{"rowid": 297, "title": "Public Speaking with a Buddy", "contents": "My book Demystifying Public Speaking focuses on the variety of fears we each have about giving a talk. From presenting to a client, to leading a team standup, to standing on a conference stage, there are lots of things we can do to prepare ourselves for the spotlight and reduce those fears.\nThough it didn\u2019t make it into the final draft, I wanted to highlight how helpful it can be to share that public speaking spotlight with another person, or a few more people. If you have fears about not knowing the answer to a question, fumbling your words, or making a mistake in the spotlight, then buddying up may be for you!\n\nTo some, adding more people to a presentation sounds like a recipe for on-stage disaster. To others, having a friendly face nearby\u2014a partner who can step in if you fumble\u2014is incredibly reassuring. As design director Yesenia Perez-Cruz writes, \u201cWhile public speaking is a deeply personal activity, you don\u2019t have to go it alone. Nothing has helped my speaking career more than turning it into a group effort.\u201d\nCo-presenting can level up a talk in two ways: an additional brain and presentation skill set can improve the content of the talk itself, and you may feel safer with the on-stage safety net of your buddy. \nFor example, when I started giving lengthy workshops about building mobile device labs with my co-worker Destiny Montague, we brought different experience to the table. I was able to talk about the user experience of our lab, and the importance of testing across different screen sizes. Destiny spoke about the hardware aspects of the lab, like power consumption and networking. Our audience benefitted from the spectrum of insight we included in the talk.\nMoreover, Destiny and I kept each other energized and engaging while teaching our audience, having way more fun onstage. Partnering up alleviated the risk (and fear!) of fumbling; where one person makes a mistake, the other person is right there to help. Buddy presentations can be helpful if you fear saying \u201cI don\u2019t know\u201d to a question, as there are other people around you who will be able to help answer it from the stage. By partnering with someone whom I trust and respect, and whose work and knowledge augments my own, it made the experience\u2014and the presentation!\u2014significantly better.\nCo-presenting won\u2019t work if you don\u2019t trust the person you\u2019re onstage with, or if you don\u2019t have good chemistry working together. It might also not work if there\u2019s an imbalance of responsibilities, both in preparing the talk and giving it. Read on for how to make partner talks work to your advantage!\nTrustworthiness\nIf you want to explore co-presenting, make sure that your presentation partner is trustworthy and can carry their weight; it can be stressful if you find yourself trying to meet deadlines and prepare well and your partner isn\u2019t being helpful. We\u2019re all about reducing the fears and stress levels surrounding being in that spotlight onstage; make sure that the person you\u2019re relying on isn\u2019t making the process harder.\nBefore you start working together, sketch out the breakdown of work and timeline you\u2019re each committing to. Have a conversation about your preferred work style so you each have a concrete understanding of the best ways to communicate (in what medium, and how often) and how to check in on each other\u2019s progress without micromanaging or worrying about radio silence. Ask your buddy how they prefer to receive feedback, and give them your own feedback preferences, so neither of you are surprised or offended when someone\u2019s work style or deliverable needs to be tweaked.\nThis should be a partnership in which you both feel supported; it\u2019s healthy to set all these expectations up front, and create a space in which you can each tweak things as the work progresses.\nTalk flow and responsibilities\nThere are a few different ways to organize the structure of your talk with multiple presenters. Start by thinking about the breakdown of the talk content\u2014are there discrete parts you and the other presenters can own or deliver? Or does it feel more appropriate to deliver the entirety of the content together?\nIf you\u2019re finding that you can break down the content into discrete chunks, figure out who should own which pieces, and what ownership means. Will you develop the content together but have only one person present the information? Or will one person research and prepare each content section in addition to delivering it solo onstage?\nRehearse how handoffs will go between sections so it feels natural, rather than stilted. I like breaking a presentation into \u201cchapters\u201d when I\u2019m passionate about particular aspects of a topic and can speak on those, but know that there are other aspects to be shared and there\u2019s someone else who can handle (and enjoy!) talking about them. When Destiny and I rehearsed our \u201cchapter\u201d handoffs, we developed little jingles that we\u2019d both sing together onstage; it indicated to the audience that it was a planned transition in the content, and tied our independent work together into a partnership.\n.embed-container { position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden; max-width: 100%; } .embed-container iframe, .embed-container object, .embed-container embed { position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; }\n\n\n\nAlternatively, you can give the presentation in a way that\u2019s close to having a rehearsed conversation, rather than independently presenting discrete parts of the talk. In this case, you\u2019ll both be sharing the spotlight at the same time, throughout the duration of the talk. Preparation is key, here, to make sure that you each understand what needs to be communicated, and you have a sense of who will be taking responsibility for communicating those different pieces of information. A poorly-prepared talk like this will look like the co-presenters are talking over each other, or hesitating awkwardly to give the other person more room to speak; the audience will feel how uncomfortable this is, and will probably be distracted from the talk content. Practice the talk the whole way through multiple times so you know what each person is planning on covering and how you want to interact with each other while you\u2019re both holding microphones; also figure out how you\u2019ll be standing in relation to each other. More on that next!