DDD South West 13

As is becoming customary each April, I did my annual trip to DDD South West last weekend. Another really good event.

Surviving Complexity Through Software Design

by Jacqui Read

Surviving Complexity Through Software Design by Jacqui Read

Modern Software Architecture Review Best Practices

by Steven Read

Modern Software Architecture Review Best Practices by Steven Read

Why Am I Being Such A Git About Best Practices?

by Joe Glombek

Why Am I Being Such A Git About Best Practices? by Joe Glombek

A Developers Guide To Getting The Most Out Of Containers

by John Kilmister

A Developers Guide To Getting The Most Out Of Containers by John Kilmister

Mutation Testing

by Stuart Lang

Mutation Testing by Stuart Lang

Let’s Ship This Thing!

by Gary Ewan Park

Let's Ship This Thing! by Gary Ewan Park


StaffPlus London 2024

After previously attending last year’s inaugural event, I recently went back to StaffPlus London. This year was compèred by Suhail Patel, one of the speakers from 2023.

Influencing Through Getting Your Carrots In A Row

by Joy Ebertz

Influencing Through Getting Your Carrots In A Row by Joy Ebertz

Architecting For Scale And Simplicity

by Segun Viktor Orekoya

Architecting For Scale And Simplicity by Segun Viktor Orekoya

Deming’s Wisdom For Staff+ Engineers: A Modern Take On Timeless Principles

by Annie Vella

Deming's Wisdom For Staff+ Engineers: A Modern Take On Timeless Principles by Annie Vella

Filling The Void: Operating As A Staff Engineer In A Leaderless Scope

by Sami Farhat and Guillaume Mazollier

Filling The Void: Operating As A Staff Engineer In A Leaderless Scope by Sami Farhat + Guillaume Mazollier

Doing “The Most Important Thing” Is A Trap

by James Ford

Doing "The Most Important Thing" Is A Trap by James Ford

Letting The Best Ideas Win

by Tristan Heal

Letting The Best Ideas Win by Tristan Heal

Sunsetting Legacy: Navigating The Shop Merchant Eligibilty Data Pipeline Migration

by Dianing Yudono

Sunsetting Legacy: Navigating The Shop Merchant Eligibilty Data Pipeline Migration by Dianing Yudono

by Mahmut Canga

Navigating Complex Projects: Finding The Right Mode Of Operation by Mahmut Canga

Understanding Complex Systems Without Simplifying Them

by Rita Sodt

Understanding Complex Systems Without Simplifying Them by Rita Sodt

Have AI Got News For You

by Katie Koschland

Have AI Got News For You by Katie Koschland

Is Staff Engineering Valuable At A Small Company?

by Glen Mailer

Is Staff Engineering Valuable At A Small Company? by Glen Mailer

Fitness Functions: Creating Consistency Across 100s Of Services

by Bijan Chokoufe Nejad

Fitness Functions: Creating Consistency Across 100s Of Services by Bijan Chokoufe Nejad


DDD South West 12

I attended the latest DDD South West last weekend. It’s become one of my favourite of the DDD events, partly because of the venue and the relaxed feeling of the conference, but also because of Bristol - one of my favourite cities in the UK.

#FAIL

by Kevlin Henney

#FAIL by Kevlin Henney

Confident Communication For Developers

by Aaron Green

Confident Communication For Developers by Aaron Green

An Above Average Tech Ecosystem

by Jennifer D Daniel

An Above Average Tech Ecosystem by Jennifer D Daniel

Celibrate You’re Misteaks

by Joe Glombek

Celibrate You're Misteaks by Joe Glombek

Debugging: More Than Breakpoints And Log Analysis

by Rachel Breeze

Debugging: More Than Breakpoints And Log Analysis by Rachel Breeze

Rest, gRPC, GraphQL Or Asynchronous Messaging

by Poornima Nayar

Rest, gRPC, GraphQL Or Asynchronous Messaging by Poornima Nayar


nor(DEV):con

I was at nor(DEV):con a few weeks ago. It’s the first time I’ve been to this event, event though it’s fairly local to me and has been running for many years.

