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Hackernoon

165

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Startups, Do You Really Want to Pay The Microservices Tax?

The article discusses the impact of premature adoption of microservices on startup teams' productivity and provides insights on best practices to follow instead.
Introducing microservices early can lead to deployment complexity, fragile local development setups, duplicated CI/CD logic, cross-service coupling issues, and increased observability overhead.
The author emphasizes the benefits of starting with a monolithic architecture when building a startup, highlighting simplicity in deployment and the support from open-source communities.
Well-structured monoliths help maintain focus on delivering features and avoid unnecessary complexity, as demonstrated in a real-estate startup example.
Microservices are deemed more suitable for scaling bottlenecks, large teams, or independently evolving domains, rather than as a starting template for startups.
Common pitfalls of early microservices adoption include arbitrary service boundaries, repository sprawl, broken local development setups, technology mismatch, and hidden complexities in communication and monitoring.
Practical guidance for startups includes starting with a monolithic architecture, maintaining a single repo, ensuring a simple local setup, and only splitting services when necessary to address bottlenecks.
For microservice-based approaches, recommendations include evaluating technical stacks, focusing on communication protocols, ensuring stable testing setups, and investing in observability tools.
The key takeaway is to avoid premature microservices adoption, leverage simplicity to maintain productivity, and only introduce complexity when justified by specific bottlenecks.
Keeping developer velocity as a priority and understanding the potential trade-offs involved in microservices adoption are crucial for startup success in the realm of software architecture.

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Scrum

13h

173

Image Credit: Scrum

Agile Product Operating Model State of Play - Part 1 - Fundamentals

The Agile Product Operating Model (APOM) whitepaper was developed by collaborating with companies transitioning to a product approach and Professional Scrum Trainers (PSTs).
The whitepaper focuses on key characteristics of APOM, highlighting the uniqueness of each product's operating model, holistic nature affecting all parts, evidence-based decision-making, empowered teams, and empiricism.
APOM emphasizes the need for complete product groups inclusive of discovery, delivery, and operations, with change management integrated to ensure value delivery and organizational alignment.
Each organization may require different approaches to implementing the APOM, necessitating a mindful and incremental change strategy.

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Scrum

17h

125

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Designing for What Your Strategy Demands

Agility should be applied differently based on the strategic demands of each business segment.
Different parts of a business require different types of adaptability based on their growth phase and strategic focus.
The Three-Horizon Model describes three stages - emerging business, rapidly growing business, and mature business - each needing a unique approach to adaptability and organizational design.
Design each part of the organization based on its strategic focus and product development phase to create an adaptive system that supports overall strategy.

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Medium

Still Want to Be a Better Product Manager? Here’s the Stuff They Don’t Put in the Job Description

The best product managers manage expectations and communicate effectively.
Learn to prioritize effectively and differentiate between true priorities and executive anxieties.
A roadmap should reflect the actual strategy, stay focused, and tied to goals.
Become influential by bringing smart people together, unblocking them, and defending your time wisely.

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Medium

11h

Image Credit: Medium

Rediscovering Creativity, One Brick at a Time

The author rediscovers his creativity by building a LEGO spaceship from his collection of pieces gathered over the years.
He describes his history with LEGO, starting from buying Star Wars spaceships to building his own designs.
Despite keeping a expensive Star Destroyer set intact, he eventually disassembles it to create new designs.
He reflects on the spaceships he built in the past and sees his evolution in design complexity and style.
Starting with a simple idea of wanting weird angles, the author lets his imagination flow while building the spaceship.
Although initially stressed, he finds his groove and lets his hands and memories guide the building process.
As he works on the structure, he faces challenges but finds inspiration in unexpected pieces to complete the design.
He devotes time to intricate decorative elements, unlike before, focusing on beauty rather than just function.
Building the spaceship without set rules or instructions helps him reconnect with his creativity and enjoy the process.
The experience teaches him about the importance of simplicity in complexity and the joy of creating for the sake of it.