\nSharing the stage\nIf you choose to give a talk with a partner, determine ahead of time how you\u2019ll stand (or sit). For example, if you each take \u201cchapters\u201d or major sections of the presentation, ensure that it\u2019s clear who the audience should focus their attention on. You could sit in a chair off to the side (or stand). I recommend placing yourself far enough away that you\u2019re not distracting to the audience; you don\u2019t want them watching you while your partner is speaking. If the audience can still see you, but their focus should be on your buddy, be sure to not look distracted; keep your eyes on your buddy, and don\u2019t just open your laptop and ignore what\u2019s happening! Feel free to smile, laugh, or react how the audience should be reacting as your partner is speaking.\nIf you\u2019re both sharing the spotlight at the same time and having a rehearsed conversation, make sure that your body language engages the audience and you\u2019re not just speaking to each other, ignoring the folks watching. Watch this talk with Guy Podjarny and Assaf Hefetz who have partnered up to talk about security; they have clearly identified roles onstage, and remain engaged with the audience.\n\nConsider whether or not you will share a microphone, or if you will both be mic\u2019d. (Be sure that the event organizer, or the A/V team, has a heads-up well in advance to ensure they have the equipment handy!) Also talk through how you\u2019d like to handle Q&A time during or after the talk, especially if you have clear \u201cchapters\u201d where Q&A might happen naturally during a handoff. The more clarity you and your partner have about who is responsible for which pieces of information sharing, the more you can feel and appear prepared.\nCo-presenting does take a lot of preparation and requires a ton of communication between you and your partner. But the rewards can be awesome: double the brains onstage to help answer questions and communicate information, and a friendly face to help comfort you if you feel nervous.", "year": "2016", "author": "Lara Hogan", "author_slug": "larahogan", "published": "2016-12-06T00:00:00+00:00", "url": "https://24ways.org/2016/public-speaking-with-a-buddy/", "topic": "process"}
{"rowid": 299, "title": "What the Heck Is Inclusive Design?", "contents": "Naming things is hard. And I don\u2019t just mean CSS class names and JSON properties. Finding the right term for what we do with the time we spend awake and out of bed turns out to be really hard too.\nI\u2019ve variously gone by \u201cfront-end developer\u201d, \u201cuser experience designer\u201d, and \u201caccessibility engineer\u201d, all clumsy and incomplete terms for labeling what I do as an\u2026 erm\u2026 see, there\u2019s the problem again.\nIt\u2019s tempting to give up entirely on trying to find the right words for things, but this risks summarily dispensing with thousands of years spent trying to qualify the world around us. So here we are again.\nRecently, I\u2019ve been using the term \u201cinclusive design\u201d and calling myself an \u201cinclusive designer\u201d a lot. I\u2019m not sure where I first heard it or who came up with it, but the terminology feels like a good fit for the kind of stuff I care to do when I\u2019m not at a pub or asleep.\nThis article is about what I think \u201cinclusive design\u201d means and why I think you might like it as an idea.\nIsn\u2019t \u2018inclusive design\u2019 just \u2018accessibility\u2019 by another name?\nNo, I don\u2019t think so. But that\u2019s not to say the two concepts aren\u2019t related. Note the \u2018design\u2019 part in \u2018inclusive design\u2019 \u2014 that\u2019s not just there by accident. Inclusive design describes a design activity; a way of designing things.\nThis sets it apart from accessibility \u2014 or at least our expectations of what \u2018accessibility\u2019 entails. Despite every single accessibility expert I know (and I know a lot) recommending that accessibility should be integrated into design process, it is rarely ever done. Instead, it is relegated to an afterthought, limiting its effect.\nThe term \u2018accessibility\u2019 therefore lacks the power to connote design process. It\u2019s not that we haven\u2019t tried to salvage the term, but it\u2019s beginning to look like a lost cause. So maybe let\u2019s use a new term, because new things take new names. People get that.\nThe \u2018access\u2019 part of accessibility is also problematic. Before we get ahead of ourselves, I don\u2019t mean access is a problem \u2014 access is good, and the more accessible something is  the better. I mean it\u2019s not enough by itself.\nImagine a website filled with poorly written and lackadaisically organized information, including a bunch of convoluted and confusing functionality. To make this site accessible is to ensure no barriers prevent people from accessing the content. \nBut that doesn\u2019t make the content any better. It just means more people get to suffer it. \nWhoopdidoo.\nAccess is certainly a prerequisite of inclusion, but accessibility compliance doesn\u2019t get you all the way there. It\u2019s possible to check all the boxes but still be left with an unusable  interface. And unusable interfaces are necessarily inaccessible ones. Sure, you can take an unusable interface and make it accessibility compliant, but that only placates stakeholders\u2019 lawyers, not users. Users get little value from it.\nSo where have we got to? Access is important, but inclusion is bigger than access. Inclusive design means making something valuable, not just accessible, to as many people as we can.\nSo inclusive design is kind of accessibility + UX?\nCloser, but there are some problems with this definition.\nUX is, you will have already noted, a broad term encompassing activities ranging from conducting research studies to optimizing the perceived affordance of interface elements. But overall, what I take from UX is that it\u2019s the pursuit of making interfaces  understandable.\nAs it happens, WCAG 2.0 already contains an \u2018Understandable\u2019 principle covering provisions such as readability, predictability and feedback. So you might say accessibility \u2014 at least as described by WCAG \u2014 already covers UX.\nUnfortunately, the criteria are limited, plus some really important stuff (like readability) is relegated to the AAA level; essentially \u201cbonus points if you get the time (you won\u2019t).