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For every project, whether delivering a product feature or fulfilling a customer request, you want to reach your goal efficiently. But that’s not always simple – choosing the right method can become stressful. Whether you want to track the tasks through story points or hours, you should fully understand both of them well.
Therefore in this blog, story points vs. hours, we help you decide.
When it comes to Agile Software Development, accurately estimating the effort required for each task is crucial. To accomplish this, teams use Story Points, which are abstract units of measurement assigned to each project based on factors such as complexity, amount of work, risk, and uncertainty.
These points are represented by numerical values like 1, 2, 4, 8, and 16 or by terms like X-Small, Small, Medium, Large, and Extra-Large. They do not represent actual hours but rather serve as a way for Scrum teams to think abstractly and reduce the stress of estimation. By avoiding actual hour estimates, teams can focus on delivering customer value and adapting to changes that may occur during the project.
When estimating the progress of a project, it's crucial to focus on the relative complexity of the work involved rather than just time. Story points help with this shift in perspective, providing a more accurate measure of progress.
By using this approach, collaboration and shared understanding among team members can be promoted, which allows for effective communication during estimation. Additionally, story points allow for adjustments and adaptability when dealing with changing requirements or uncertainties. By measuring historical velocity, they enable accurate planning and forecasting, encouraging velocity-based planning.
Overall, story points emphasize the team's collective effort rather than individual performance, providing feedback for continuous improvement.
Project management can involve various methodologies and estimating work in terms of hours. While this method can be effective for plan-driven projects with inflexible deadlines, it may not be suitable for projects that require adaptability and flexibility. For product companies, holding a project accountable has essential.
Hours provide stakeholders with a clear understanding of the time required to complete a project and enable them to set realistic expectations for deadlines. This encourages effective planning and coordination of resources, allocation of workloads, and creation of project schedules and timelines to ensure everyone is on the same page.
One of the most significant advantages of using hours-based estimates is that they are easy to understand and track progress. It provides stakeholders with a clear understanding of how much work has been done and how much time remains. By multiplying the estimated hours by the hourly rate of resources involved, project costs can be estimated accurately. This simplifies billing procedures when charging clients or stakeholders based on the actual hours. It also facilitates the identification of discrepancies between the estimated and actual hours, enabling the project manager to adjust the resources' allocation accordingly.
Estimating the time and effort required for a project can be daunting. The subjectivity of story points can make it challenging to compare and standardize estimates, leading to misunderstandings and misaligned expectations if not communicated clearly.
Furthermore, teams new to story points may face a learning curve in understanding the scale and aligning their estimations. The lack of a universal standard for story points can create confusion when working across different teams or organizations.Additionally, story points may be more abstract and less intuitive for stakeholders, making it difficult for them to grasp progress or make financial and timeline decisions based on points. It's important to ensure that all stakeholders understand the meaning and purpose of story points to ensure everything is understood.
Relying solely on hours may only sometimes be accurate, especially for complex or uncertain tasks where it's hard to predict the exact amount of time needed. This approach can also create a mindset of rushing through tasks, which can negatively affect quality and creativity.
Instead, promoting a collaborative team approach and avoiding emphasizing individual productivity can help teams excel better.
Additionally, hourly estimates may not account for uncertainties or changes in project scope, which can create challenges in managing unexpected events.
Lastly, sticking strictly to hours can limit flexibility and prevent the exploration of more efficient or innovative approaches, making it difficult to justify deviating from estimated hours.
It can be daunting to decide what works best for your team, and you don’t solely have to rely on one solution most of the time - use a hybrid approach instead.
When trying to figure out what tasks to tackle first, using story points can be helpful. They give you a good idea of how complex a high-level user story or feature is, which can help your team decide how to allocate resources. They are great for getting a big-picture view of the project's scope.
However, using hours might be a better bet when you're working on more detailed tasks or tasks with specific time constraints. Estimating based on hours can give you a much more precise measure of how much effort something will take, which is important for creating detailed schedules and timelines. It can also help you figure out which tasks should come first and ensure you're meeting any deadlines that are outside your team's control. By using both methods as needed, you'll be able to plan and prioritize more effectively.
Speed is crucial in software development, but it’s not the only thing that counts. Without clear direction and purpose, your team may struggle to stay on track and deliver valuable results. This is where scrum velocity can help you.
So, let’s delve into the concept of Scrum velocity, how it’s calculated, and why it’s a game-changer for Agile teams.
Velocity is speed with direction, and development speed without direction is an utter waste of time. Therefore, team velocity in scrum development is the team’s capacity for producing useful, working software. Simply put, scrum velocity is one of the key agile metrics that represents the capacity of a development team to achieve a given purpose.
For example, if a team completes user stories with a total of 30 story points within a two-week sprint, their velocity for that sprint is 30.
To calculate velocity in Scrum, follow these key steps. First, determine the unit of measurement to track progress and select a time frame (iteration or sprint) for the calculation. Once these basics are in place, track completed story points.
Story points are used in Scrum to estimate the size or complexity of user stories or backlog items. Teams can compare and prioritize different pieces of work based on their difficulty level.
Track progress during the sprint by recording the total number of story points completed. This allows accurate calculation of velocity at the end of the sprint.
Velocity is measured per sprint and used for planning and productivity measurement. Tracking velocity, a fundamental Scrum metric, helps forecast how much work can be accomplished in future sprints and informs release and iteration planning. If there is a user story with 4 story points and another with 5 story points, then this sprint’s scrum velocity is 9 (4+5) by adding both story points.
