Jira API: Knowing if an issue is visible on the board

When we see an item aging unnecessarily in the data, one of the first questions I ask is “is the issue even visible on the board?” If it isn’t then I think we immediately understand why we’re ignoring it. “Out of sight, out of mind” is a very real thing.

Deliberate practice

I frequently give the advice to developers that we should always be leaving the code cleaner than when we arrived. That we should be refactoring aggressively to ensure the the code is in good shape. This usually brings people out who violently disagree with this and argue that we should never refactor without permission or that we should only touch the smallest amount of code to satisfy the new feature, no matter how ugly the system is.

Cumulative flow diagrams (CFD)

For years, I’ve been watching teams show off cumulative flow diagrams as an indication of their progress. Everyone nods their heads and pretends that they understand what they’re looking at, thinking that it must be obvious to everyone else. Except it isn’t.

Debunking Monte Carlo myths

This started as a question on reddit about “if you don’t use Monte Carlo for forecasting, why don’t you”, and it uncovered all kinds of incorrect assumptions about what it is and why you’d use it. We unpack some of these here.

Quick tips for demos

I’ve seen a lot of bad team demos over the years. Here are two fast tips to improve those.

Imprints in the ground

After a forest fire has passed, some trees will be left standing but scorched from the fire. Others, however, will have disappeared entirely. Sometimes the trunk and then the roots will continue to smolder until there is nothing left but ash, and then with some rain, even the ash will disappear.

When “make it visible” is the wrong approach

My general approach to fixing almost any organizational problem starts with “make it visible”. Make the problem visible enough and sometimes other people will step in and fix it without any effort on my part.

Delivery pressure

I once engaged with a team that had just finished the development of a new service and were blocked, waiting for legal approval, before they could turn it on. They effectively had nothing to do and so management thought this was a good time to bring some coaches in.