\u201d\nSo better to let UX folks take care of this kind of thing. It\u2019s what they do. Except, therein lies a danger. UX professionals don\u2019t tend to be well versed in accessibility, so their \u2018solutions\u2019 don\u2019t tend to work for that many people. My friend Billy Gregory coined the term SUX, or \u201cSome UX\u201d: if it doesn\u2019t work for different users, it\u2019s only doing part of the job it should be. \nSUX won\u2019t do, but it\u2019s not just a disability issue. All sorts of user circumstances go unchecked when you\u2019re shooting straight for what people like, and bypassing what people need: device type, device settings, network quality, location, native language, and available time to name just a few.\nIn short, inclusive design means designing things for people who aren\u2019t you, in your situation. In my experience, mainstream UX isn\u2019t very good at that. By bolting accessibility onto mainstream UX we labor under the misapprehension that most people have a \u2018normal\u2019 experience, a few people are exceptions, and that all of the exceptions pertain to disability directly.\nSo inclusive design isn\u2019t really about disability?\nIt is about disability, but not in the same way as accessibility. Accessibility (as it is typically understood, anyway) aims to make sure things work for people with clinically recognized disabilities. Inclusive design aims to make sure things work for people, not forgetting those with clinically recognized disabilities. A subtle, but not so subtle, difference.\nLet\u2019s go back to discussing readability, because that\u2019s a good example. Now: everyone benefits from readable text; text with concise sentences and widely-understood words. It certainly helps people with cognitive impairments, but it doesn\u2019t hinder folks who have less trouble with comprehension. In fact, they\u2019ll more than likely be thankful for the time saved and the clarity. Readable text covers the whole gamut. It\u2019s \u2014 you\u2019ve got it \u2014 inclusive.\nLegibility is another one. A clear, well-balanced typeface makes the reading experience less uncomfortable and frustrating for all concerned, including those who have various forms of visual dyslexia. Again, everyone\u2019s happy \u2014 so why even contemplate a squiggly, sketchy typeface? Leave well alone.\nContrast too. No one benefits from low contrast; everyone benefits from high contrast. Simple. There\u2019s no more work involved, it just entails better decision making. And that\u2019s what design is really: decision making.\nHow about zoom support? If you let your users pinch zoom on their phones they can compensate for poor eyesight, but they can also increase the touch area of controls, inspect detail in images, and compose better screen shots. Unobtrusively supporting options like zoom makes interfaces much more inclusive at very little cost.\nAnd when it comes to the underlying HTML code, you\u2019re in luck: it has already been designed, from the outset, to be inclusive. HTML is a toolkit for inclusion. Using the right elements for the job doesn\u2019t just mean the few who use screen readers benefit, but keyboard accessibility comes out-of-the-box, you can defer to browser behavior rather than writing additional scripts, the code is easier to read and maintain, and editors can create content that is effortlessly presentable. \nWait\u2026 are you talking about universal design?\nHmmm. Yes, I guess some folks might think of \u201cuniversal design\u201d and \u201cinclusive design\u201d as synonymous. I just really don\u2019t like the term universal in this context. \nThe thing is, it gives the impression that you should be designing for absolutely everyone in the universe. Though few would adopt a literal interpretation of \u201cuniversal\u201d in this context, there are enough developers who would deliberately misconstrue the term and decry universal design as an impossible task. I\u2019ve actually had people push back by saying, \u201cwhat, so I\u2019ve got to make it work for people who are allergic to computers? What about people in comas?\u201d\nFor everyone\u2019s sake, I think the term \u2018inclusive\u2019 is less misleading. Of course you can\u2019t make things that everybody can use \u2014 it\u2019s okay, that\u2019s not the aim. But with everything that\u2019s possible with web technologies, there\u2019s really no need to exclude people in the vast numbers that we usually are. \nAccessibility can never be perfect, but by thinking inclusively from planning, through prototyping to production, you can cast a much wider net. That means more and happier users at very little if any more effort.\nIf you like, inclusive design is the means and accessibility is the end \u2014 it\u2019s just that you get a lot more than just accessibility along the way.\nConclusion\nThat\u2019s inclusive design. Or at least, that\u2019s a definition for a thing I think is a good idea which I identify as inclusive design. I\u2019ll leave you with a few tips.\nInvolve code early\nWeb interfaces are made of code. If you\u2019re not working with code, you\u2019re not working on the interface. That\u2019s not to say there\u2019s anything wrong with sketching or paper prototyping  \u2014 in fact, I recommend paper prototyping in my book on inclusive design. Just work with code as soon as you can, and think about code even before that. Maintain a pattern library of coded solutions and omit any solutions that don\u2019t adhere to basic accessibility guidelines.\nRespect conventions\nYour content should be fresh, inventive, radical. Your interface shouldn\u2019t. Adopt accepted conventions in the appearance, placement and coding of interface elements. Users aren\u2019t there to experience interface design; they\u2019re there to use an interface. In other words: stop showing off (unless, of course, the brief is to experiment with new paradigms in interface design, for an audience of interface design researchers).\nDon\u2019t be exact\n\u201cPerfection is the enemy of good\u201d. But the pursuit of perfection isn\u2019t just to be avoided because nothing ever gets finished. Exacting design also makes things inflexible and brittle. If your design depends on elements retaining precise coordinates, they\u2019ll break easily when your users start adjusting font settings or zooming. Choose not to position elements exactly or give them fixed, \u201cmagic number\u201d dimensions. Make less decisions in the interface so your users can make more decisions for it.\nEnforce simplicity\nThe virtue of simplicity is difficult to overestimate. The simpler an interface is, the easier it is to use for all kinds of users. Simpler interfaces require less code to make too, so there\u2019s an obvious performance advantage. There are many design decisions that require user research, but keeping things simple is always the right thing to do. Not simplified or simple-seeming or simplistic, but simple. \nDo a little and do it well, for as many people as you can.", "year": "2016", "author": "Heydon Pickering", "author_slug": "heydonpickering", "published": "2016-12-07T00:00:00+00:00", "url": "https://24ways.org/2016/what-the-heck-is-inclusive-design/", "topic": "process"}