The Heat Death Of Enterprise IT

by Garth Gilmour & Eamonn Boyle

The Heat Death Of Enterprise IT by Garth Gilmour & Eamonn Boyle

How To Protect Yourself From the Biggest Internet Threats

by Ignat Korchagin

How To Protect Yourself From the Biggest Internet Threats by Ignat Korchagin

Introduction To Property Based Testing In (Mostly) C#

by Steve Love

Introduction To Property Based Testing In (Mostly) C# by Steve Love

Predict The Future (With Old-School Maths)

by Dani Papamaximou

Predict The Future (With Old-School Maths by Dani Papamaximou

Authentic Storytelling

by Elle Overvoorde

Authentic Storytelling by Elle Overvoorde

Rethinking Content Modelling For Unfogettable User Experiences

by Esther Agbaje

Rethinking Content Modelling For Unfogettable User Experiences by Esther Agbaje

GenAI For Automating Business Processes

by Maryleen Amaizu

GenAI For Automating Business Processes by Maryleen Amaizu

The Erosion Of Consumer Ownership: From Posession To Subscriptions

by Alexio Rodrigues

The Erosion Of Consumer Ownership: From Posession To Subscriptions by Alexio Rodrigues

Cedar: Next Generation Authz For Your Apps

by Ricardo Sueiras

Cedar: Next Generation Authz For Your Apps by Ricardo Sueiras

Escaping The Hype Train

by Anna Aitchison

Escaping The Hype Train by Anna Aitchison


Agile Cambridge 2023

Last week, I spent a few days at Agile Cambridge. I’ve been to this conference once before back in 2014, where I gave a talk on whether agile can work for off-the-shelf software. I was also speaking this year, but about “Tracking the Unmeasurable with OKRs”. Overall, it was an enjoyable conference as it gave me time away from code, and enough headspace to think about the processes involved in writing software without the details of the tech used to do it.

Five reflections for modern leaders

by Marcin Floryan

Five reflections for modern leaders by Marcin Floryan

A culture of observing: how to get better understanding across the org through observability

by Apostolis Apostolidis

A culture of observing: how to get better understanding across the org through observability by Apostolis Apostolidis

Improving engineering performance, the DORA way

by Carlo Beschi

Improving engineering performance, the DORA way by Carlo Beschi

To mob, pair, or fly solo?

by Chris Oldwood

To mob, pair, or fly solo? by Chris Oldwood

A game of patterns

by Tiani Jones

A game of patterns by Tiani Jones

Empower your master builders with strategic context

by Cei Sanderson

Empower your master builders with strategic context by Cei Sanderson

How to deal with uncertainties & risk in complex environments

by Maik Wojcieszak

How to deal with uncertainties & risk in complex environments by Maik Wojcieszak

Agile song-writing workshop

by Farah Egby

Something about the title of this workshop drew my attention, and always willing to try something new and to step out of my comfort zone, I went along. In the 90 minute session, a group of about 12 wrote and performed an original song, inspired by our love/hate of agile. We did this by first decomposing the song into its constituent parts (a chorus and three verses). We collectively worked on the chorus, which would have an uplifting feel to highlight the positives of agile. We then split into three groups, where each group worked on a different verse. After several minutes, we rotated to iterate on the verse created by a different group. We did this again until each group had worked on all three verses.

It was now time to put the lyrics to a melody. Farah had come pre-prepared with a chord progression and some suggeted styles, so we didn’t have to start completely from scratch. After a few false starts, a melody started to emerge. It wasn’t long before we had our completed masterpiece.

Some of the group working out a melody

It was an interesting idea for a session, and one which I enjoyed taking part in. The following day, some of our group performed the song on stage in the welcome session at the start of the day - I chose to offer moral support from the audience.

The performance on stage the following morning

How to be agile with critical national priorities

by Anna Sherrington & Nick Smith

How to be agile with critical national priorities by Anna Sherrington & Nick Smith

Responsible research and innovation

by Cat Swetel

Responsible research and innovation by Cat Swetel

Fixing Feedback

by Ceri Newton-Sargunar

Fixing Feedback by Ceri Newton-Sargunar

Lean inceptions: how to set your teams up for success

by Marcel Britsch

Lean inceptions: how to set your teams up for success by Marcel Britsch

Unleashing the transformational power of play. With Lego. Seriously

by Robb Lockwood

For my last session of the conference I chose to attend Robb’s session. I mainly chose this because it involved Lego, something which I have had a strong interest in since I was a child. Robb showed how using a small set of just 50 Lego pieces, insights can be discovered to aid with the coaching process. It was also fun to build some simple models as the workshop progressed, including one challenge of “build a tower with you in it”. We also got to keep the Lego at the end of the session :)

A dog I built during the workshop