people with authority should rely on influence as much as they possibly can. Authority is a tool in the toolbelt of some roles, and those people must use it sparingly. Autonomy is too important to take away from creative workers (and Engineers are indeed creative).

At times authority must be used by people in what I like to call “dark side” roles. Managers, Directors, Veeps, etc. must at times use the stick instead of the carrot. Usually, this is reserved for extreme cases when a team member is refusing to follow company policy or is threatening or endangering someone. In a positive culture, these things should seldom IF EVER happen.

One of the things I love about the organization at my current company, HealthEquity, is the culture of influence. Influence is the currency of the day at all levels of leadership, and it’s used efficiently and effectively.

What Does Misuse Of Authority Look Like?

Some key things to look out for: body language, word choices, and the audience. Watch for words like these coming from your mouthhole:

But, I’m the Architect/Manager/Director/Scrum Master/Tech Lead/etc…

…you have to do this.
…this is the only option.
…because I said so.
…it’s my way or the highway.
…eat crap and die.

Absolutes and personal attacks/insults are not going to work. They may sometimes achieve the immediate effect you wanted, but it’s going to come back to bite you in the end.

Avoid negative feedback in a group setting at all costs. If you MUST provide negative feedback (and yes, sometimes we must) always, ALWAYS, do so in a private 1:1 situation. Involve your people leader if you aren’t comfortable one-on-one.

Instead, look for ways to encourage, build-up, support, and assist people in doing what you believe should be done.

Shameful Anecdote Time

Once, in an earlier decade of my life, I was an inexperienced young team lead. I had responsibility for a developer who was undertaking a critical task. The task wasn’t moving along the way my manager and my manager’s leader hoped it would. There was some time sensitivity involved, and I was asked to research the issue and get things moving along. I did some investigation and found that the developer was spending a lot of time (over 50%) not engaged in his work.

I’ll admit it; I was frustrated.

Instead of following the advice I’m giving in this article, I decided to walk right up to this person’s cubicle and ask how the work was progressing. Nothing particularly wrong with the approach, although in hindsight, I should have known the discussion was likely to become sensitive. I should have invited the developer to a private location to discuss one-on-one.

Anyway, when we spoke, the developer told me how well it was going and how hard he was working and how he’d have this already late project completed just as soon as he could, but not for at least a few more days. When describing the work remaining, I felt it was completely trivial. It could have been completed THE NEXT MORNING.

I won’t go into detail, but I lost my cool. I felt pressured and I let the pressure rule my emotions. My voice rose high enough for at least neighboring cubicles to hear, if not more. I told this developer that he would finish this work by the end of the next day or there would be hell to pay.

I’ve never seen someone’s face go from zero to pure unadulterated hatred so quickly.

The developer finished the required work on my timeline, but I had ruined a relationship and completely demotivated my co-worker. As kind, cheerful, and pleasant as I could be, it never made up for my error. The individual became a habitual underperformer, and eventually was let go by our manager.

I’ve always wondered how the situation might have gone if I knew then what I know now. Would I have pulled this individual aside privately? Would I have offered my help or another’s on the team to push through the last bit of work? Would I have asked more about the situation and sought to understand why he was underperforming in the first place?

I’d like to think I would have. I’d like to think I’d have given less weight to some of the authoritarian “truths” I’d been exposed to growing up.

Avoid False Truisms Of Authoritarians

Avoid being taken in by the truisms of autocratic leaders like Bonaparte and Hitchcock. Do not let their philosophies influence your leadership style.

“Men are moved by two levers only: fear and self-interest.” -Napoleon Bonaparte

“If an actor comes to me and wants to discuss his character, I say, ‘It’s in the script.’ If he says, ‘But what’s my motivation?’ I say, ‘Your salary.’” – Alfred Hitchcock

The work we are doing in any creative or thought-related organization requires 100% of the team’s buy-in, commitment, and enthusiasm to be as effective as possible.

Leaders don’t and can’t have all the best ideas. Create psychological safety for people you work with to aid their growth and contributions.

Authoritarian leadership styles have little or no place in Agile organizations.

In closing: I recommend avoiding the “command and control” mentality in favor of “inspire and innovate”. Tech leads (and technology leaders in general) aren’t running military operations; we are engaged in creative endeavors.

If you enjoyed this article, why not check out some of my other favorites on the subject?

When Does Counting Lines of Code Make Sense?

Leadership, Software Development, Software Engineering, Web Development, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

ALERT: I’m not pulling any punches with this one. If you are looking for a balanced argument including thoughts on some potentially good reasons to measure LoC, you won’t find it here. The best reasoning I can give for the existence this article: it gives me something to point people to when they ask for my opinion on the topic.

