Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash Many organizations with large or complex application portfolios struggle with prioritizing development on existing solutions. It seems difficult to justify effort and resources particularly if the system is actively serving its purpose. The expectation to keep these systems operational without a long-term plan becomes…

Photo by heylagostechie on Unsplash Let me start with this — I’m not a huge fan of code reviews as a tool to “check someone’s work”. It’s pretty condescending to walk in at the last minute to offer criticisms. If someone needs help working through a problem, then paired programming…

Photo by Christina @ Unsplash Congratulations, you have proven yourself capable and have been given the responsibility of providing technical oversight for a group of developers. So what do you need to do to make sure you fulfill expectations? To begin, “tech lead” can have different meanings depending on the…

We all do it. I’ve looked back at something that took me weeks to build and said to myself, “Wow that could have been far more simple.” I blame it on brain “modes”. When we put our brain into solutioning mode — we forget the problem and begin constructing a…

Any organization that has been around for some time has “that” codebase that no one wants to talk about. It was written in a rush, features have been layered over time, the technology is stale, and any time you touch it — pain. This can be an even larger issue…

So I am on a plane with my family heading home from a summer vacation trip. As I am helping my youngest son get situated, showing him how to select a personalized in-flight movie, my naturally retrospective mind thought back to the days of when you were lucky if the…