{"rowid": 301, "title": "Stretching Time", "contents": "Time is valuable. It\u2019s a precious commodity that, if we\u2019re not too careful, can slip effortlessly through our fingers. When we think about the resources at our disposal we\u2019re often guilty of forgetting the most valuable resource we have to hand: time.\nWe are all given an allocation of time from the time bank. 86,400 seconds a day to be precise, not a second more, not a second less.\nIt doesn\u2019t matter if we\u2019re rich or we\u2019re poor, no one can buy more time (and no one can save it). We are all, in this regard, equals. We all have the same opportunity to spend our time and use it to maximum effect. As such, we need to use our time wisely.\nI believe we can \u2018stretch\u2019 time, ensuring we make the most of every second and maximising the opportunities that time affords us.\nThrough a combination of \u2018Structured Procrastination\u2019 and \u2018Focused Finishing\u2019 we can open our eyes to all of the opportunities in the world around us, whilst ensuring that we deliver our best work precisely when it\u2019s required. A win win, I\u2019m sure you\u2019ll agree.\nStructured Procrastination\nI\u2019m a terrible procrastinator. I used to think that was a curse  \u2013 \u201cWhy didn\u2019t I just get started earlier?\u201d \u2013 over time, however, I\u2019ve started to see procrastination as a valuable tool if it is used in a structured manner.\nDon Norman refers to procrastination as \u2018late binding\u2019 (a term I\u2019ve happily hijacked). As he argues, in Why Procrastination Is Good, late binding (delay, or procrastination) offers many benefits:\n\nDelaying decisions until the time for action is beneficial\u2026 it provides the maximum amount of time to think, plan, and determine alternatives.\n\nWe live in a world that is constantly changing and evolving, as such the best time to execute is often \u2018just in time\u2019. By delaying decisions until the last possible moment we can arrive at solutions that address the current reality more effectively, resulting in better outcomes.\nProcrastination isn\u2019t just useful from a project management perspective, however. It can also be useful for allowing your mind the space to wander, make new discoveries and find creative connections. By embracing structured procrastination we can \u2018prime the brain\u2019.\nAs James Webb Young argues, in A Technique for Producing Ideas, all ideas are made of other ideas and the more we fill our minds with other stimuli, the greater the number of creative opportunities we can uncover and bring to life.\nBy late binding, and availing of a lack of time pressure, you allow the mind space to breathe, enabling you to uncover elements that are important to the problem you\u2019re working on and, perhaps, discover other elements that will serve you well in future tasks.\nWhen setting forth upon the process of writing this article I consciously set aside time to explore. I allowed myself the opportunity to read, taking in new material, safe in the knowledge that what I discovered \u2013 if not useful for this article \u2013 would serve me well in the future. \nRon Burgundy summarises this neatly:\n\nProcrastinator? No. I just wait until the last second to do my work because I will be older, therefore wiser.\n\nAn \u2018older, therefore wiser\u2019 mind is a good thing. We\u2019re incredibly fortunate to live in a world where we have a wealth of information at our fingertips. Don\u2019t waste the opportunity to learn, rather embrace that opportunity. Make the most of every second to fill your mind with new material, the rewards will be ample.\nDeadlines are deadlines, however, and deadlines offer us the opportunity to focus our minds, bringing together the pieces of the puzzle we found during our structured procrastination.\nLike everyone I\u2019ll hear a tiny, but insistent voice in my head that starts to rise when the deadline is approaching. The older you get, the closer to the deadline that voice starts to chirp up.\nAt this point we need to focus.\nFocused Finishing\nWe live in an age of constant distraction. Smartphones are both a blessing and a curse, they keep us connected, but if we\u2019re not careful the constant connection they provide can interrupt our flow.\nWhen a deadline is accelerating towards us it\u2019s important to set aside the distractions and carve out a space where we can work in a clear and focused manner.\nWhen it\u2019s time to finish, it\u2019s important to avoid context switching and focus. All those micro-interactions throughout the day \u2013 triaging your emails, checking social media and browsing the web \u2013 can get in the way of you hitting your deadline. At this point, they\u2019re distractions.\nChunking tasks and managing when they\u2019re scheduled can improve your productivity by a surprising order of magnitude. At this point it\u2019s important to remove distractions which result in \u2018attention residue\u2019, where your mind is unable to focus on the current task, due to the mental residue of other, unrelated tasks.\nBy focusing on a single task in a focused manner, it\u2019s possible to minimise the negative impact of attention residue, allowing you to maximise your performance on the task at hand.\nCal Newport explores this in his excellent book, Deep Work, which I would highly recommend reading. As he puts it:\n\nEfforts to deepen your focus will struggle if you don\u2019t simultaneously wean your mind from a dependence on distraction.\n\nTo help you focus on finishing it\u2019s helpful to set up a work-focused environment that is purposefully free from distractions. There\u2019s a time and a place for structured procrastination, but \u2013 equally \u2013 there\u2019s a time and a place for focused finishing.\nThe French term \u2018mise en place\u2019 is drawn from the world of fine cuisine \u2013 I discovered it when I was procrastinating \u2013 and it\u2019s applicable in this context. The term translates as \u2018putting in place\u2019 or \u2018everything in its place\u2019 and it refers to the process of getting the workplace ready before cooking.\nJust like a professional chef organises their utensils and arranges their ingredients, so too can you.\nThanks to the magic of multiple users on computers, it\u2019s possible to create a separate user on your computer \u2013 without access to email and other social tools \u2013 so that you can switch to that account when you need to focus and hit the deadline.