Counting Added Lines of Code as a Measure of Productivity

“Any process or procedure that incentivises based on creation or destruction of lines of code is missing the point entirely.”

David Adsit
Software Craftsman – Pluralsight

Counting LoC drives bad behavior and is easily manipulated. It leads to developers being less concise and writing code that is difficult to maintain. There are so many ways to write code less efficiently and these are exploited in a scenario where LoC are measured for productivity.

Here is one extremely simple example of code inflation:

Arrays.fill(array, -1);

and

for(int i = 0; i < array.length; i++)
{
  array[i] = -1;
}

The above examples logically equivalent in Java. They both work. They both do the exact same thing. In C# the first could look like the following:

array = Enumerable.Repeat<int>(-1, array.Length).ToArray();

We could also write our own C# extension method to match the simpler Java method and use it throughout the code in future improving readability and maintainability.

public static void Fill(this int[] array, int fillValue)
{
  for(int i = 0; i < array.length; i++)
  {
    array[i] = fillValue;
  }
}

Once complete, it would be executed as follows:

array.Fill(-1);

This approach would lead to a couple of additional lines when it is first written ONCE and then only one line to do the same work forever after. Assuming of course that people know the extension method exists and they use it… another discussion perhaps.

One of the reasons we use modern programming languages is because they are expressive and easy to read. Even in a current modern language, older and more verbose approaches are still valid in code (to enable us to customize better approaches on our own that are not supported by the framework) and can easily be exploited by developers looking to boost their LoC written.

Counting Added LoC as a Measure of Productivity Must be Based on False Assumptions

“[Counting lines of code as a measure of productivity] presumes that each day or week or month is the same as the last day, week, or month, and that the thought stuff we actually get paid to do doesn’t matter.”

Dwayne Pryce,
Senior Software Engineer Microsoft Research

Measuring added LoC also assumes the work completed before, after, and during the coding process to determine best/cleanest/most maintainable/efficient approaches are meaningless and that testing to verify that the code does what is was intended to do is a waste of time.

Additionally, less-experienced junior developers are always going to write more lines of code than senior people for a variety of reasons.

  1. Junior people often take the easiest, most brute force approach because they haven’t learned to do it better. Yet.
  2. Junior people are given less complex tasks to solve that can be done more quickly.
  3. Progressively more experienced people have additional increasing responsibilities (for example mentoring and training less experienced people, doing more code reviews, being involved in architecture/design discussions, taking on difficult roles like security guild, creating documentation, etc.

1 and 2 are arguably best solved by pair programming. Another discussion. Another time.

Counting Removed LoC as a Measure of Paying Technical Debt

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”

Leonardo da Vinci

Same as measuring added LoC, counting removed LoC drives bad behavior and can lead to developers writing code that is intentionally overcompact and difficult to read. However, in a large and unwieldy application, we want to remove lines that serve no purpose at every opportunity while maintaining the same functionality. If this were trivial, we could simply automate programming and developers would no longer be needed. Making things simpler is, simply put, not easy.

Counting LoC as a Measure of Quality

In the history of computer science, there has never been a valid correlation between LoC and quality in any programming language in existence. Check the textbooks, the internet, or anywhere else you can think of. This correlation does not exist.

The Burden of Unnecessary LoC is Non-trivial

“Measuring programming progress by lines of code is like measuring aircraft building progress by weight.”

Bill Gates

I’ll use a slightly exaggerated example here, but it isn’t too far off, so please bear with me. Let’s assume we have two people attempting to solve a difficult problem.

Persona A

  1. may be less experienced or expert beginner
  2. just get’s it “done”
  3. tends to solving problems hastily without concern for introducing bugs
  4. often works quickly and on their own without taking time for design discussion, planning, and refactoring
 Persona B

  1. may be more experienced
  2. cares about quality and hates bugs
  3. aims to understand the scope of the problem before starting to solve it
  4. involves others (seeking real input) to suss out design flaws and make take more complex problems to a mentor

I’ve seen real life scenarios where Persona A will solve a similar problem in 2000-3000 LoC where Persona B would solve it with 200-300 LoC. That may not seem so bad. Maybe Persona A finished their effort in less time than Persona B. Now consider, from the time this code goes into production until it is replaced/removed/refactored/decommissioned, we have to pay to maintain the code that was written. When we want to make a change in the behavior of the

Maybe Persona A finished their effort in less time than Persona B. Now consider, from the time this code goes into production until it is replaced/removed/refactored, we have to pay to maintain the code that is written. When we want to make a change in the behavior of the code or add a new feature, Persona A’s code may require days of review to understand and will also require many changes to achieve. To make a similar change to Persona B’s code, it could be understood in an hour, perhaps. The changes should take considerably less time depending on their complexity.