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Scrum

13h

220

Image Credit: Scrum

Product Operating Model State of Play - Part 1 - Fundamentals

The Agile Product Operating Model (APOM) whitepaper was recently released after a year of development in collaboration with companies transitioning to a product approach and Professional Scrum Trainers (PSTs).
Key focuses include the unique characteristics, product definition, portfolio management, and organizing product groups.
APOM emphasizes uniqueness in operational models tailored to each product's specific needs, promoting autonomy and responsibility for value delivery within product teams.
A holistic view of the operating model is essential, as changes in one area can impact others, requiring alignment across all facets of product management.
Evidence-based decision-making, empowered teams, and empiricism are core principles driving effective product management under APOM.
Balancing autonomy with overall organizational optimization remains a challenge, requiring clear constraints and evidence-driven insights for effective decision-making.
A complete product model encompassing discovery, delivery, operations, and minimal dependencies on other products is crucial for adaptability and efficiency.
Incorporating change management as an ongoing process is vital for ensuring alignment with business goals and driving continual improvement in adopting the APOM.
Organizational leadership must navigate the challenges of implementing a holistic and complete product operating model while being mindful of incremental changes to achieve long-term objectives.
Adopting APOM requires a fundamental shift in organizational mindset and practices towards agility, emphasizing adaptability, and evidence-driven decision-making.
Progressive adoption and iterative adjustments are advised to align with the evolving needs of the organization while striving for a comprehensive and impactful transformation.

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Scrum

14h

277

Image Credit: Scrum

The 8-Hour Workday Myth: Why You’re Only Productive for 2.8 Hours

Research shows that employees are only productive for 2.8 hours in an 8-hour workday due to interruptions, meetings, digital distractions, and social media.
Deeper organizational issues like unclear priorities, poor leadership role modeling, counterproductive reward systems, ineffective communication, and unclear decision-making power contribute to lost productivity.
The consequences of this low productivity include higher error rates, decreased innovation, increased employee stress, and higher turnover among top performers.
The solution proposed is to establish structured Working Agreements at both individual and organizational levels to promote focused work, clear communication, decision-making processes, and priority alignment.

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Scrum

272

Image Credit: Scrum

Scrum Master Choices: Professionalising the ‘Mentor’ Stance (Scrum Master as a Mentor Blog Series #1)

Scrum.org's Scrum Master skill wheel includes 8 choices such as Teacher, Mentor, Coach, Facilitator, and more, which are crucial for success.
The role of a Scrum Master as a mentor is about creating conditions for others to succeed through clarity, ethics, and consistent presence.
Mentoring fosters long-term growth through trust, shared reflection, and voluntary guidance, different from coaching.
Professionalising the mentor stance involves intentional practice, precise language, and clear boundaries, moving it from an instinctual to a structured approach.
Five core principles of professional mentoring include Consent, Safety, Restraint, Relevance, and Integrity, focusing on mutual consent, psychological safety, intentional restraint, relevance, and integrity.
Consent in professional mentoring begins with mutual agreement, ensuring a strong foundation for the mentor-mentee relationship.
Safety is crucial in mentoring to create a conducive learning environment where individuals feel safe to express doubts and explore alternatives.
Restraint in the mentor stance emphasizes supporting and guiding rather than imposing solutions or corrections, promoting the autonomy of the mentee.
Relevance is essential in mentoring to provide impactful guidance that is connected to the current context and challenges faced by the mentee.
Integrity is a key aspect of mentoring, emphasizing confidentiality, consistency, and the purpose of supporting the growth of others ethically and authentically.

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Medium

282

Image Credit: Medium

The Two-Stroke Engine of Pragmatic Development: Sharpen Your Axe, Then Fire Tracer Bullets

Embrace the two timeless principles of sharpening your axe and firing tracer bullets to build smarter and conquer complexity in software development.
Sharpening the axe involves upfront investment in understanding, planning, and design before diving into coding, ensuring productive progress towards the right goal.
Firing tracer bullets means creating a lean, end-to-end slice of functionality early on to validate the aim and prevent wasted time on faulty assumptions, forming a feedback loop for efficient development.
By combining the approach of sharpening the axe for understanding and planning with firing tracer bullets for validation and efficiency, engineers can shift from reactive problem-solving to proactive risk management, ultimately building better software with foresight and precision.

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Scrum

Image Credit: Scrum

Upstream Kanban: 7 Essential Metrics for Product Backlog Management

Upstream Kanban is designed to uncover new knowledge and assess delivery options in a creative, collaborative, and unpredictable manner.
Specific metrics are essential for Upstream Kanban to guide agile decision-making, portfolio management, and product development.
This article outlines seven essential metrics for Upstream Kanban usage in different contexts.
Upstream Kanban is the research phase where ideas are brainstormed, evaluated, and prioritised before committing to them.
It helps in managing the flow of incoming requests, prioritising work effectively before execution.
Metrics in Upstream Kanban focus on maintaining a healthy variety and quality of options, preventing overburdening, and guiding investment between upstream and downstream work.
Tracking metrics over time in Upstream Kanban reveals trends, patterns, and helps in making evidence-based decisions for continuous improvement.
The choice and evaluation of metrics may vary across organizations, with room for enhancement and adoption.
Upstream Kanban emphasizes managing options to ensure the most valuable initiatives are focused on before committing to execution.
Metrics are crucial in guiding decision-making in Upstream Kanban, and a set of seven essential metrics is recommended for empirical decisions.