\nAnother, less technical way of achieving the same result \u2013 depending, of course, upon your line of work \u2013 is to close your computer and find some non-digital, unconnected space to work in.\nThe goal is to carve out time to focus so you can finish. As Newport states:\n\nIf you don\u2019t produce, you won\u2019t thrive \u2013 no matter how skilled or talented you are.\n\nProcrastination is fine, but only if it\u2019s accompanied by finishing. Create the space to finish and you\u2019ll enjoy the best of both worlds.\nIn closing\u2026\nThere is a time and a place for everything: there is a time to procrastinate, and a time to focus. To truly reap the rewards of time, the mind needs both.\nBy combining the processes of \u2018Structured Procrastination\u2019 and \u2018Focused Finishing\u2019 we can make the most of our 86,400 seconds a day, ensuring we are constantly primed to make new discoveries, but just as importantly, ensuring we hit the all-important deadlines.\nMake the most of your time, you only get so much. Use every second productively and you\u2019ll be thankful that you did. Don\u2019t waste your time, once it\u2019s gone, it\u2019s gone\u2026 and you can never get it back.", "year": "2016", "author": "Christopher Murphy", "author_slug": "christophermurphy", "published": "2016-12-21T00:00:00+00:00", "url": "https://24ways.org/2016/stretching-time/", "topic": "process"}
{"rowid": 302, "title": "Flexible Project Management in Inflexible Environments", "contents": "Handling unforeseen circumstances is an inevitable part of any project. It\u2019s also often the most uncomfortable, and there is no amount of skill or planning that will fully eradicate the need to adapt to change. The ability to be flexible, responsive, and unafraid of facing not only problems, but also potentially positive scope changes and new ideas, isn\u2019t an easy one to master. I am by no means saying that I have, but what I have learned is that there is often the temptation to shut out anything that might derail your plan, even sometimes at the cost of the quality you\u2019re committed to.\nThe reality is that as someone leading a project you know there will be challenges, but, in general, it\u2019s a hassle to try keep the landscape open. Problems are bridges we should cross when we come to them, but intentional changes to the plan, and adapting for the sake of improving your first idea, is harder. There are tight schedules, resource is planned miles ahead, and you\u2019re already juggling twenty other things. If you\u2019re passionate about the quality of work you deliver and are working somewhere that considers itself expert within the field of digital, then having an attitude of flexibility is extremely important. It\u2019s important when you\u2019re overcoming a challenge or problem, but it\u2019s also important for allowing ideas to evolve and be refined as much as they can be throughout the course of a project.\nWhere theory falls short\nThe premise of any Agile methodology, Scrum for example, is based around being able to work efficiently, react quickly and deliver relevant chunks of a product in manageable increments. It\u2019s often hailed as king of flexible management and it can work really well, especially for in-house software products developed over a long or even an indefinite period of time. It holds off defining scope too far ahead and lets teams focus on smaller amounts of work, and allows them to regularly reprioritise. Unfortunately though, not all environments lend themselves as easily to a fully Agile setup. Even the ones that do may be restrained from putting it fully into practice for an array of other internal reasons.\nDelivering digital services to clients\u2014within an agency setting or as a freelancer\u2014often demands a more rigid structure. You need clear sign-off points, there\u2019s a lot less flexibility in defining features, or working within budgets and timeframes. To start with, for a project to warrant a fully Agile team working on it, and especially for agencies, you need clients big enough and rich enough to justify the resource. You also need a lot of client trust to propose defining features and scope as you go. Although this is achievable\u2014and there are agencies that operate an agile setup\u2014it takes a long journey to reach that scale in the full sense of the word. Building a reputation that commands unconditional trust and reaching the point where your projects are consistently of a certain size often requires backing by long journey of success and excellence.\nSo there is a lot of room left for understanding how we can best strive to still deliver excellent projects within more constrained structures. We know that rigid waterfall planning, more often than not, falls over as soon as a project gets anything past a basic brochure site. There are many critiques of the system, but one of the main ones tends to be that nobody considers each other\u2019s work properly, which can result in very expensive and inefficient development.\nEqually, for reasons we\u2019ve already touched upon, running fully agile teams often isn\u2019t the right answer. So many companies, individuals, and organisations look for a middle-ground that balances being flexible and adaptive, but also provides enough upfront commitment to agree budgets, get client/stakeholder sign off, and effectively coordinate internal resource across multiple parallel projects.\nAlthough I don\u2019t have a perfect formula\u2014and can very much assert there is no one perfect way of managing a project because every project is different to the next\u2014I\u2019ve identified a few different ways you can approach flexibility that have really helped me in running projects more smoothly within more realistic constraints.\nPlanned Flexibility\nDrawing on some of the traditional methodologies such as PRINCE2, a good starting point for aspiring to be flexible is by planning for it from the start.\nPlanning flexibility comes in a few forms. For one, you can regularly identify and log potential risks as a generally good, on-going habit over the course of the project. This essentially just involves scanning the horizon for potential blips on a regular basis (for example weekly) by consulting with your team and documenting it somewhere. It means you have a checkpoint when you sit down and make sure you\u2019re minimising what will or may catch you by surprise. A good time to do this is in a weekly catch up meeting. It\u2019s not going to fix all your problems, but it will make sure you have a head start on the ones you can see coming.