When we want to make a change in the behavior of the code or add a new feature, Persona A’s code may require days of review to understand and will also require many changes to achieve. To make a similar change to Persona B’s code, it could be understood in an hour, perhaps. The changes should take considerably less time depending on their complexity. Of course, this scenario is hypothetical. This is my one apology for rhetoric.

Coda

For clarity’s sake, I’m in no way arguing against hiring junior people. Fresh blood is vital for tons of reasons I won’t go into here. However, the effective incorporation of junior people must be accompanied by the correct structure and support from more experienced people in order for them to succeed. I AM against hiring expert beginners who’ve been doing this work for many years and thinks the “just get it done” approach is the best/only way.

 

Holy Microsoft, Now Compile

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The following is 100% parody of the good-natured Weird Al variety. Much like a good Weird Al song, I couldn’t get it out of my head, so now I’m subjecting you to my foolishness as well.

I offer up my apologies to Catholicism in general. Microsoft, on the other hand, can fend for itself.

 

Hail Microsoft, full of office tools.
Our code is with thee.
Blessed art thou among DEVELOPERS,
and blessed is the fruit of thy IDE: executables.
Holy Microsoft, Mother of C#,
pray for us sinners,
now and at the hour of our broken build.
Compile.

 

Now share this post with 10 people and Bill Gates will donate 99% of his wealth to charity.

Legacy Dependency Kata v2.0

Agile, Kata, Learning, Software Development, Software Engineering, Training, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Well, well, well. Look what the samurai dragged in. An updated version of my Legacy Dependency Kata. I’ll have to update the Coding Kata Resources page.

50795_01_kurosawas-classic-seven-samurai-gets-stunning-4k-remaster

I’m not proud to admit that there even was a v1.0 at the moment. Let me explain.

Just over two years ago, I was experimenting with writing katas, presenting at code conventions, and running a coding dojo. It turns out. I wasn’t super fantastic at any of these things. Nevertheless, I wrote a kata, ran it a few times with the kind folks in my dojo, and proceeded to share it with the delightful folks at Utah Code Camp 2014. Reviews were mixed, but overall I felt good about it.

Fast forward to the present. While planning the lunchtime learning schedule for our recent SAFe Program Increment, there was an opening, and I, ever so graciously, decided to run my Legacy Dependency Kata for folks who may not have had the chance to see it before. Upon thoroughly embarrassing myself with some of the crappiest kata slides in existence (slides even I couldn’t completely fathom), I recognized that my life would be forfeit if folks were forced to do the kata again with the same slides the following day.

I dashed to revise the slides and spent many hours on the task. When I presented the kata on the second day, it was a much more successful attempt. I’d go so far as to call it a version 1.7. I spent some more time and enlisted the advice of the ever-gracious and capable Kaleb Pedersen in finalizing v2.0. The source code is still the same. Legacy code problems from 2 years ago are still very similar to what they are today.

coughnounittestabilitycough

I think the new slides do their job. Could this kata still be better? Without a doubt. Please submit your recommendations in the comments or feel free to yell at me on Twitter. I’m sure I deserve it for something.

Without further adieu, I give you Legacy Dependency Kata Version Two.

Seed code is still on GitHub:
https://github.com/KatasForLegacyCode/kCSharp/releases/tag/Step0

The Pursuit of Simplicity

Agile, Learning, Software Development, Software Engineering, , , ,

Recently I read Seven Brief Lessons on Physics by Carlo Roveli. True to its title, the book is brief, and clocks in at a scant eighty-one pages. Its beauty is in the nearly poetic brevity and the expressive nature of the word choices the author (and translators) use. Unlike massive scientific tomes on particle physics I once attempted to read as a 12-year-old boy, Roveli’s book is written in a way I could have understood even as a young boy.

The book brought me a remembrance of the elasticity of young minds with its references to young physicists like Einstein, and his solving massive problems with simple solutions at a very young age. The book inspired me to write, and this is the result.

Fractal_tree_bbc

Anecdote Time

When I was a first-grade elementary school student, I recall having a tough time memorizing multiplication tables as students were taught to do at the time. Ever precocious, I wanted there to be some rhyme or reason, a pattern even, to the way we determined the values of these simple mathematical expressions. No, I was told, you just have to add the number you are multiplying by to itself the number of times the multiplier expresses.

For a young, and frankly lazy, Willy Munn, this was an annoyance at best for a number like one, two, and three; and completely unbearable for the silly number nine. You see, not being able to use a calculator or a multiplication table, and being required to show my work meant writing out nine addition problems just to “show my work” and get an acceptable grade.