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4 Likes

Dev

165

Image Credit: Dev

Your Agile team might be losing productivity without you realizing it!

Context switching is a major problem affecting Agile team productivity.
Studies show that switching tasks can cost up to 40% of productive time.
It takes an average of 23 minutes and 15 seconds to refocus after an interruption.
Solutions to reduce context switching include setting up 'no interruption' time blocks, prioritizing tasks, using the Pomodoro Technique, and improving async communication.

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9 Likes

Scrum

193

Image Credit: Scrum

Strategic Portfolio Planning in UK Government

Portfolio planning in the UK Government faces challenges due to shifting political priorities, finite public resources, and complex delivery landscapes.
Agility is crucial in government portfolio planning to respond coherently and quickly to changes in political leadership and budget constraints.
Frequent ministerial changes and annual budget limitations hinder long-term planning and adaptive decision-making in government portfolios.
Agility allows for adjustments in direction while maintaining coherence and continuity in government portfolios.
Annual budget cycles in central government prioritize in-year spending over cross-year optimization, emphasizing hitting financial forecasts over delivering measurable outcomes.
Agile portfolio management focuses on incremental value delivery rather than annual milestones, de-risking spending decisions by showcasing early impact.
Hypothecated funding in government portfolios limits flexibility, hindering reallocation of funds to maximize public value across different programs.
Agile portfolio planning calls for more flexibility in financial architecture, with pre-approved reallocation mechanisms and broader delegation for responsible governance.
Embedding agile mindsets in government portfolio planning requires decision-makers to value iteration, responsiveness, and learning.
Strategic reviews, empowered portfolio boards, integrated portfolio offices, and value-led metrics support agility in government portfolios.

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Kanbanzone

202

Image Credit: Kanbanzone

Moving Mountains (Literally & Figuratively) with Kanban

The author shares their experience of using Kanban during a cross-continental move to Canada's Laurentian mountains.
Kanban helped organize tasks and provided a sense of progress, potential, and daily motivation.
The article emphasizes how each card on the Kanban board symbolizes a step in the transition process.
Sections on the board ranged from research and packing to language learning and community integration.
The author found comfort in seeing tasks shift to the 'Done' section, marking accomplishments in the move.
The Kanban board served not just for managing tasks but also for tracking courage and embracing change.
The author highlights the importance of progress over perfection in navigating new beginnings.
The article mentions a Personal Kanban class on Modus Institute for those interested in using Kanban effectively.
Kanban provided a tool for managing emotions, expectations, and excitement during the transition.
The journey showcased how Kanban aided in visualizing work, limiting WIP, and adapting to a fresh start.

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Scrum

173

Image Credit: Scrum

Why the Scrum Guide is Purposefully Incomplete, and why that’s a good thing!

The Scrum Guide is purposefully incomplete to allow for flexibility and adaptation to different contexts.
It defines only essential elements such as Scrum Theory, Values, Accountabilities, Events, and Artifacts, leaving the rest open to individual interpretation.
This approach supports empiricism and self-management, empowering teams to design their processes based on their specific needs.
Professional Scrum teams are encouraged to experiment, evolve, and customize their ways of working within the Scrum framework.

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Alvinashcraft

162

Dew Drop – May 8, 2025 (#4415)

Several articles related to .NET development, Azure, and AI are featured in the Dew Drop newsletter for May 8, 2025.
Topics covered include responsive dashboard application in Angular, Blazor AI chat application, WinUI, .NET MAUI, XAML popups, and chart selection guide in .NET MAUI.
There are articles on generating ZUGFeRD-compliant invoices in .NET, Service Pack releases in TX Text Control, and building a startup in C#.
AI-related articles discuss model distillation, Figma's AI update, Azure OpenAI models, chat completions in Azure Logic Apps, and AI risks.
Design and methodology topics cover legacy system modernization, productivity habits, and intelligibility measurement for content.
Mobile, IoT, and game development articles focus on Android camera experiences, Flutter app publishing, and Raspberry Pi OS.
Database-related topics include SQL Server temporal tables, database caching, Azure Cosmos DB updates, and Azure Storage usage.
SharePoint, M365, and MS Teams articles cover AI updates in SharePoint, OneDrive enhancements, Office Add-in accessibility, and OneNote improvements.
Miscellaneous articles touch on energy-saving programs, CDC committee shutdown, logging in Rust, Microsoft's environmental initiatives, and quantum technology leadership.
The newsletter also includes links to podcasts, screencasts, upcoming events, and more curated content for readers in the tech community.

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