\nOn the subject of team meetings, setting up recurring project events, including a weekly call, a weekly team meeting and (depending on the size of the project) I like to try also do a stand-up as often as possible. Keeping everyone involved and bought in to a project is going to help you infinitely when you need to spot a problem or manage changes to the plan. It will be the difference between your designer spotting an issue and making a mental note to \u2018tell you later\u2019, and them actually coming over to tell you directly and immediately. Despite the overhead of meetings, and looping people into stages that they aren\u2019t directly responsible for, the business benefits are chances for success are drastically increased. Planning in, and being aware of how important your team is, will help you be flexible.\nBuilding contingency (formally know as slack) into your project plan from the word go is another well-known and essential way of planning to be flexible. Your project plan will change a lot over the course of a project, but there are still the days that you estimate a job will take, and the days you should actually plan in. Most sensible management teams understand that budgets need to be agreed with this slack in mind or you will not be able to deliver a quality service. I believe that commercial awareness is one of the most valuable skills a project manager can have, but penny pinching will ruin client and team relationships, destroy buy-in and creativity, and often end you up with a much more expensive, hacky, and resented product.\nIt\u2019s not a justification to let budgets spiral out of control, but a way of thinking about the bigger picture and wider plan of the company itself. It\u2019s unlikely you want high staff turnover because everyone fell out while you were screaming money at them and they didn\u2019t feel like they could do a good job. It\u2019s also unlikely that you will be able to deliver quality products, which will win you a strong reputation and subsequently bigger and better projects. Evaluating risk factors and building in the right amount of slack from the start will give you more wriggle room when you need to adapt and react. On the flip side, also keeping an overview of the wider workload (that you\u2019re not necessarily responsible for), and knowing who to talk if resource is becoming free or needs filling, is another handy way of being able to react quickly and ensuring your management system is respected. You want pockets of backup time planned in, but you also want everyone being as productive as they can most of the time. Never run at 100% capacity: as soon as something does need to change, you\u2019re left with nowhere to move.\nTransparency\nHaving a client or stakeholder that trusts you is a really powerful aid in any regard, but especially so when you need to communicate an issue or new suggestion. Positioning yourself and your team as experts and taking the time to delve into the wider picture\u2014and the goals surrounding your client\u2019s reasons to commission the project in the first place\u2014will make you more valuable to them. Clients and stakeholders will always be different, and sometimes you will get people who are just plain difficult, but more often than not people will listen if you\u2019re willing to talk and explain things.\nAs I\u2019m sure all of us have realised at one point or another, a lot of people think they know what they want, and it\u2019s usually the wrong thing. Managing key stakeholders in your project is arguably your biggest challenge, if they are on the your side and feel like the team is genuinely working to give them something of quality and value, then they will make your job easier. It\u2019s often down to you to educate them, and to help them recognise and understand the work involved and you and your team\u2019s reasoning behind your decisions.\nBeing overly submissive or overly secretive will foster a dynamic in which they feel expected to steer the project. In this situation they may not respect the team\u2019s suggestions or may come up with some unreasonable and counterproductive ideas that are likely to hinder progress and lower morale. Getting the stakeholder on board and making them feel a part of the wider picture will make things easier. Pushing back and challenging ideas or working hard to justify something they don\u2019t quite understand will often work in your favour and protects your team. On quite a basic level it also shows you care and are invested; on another, it shows you feel confident in your expertise within your field and that is ultimately the reason they hired you.\nTaking the time to think about and be aware of this relationship, will make it easier to be flexible and handle new ideas or suggestions that pop up as the project goes along. Change doesn\u2019t need to be \u2018scope creep\u2019 if it\u2019s raised in a practical, value-orientated, and level headed discussion. There is usually a way forward for new ideas, as long as they\u2019re valuable and support the wider goals. Maybe the deadline gets pushed back, maybe you get more budget, maybe the client is happy to forgo something else. As long as there\u2019s value and reason, it shows integrity to the project and respect for its success. You can\u2019t expect for this to go smoothly without having invested in the client relationship, so it\u2019s a large point in paving the way to handling change well.\nReactive Flexibility\nFinally, if you\u2019ve been doing this for a while, you\u2019ll know by now that you can\u2019t anticipate everything. Sometimes you will have to react and change the plan under circumstances that aren\u2019t easy. When an unexpected problem first rears its head\u2014a client\u2019s casual afterthought that\u2019s threatening the scope of the project, an internal resource conflict, a junior member of staff that\u2019s not grasping the ropes quite as quickly as you\u2019d hoped\u2014you have to react quickly.\nIn his book, \u2018Pitch Anything\u2019, Oren Klaff talks about people\u2019s first reactions being processed by their \u2018crocodile brain\u2019 before they\u2019ve had a chance to refine and digest the information more intelligibly. As project managers, product owners, or scrum masters, it\u2019s natural for our immediate reactions to an unexpected problem to cause a pang of stress. But after that initial jolt you need to turn to practical solutions and start racking your brain for different ways forward. It\u2019s here you need to remember to not let your imagination get the better of you, especially if you\u2019ve been putting in the legwork with your team and your client. There is always a way forward and moments like this can be a good opportunity to develop your negotiation and diplomacy skills. Don\u2019t let your immediate reaction be shutting the problem down; instead, take a second to think about it before you decide on the best direction. In a stressful situation, your first idea probably won\u2019t be your best one.