My young brain started looking for a better way. It wanted to enable the laziness my heart so desired. It wanted to find a way for me to skip writing out these problems and allow me to go back to reading or playing with Lego blocks or watching the Superman movies I taped onto VHS from TV. I WANTED some rule as simple as “1 times anything is the number being multiplied” or “10 times anything is the number being multiplied with a 0 tacked onto the end”. I started to see patterns (we are talking about math after all, which is nothing without patterns). A solution for the ridiculously tedious number nine came first.

Looking at the following multiplication table, I unconsciously looked for patterns I could exploit. What patterns do you see?

1*9=9
2*9=18
3*9=27
4*9=36
5*9=45
6*9=54
7*9=63
8*9=72
9*9=81
10*9=90

I noticed the following in this approximate order:

Reversed Pairs of Numbers as Results
This was the first thing I noticed. 18 and 81, 27 and 72, and 36 and 63 all the results on opposite ends of the table form numeric palindromes. Even 09 and 90 technically work.

Everything Adds Up to Nine
Next, I realized that the first and second digit of every result always add up to 9. This seemed like something exploitable, and I saved the knowledge for later use.

First Digit Is The Number Being Multiplied By Minus One.
Eureka! I had a formula (even if I didn’t know that’s what it was called). I could take any number one through ten and subtract one from it for the first digit. Then I could subtract that number from nine to get the second digit. Simplicity itself!

I took my solution to Mrs. D, my first-grade teacher, for confirmation. I just knew she would be so happy and proud that I had found a better way to do multiplication by nines.

My youthful supposition couldn’t have been farther from the truth.

A study in human nature, being an interpretation with character analysis chart of Hoffman's master painting "Christ in the temple"; (1920)

Mrs. D. assured me that this was not the proper way to do the math and that I must write our all of my answers as she had taught. Needless to say, if young Willy Munn was a thing besides lazy, he was stubborn. I dug in my heels, so to speak. I refused to do this work stating that I would sooner die than do unnecessary work after I had found a better solution. Predictably, Mrs. D marched me right down to the principal’s office and demanded that he deal with my insubordination. She suggested corporal punishment if necessary.

The principal of my elementary school, Mr. F looked at me with kind, wise eyes, mostly gray hair, and just a quirk of a smile on the edge of his lips, and asked me to explain my method to him. I was nervous. I didn’t know what this corporal punishment was, but it sounded serious. With sweaty little palms and a mildly shaky voice, I explained my idea for the number nine. Mr. F asked some thoughtful questions and proved my hypothesis on the blackboard in his office. Then, to the joy of my young heart, he said the words I had so desired to hear from Mrs. D, “Willy, it looks like you’ve come up with a better way to solve this problem. At least for you.” Then the golden words of freedom, “Mrs. D, since this proves out, it shouldn’t be necessary for Willy to write out all of his multiplication solutions should it?” Mrs. D grudgingly agreed with her boss, although I’m fairly sure she held a cold, dark place in her heart for me for the rest of the year. In retrospect, maybe I shouldn’t have challenged her so directly, but I was 6 and thought the world revolved around me.

Mrs. D grudgingly agreed with her boss, although I’m fairly sure she held a cold, dark place in her heart for me for the rest of the year. In retrospect, I shouldn’t have challenged her the way I did, but I was six and thought the world revolved around me.

I went on to “discover” patterns for other simple multiplication problems that saved me a bit of time over the years, and even eventually memorized all the basic times tables. For several years, I got away with doing all of my math problems in my head and never showing my work. This irritated my teachers to no end and probably is what made learning manual Calculus feel like one of the most tedious tasks I’ve ever undertaken.

Many years later, while attending Southern Utah University, I learned additional math practices in my Discrete Mathematics class that used similar patterns and approaches to my early experimentation. Fun realization, that.

The Point (There Is One)

I knew, even as a youth, I had spent more time working on this solution than it would have taken just to write out the problems as I had been asked.

Today, I recognize my solution as less simple from the Mrs. D’s viewpoint. She was giving students one tried and true way of solving all multiplication problems. While it wasn’t easier for me to achieve my work, it was certainly simpler to teach. Just because there is a pattern or formula, doesn’t make a solution better based on that merit alone.

A fractal bacteria colony may BE simple once you understand it, but at first glance, it seems strange and complex.

fractal_bacteria_colony
Fractal Bacteria Colony

All anecdotes aside, the pursuit of better, simpler solutions is one that I’ve been chasing from a young age. It is the same pursuit of any scientist including the computer scientist. Let’s not forget this as we write code. Our ultimate goal should be the simpler solution because it will lead to better, more maintainable code. It will save time overall even if there is an opportunity cost up front.

We must remember that what is simpler from our particular point of view may not make sense from another’s perspective. A simple solution is only as good as our colleagues’ ability to grasp it.