\nFrom an internal point of view, it\u2019s very important that whatever went wrong doesn\u2019t turn into a finger pointing exercise and you don\u2019t lose your cool. Getting caught up in a blame game or a witch hunt is never productive. Relationship cultivating can sometimes be the pillar that gets you through a stressful blip. Biggest tip for staying flexible when you\u2019re reacting to a problem\u2014apart form obviously thinking of ways forward\u2014is to communicate. Don\u2019t go quiet until you feel like you have a plan, you\u2019ll often need to put everyone else at ease before you can move things forward. Problem solving is part of the job and will need to happen in even the most flexible of product delivery systems.\nIn conclusion, being flexible is never simple but there are things you can do to make your life easier. Owning a position of expertise, putting together a team that\u2019s involved in each other\u2019s work and cultivating a client/stakeholder relationship that\u2019s as transparent and respectful as possible will get you a long way. In times of crisis, believe in your skills and be open to adapting over getting frustrated.", "year": "2016", "author": "Gillian Sibthorpe", "author_slug": "gilliansibthorpe", "published": "2016-12-04T00:00:00+00:00", "url": "https://24ways.org/2016/flexible-project-management/", "topic": "process"}
{"rowid": 304, "title": "Five Lessons From My First 18 Months as a Dev", "contents": "I recently moved from Sydney to London to start a dream job with Twitter as a software engineer. A software engineer! Who would have thought.\nHaving started my career as a journalist, the title \u2018engineer\u2019 is very strange to me. The notion of writing in first person is also very strange. Journalists are taught to be objective, invisible, to keep yourself out of the story. And here I am writing about myself on a public platform. Cringe.\nSince I started learning to code I\u2019ve often felt compelled to write about my experience. I want to share my excitement and struggles with the world! But as a junior I\u2019ve been held back by thoughts like \u2018whatever you have to say won\u2019t be technical enough\u2019, \u2018any time spent writing a blog would be better spent writing code\u2019, \u2018blogging is narcissistic\u2019, etc.\u00a0\nWell, I\u2019ve been told that your thirties are the years where you stop caring so much about what other people think. And I\u2019m almost 30. So here goes!\nThese are five key lessons from my first year and a half in tech:\nDeployments should delight, not dread \n\nLesson #1: Making your deployment process as simple as possible is worth the investment.\n\nIn my first dev job, I dreaded deployments. We would deploy every Sunday night at 8pm. Preparation would begin the Friday before. A nominated deployment manager would spend half a day tagging master, generating scripts, writing documentation and raising JIRAs. The only fun part was choosing a train gif to post in HipChat: \u2018All aboard! The deployment train leaves in 3, 2, 1\u2026\u201d\n\nWhen Sunday night came around, at least one person from every squad would need to be online to conduct smoke tests. Most times, the deployments would succeed. Other times they would fail. Regardless, deployments ate into people\u2019s weekend time\u200a\u2014\u200aand they were intense. Devs would rush to have their code approved before the Friday cutoff. Deployment managers who were new to the process would fear making a mistake.\u00a0\nThe team knew deployments were a problem. They were constantly striving to improve them. And what I\u2019ve learnt from Twitter is that when they do, their lives will be bliss.\nTweetDeck\u2019s deployment process fills me with joy and delight. It\u2019s quick, easy and stress free. In fact, it\u2019s so easy I deployed code on my first day in the job! Anyone can deploy, at any time of day, with a single command. Rollbacks are just as simple. There\u2019s no rush to make the deployment train. No manual preparation. No fuss. Value\u200a\u2014\u200awhether in the form of big new features, simple UI improvements or even production bug fixes\u200a\u2014\u200acan be shipped in an instant. The team assures me the process wasn\u2019t always like this. They invested lots of time in making their deployments better. And it\u2019s clearly paid off.\nCode reviews need love, time and acceptance \n\nLesson #2: Code reviews are a three-way gift. Every time I review someone else\u2019s code, I help them, the team and myself.\n\nCode reviews were another pain point in my previous job. And to be honest, I was part of the problem. I would raise code reviews that were far too big. They would take days, sometimes weeks, to get merged. One of my reviews had 96 comments! I would rarely review other people\u2019s code because I felt too junior, like my review didn\u2019t carry any weight.\u00a0\nThe review process itself was also tiring, and was often raised in retrospectives as being slow. In order for code to be merged it needed to have ticks of approval from two developers and a third tick from a peer tester. It was the responsibility of the author to assign the reviewers and tester. It was felt that if it was left to team members to assign themselves to reviews, the \u201csomeone else will do it\u201d mentality would kick in, and nothing would get done.\nAt TweetDeck, no-one is specifically assigned to reviews. Instead, when a review is raised, the entire team is notified. Without fail, someone will jump on it. Reviews are seen as blocking. They\u2019re seen to be equally, if not more important, than your own work. I haven\u2019t seen a review sit for longer than a few hours without comments.\u00a0\nWe also don\u2019t work on branches. We push single commits for review, which are then merged to master. This forces the team to work in small, incremental changes. If a review is too big, or if it\u2019s going to take up more than an hour of someone\u2019s time, it will be sent back.\nWhat I\u2019ve learnt so far at Twitter is that code reviews must be small. They must take priority. And they must be a team effort. Being a new starter is no \u201cget out of jail free card\u201d. In fact, it\u2019s even more of a reason to be reviewing code. Reviews are a great way to learn, get across the product and see different programming styles. If you\u2019re like me, and find code reviews daunting,  ask to pair with a senior until you feel more confident. I recently paired with my mentor at Twitter and found it really helpful.\nGet friendly with feature flagging \n\nLesson #3: Feature flagging gives you complete control over how you build and release a project.\n\nSay you\u2019re implementing a new feature. It\u2019s going to take a few weeks to complete. You\u2019ll complete the feature in small, incremental changes. At what point do these changes get merged to master? At what point do they get deployed? Do you start at the back end and finish with the UI, so the user won\u2019t see the changes until they\u2019re ready? With feature flagging\u200a\u2014\u200ait doesn\u2019t matter. In fact, with feature flagging, by the time you are ready to release your feature, it\u2019s already deployed, sitting happily in master with the rest of your codebase.\u00a0\nA feature flag is a boolean value that gets wrapped around the code relating to the thing you\u2019re working on. The code will only be executed if the value is true.\nif (TD.decider.get(\u2018new_feature\u2019)) {\n    //code for new feature goes here\n}\nIn my first dev job, I deployed a navigation link to the feature I\u2019d been working on, making it visible in the product, even though the feature wasn\u2019t ready. \u201cWhy didn\u2019t you use a feature flag?\u201d a senior dev asked me. An honest response would have been: \u201cBecause they\u2019re confusing to implement and I don\u2019t understand the benefits of using them.\u201d The fix had to wait until the next deployment.\nThe best thing about feature flagging at TweetDeck is that there is no need to deploy to turn on or off a feature. We set the status of the feature via an interface called Deckcider, and the code makes regular API requests to get the status.\u00a0\nAt TweetDeck we are also able to roll our features out progressively. The first rollout might be to a staging environment. Then to employees only. Then to 10 per cent of users, 20 per cent, 30 per cent, and so on. A gradual rollout allows you to monitor for bugs and unexpected behaviour, before releasing the feature to the entire user base.\nSometimes a piece of work requires changes to existing business logic. So the code might look more like this:\nif (TD.decider.get(\u2018change_to_existing_feature\u2019)) {\n    //new logic goes here\n} else {\n    //old logic goes here\n}\nThis seems messy, right? Riddling your code with if else statements to determine which path of logic should be executed, or which version of the UI should be displayed. But at Twitter, this is embraced. You can always clean up the code once a feature is turned on. This isn\u2019t essential, though. At least not in the early days. When a cheeky bug is discovered, having the flag in place allows the feature to be very quickly turned off again. \nLet data and experimentation drive development \n\nLesson #4: Use data to determine the direction of your product and measure its success.\n\nThe first company I worked for placed a huge amount of emphasis on data-driven decision making. If we had an idea, or if we wanted to make a change, we were encouraged to \u201cbring data\u201d to show why it was necessary. \u201cWithout data, you\u2019re just another person with an opinion,\u201d the chief data scientist would say. This attitude helped to ensure we were building the right things for our customers. Instead of just plucking a new feature out of thin air, it was chosen based on data that reflected its need.\nBut how do you design that feature? How do you know that the design you choose will have the desired impact? That\u2019s where experiments come into play.\u00a0\nAt TweetDeck we make UI changes that we hope will delight our users. But the assumptions we make about our users are often wrong. Our front-end team recently sat in a room and tried to guess which UIs from A/B tests had produced better results. Half the room guessed incorrectly every time.\nWe can\u2019t assume a change we want to make will have the impact we expect. So we run an experiment. Here\u2019s how it works. Users are placed into buckets. One bucket of users will have access to the new feature, the other won\u2019t. We hypothesise that the bucket exposed to the new feature will have better results. The beauty of running an experiment is that we\u2019ll know for sure. Instead of blindly releasing the feature to all users without knowing its impact, once the experiment has run its course, we\u2019ll have the data to make decisions accordingly.\nHire the developer, not the degree\n\nLesson #5: Testing candidates on real world problems will allow applicants from all backgrounds to shine.\n\nSurely, a company like Twitter would give their applicants insanely difficult code tests, and the toughest technical questions, that only the cleverest CS graduates could pass, I told myself when applying for the job. Lucky for me, this wasn\u2019t the case. The process was insanely difficult\u2014don\u2019t get me wrong\u2014but the team at TweetDeck gave me real world problems to solve.\nThe first code test involved bug fixes, performance and testing. The second involved DOM traversal and manipulation. Instead of being put on the spot in a room with a whiteboard and pen I was given a task, access to the internet, and time to work on it. Similarly, in my technical interviews, I was asked to pair program on real world problems that I was likely to face on the job.\nIn one of my phone screenings I was told Twitter wanted to increase diversity in its teams. Not just gender diversity, but also diversity of experience and background. Six months later, with a bunch of new hires, team lead Tom Ashworth says TweetDeck has the most diverse team it\u2019s ever had. \u201cWe designed an interview process that gave us a way to simulate the actual job,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s not about testing whether you learnt an algorithm in school.\u201d\nIs this lowering the bar? No. The bar is whether a candidate has the ability to solve problems they are likely to face on the job. I recently spoke to a longstanding Atlassian engineer who said they hadn\u2019t seen an algorithm in their seven years at the company.\nThese days, only about 50 per cent of developers have computer science degrees. The majority of developers are self taught, learn on the job or via online courses. If you want to increase diversity in your engineering team, ensure your interview process isn\u2019t excluding these people.", "year": "2016", "author": "Amy Simmons", "author_slug": "amysimmons", "published": "2016-12-20T00:00:00+00:00", "url": "https://24ways.org/2016/my-first-18-months-as-a-dev/", "topic": "process"}