Velocity tracking is one of the key agile metrics used in Scrum and other agile frameworks. Below are a few benefits of velocity tracking:
Monitoring velocity is essential for boosting team productivity and improving forecasting and planning. By tracking velocity across various sprints, the team can establish a standard and use it to estimate the amount of work they can handle in future sprints. This ensures that they can set practical goals and make informed commitments to stakeholders.
By using velocity tracking, the team can detect patterns and trends in their performance. They can also examine the factors that cause fluctuations in velocity, such as changes in team structure, task complexity, or external dependencies. Through iterative development, the team incorporates lessons learned from each sprint into the next, fostering a cycle of continuous improvement. By better understanding these factors, the team can refine and improve their procedures, resulting in more dependable and consistent delivery.
When teams can track their velocity and see improvements or consistency, it significantly impacts their motivation and overall satisfaction with their job. This can also foster a spirit of collaboration and transparency within the team as they work together to achieve their goals and continuously improve their velocity.
Monitoring velocity provides an exact measure for stakeholders and management to track team progress, capacity, and abilities. It encourages transparency and fosters trust between the team and stakeholders, leading to successful collaboration.
While velocity is a valuable metric for scrum teams, setting it as a target can create undue pressure and even lead to punishment for team members who fall short. A more compassionate approach focuses on tracking metrics and identifying any underlying causes of issues. This way, your team can improve their processes, eliminate bottlenecks, and incorporate new tools to enhance their skills over time.
It’s understandable that teams approach projects in their unique way, so it’s not always fair or practical to judge them solely based on their speed. A team’s velocity can be influenced by various factors, including the project’s complexity and the team members’ individual skill sets.When calculating scrum velocity, it’s important to remember that story point estimates can be subjective. Comparing teams solely based on velocity can lead to a negative work environment, internal conflicts, and low morale. It’s better to use this measure to navigate situations within a team rather than to compare teams against each other.
When you introduce the concept to the team, it’s understandable that every team needs time to work together effectively. Whether they’re a new or old scrum team, they would take time to understand new complexities and create action plans. It’s unrealistic to expect them to perform at maximum velocity right away, and it’s common for leaders to have unrealistic expectations based on an outsider’s perspective. Only the scrum teams and managers working on the project can accurately estimate true scrum velocity, as they’re facing internal roadblocks and several complexities.Therefore, providing them with space and time to work together effectively is crucial. Business leaders who fail to acknowledge this may unknowingly hinder their team’s progress and prevent them from moving in the right direction.
Scrum teams must allocate time for unforeseen activities, such as addressing technical debt and critical bugs reported by customers. But teams who only focus on scrum velocity need more investment in quality.
Neglecting these essential tasks can lead to a decrease in the quality of the final product and cause issues for future timelines. Short-term focus on velocity can hurt progress and ultimately harm business success. Therefore, it’s crucial to invest in the necessary resources for scrum teams to work effectively and prioritize quality over speed.
While some team leaders rely on scrum velocity for project completion estimates, this may not align with Agile principles. Factors such as changing requirements, short development sprints, and unpredictable variables affect velocity.
Therefore, depending solely on a static tool or metric for progress measurement may not be an efficient choice, especially if it only provides an estimation instead of a precise timeline. It’s important to remember that scrum velocity can only offer an approximate timeframe for project execution and should be treated as such.
Overemphasizing scrum velocity as a performance metric can lead to inaccurate predictions and frustration when tasks take longer than expected.
Moreover, assigning blame for incomplete stories can create negative feelings among team members. To avoid these issues, remember that velocity should only be used for prediction purposes and not for comparison or competition. Ultimately, the goal of development should be predictable progress rather than constantly increasing speed.
While velocity provides a general sense of how much work has been completed, it doesn’t give the full picture. You must account for factors like technical debt, bug fixes, and non-functional requirements to ensure you get all the important details that impact the overall value the team delivers. It’s essential to look beyond the surface level and consider the specifics of what was achieved and the quality of the work.
As part of sprint planning, the Scrum Master plays a crucial role in facilitating these retrospectives and ensuring that the team's feedback is incorporated into future sprints.
As an Agile team, it’s essential to recognize the significant role that velocity plays in your success. By understanding your team’s past velocity, you can better plan for future sprints and set realistic goals everyone can commit to within the Scrum framework. This helps keep everyone on the same page and provides a clear measure of your productivity and progress over time.
It also enables you to make data-driven decisions and aim for constant improvement. Ensure you look at scrum velocity objectively and not as a sole indicator of performance and productivity.
By following some simple tweaks to your process and journey with scrum velocity, you can achieve your goals efficiently.
Pull requests are made on Git to work with a team collaboratively. In most open source projects, the contributors request the review and acceptance of a branch, and then depending on the vitality of the code, it is either accepted into the code or not.
A pull request serves as a crucial mechanism for contributors who wish to offer code enhancements to a project. It is a process where the project's maintainer is asked to review and potentially merge the contributions into the mainline branch.
While pull requests are a staple of collaborative coding, it's important to note that they are not a native feature of Git itself. Instead, they are a key function provided by source code management (SCM) platforms. GitHub was instrumental in popularizing pull requests, and today, they are a common feature across platforms like GitLab, BitBucket, and Azure DevOps.
Quick note: Though Git does offer a command called request-pull, this predates hosting services such as GitHub. It generates a list of changes in the format of a patch file, which is then typically sent by email. This nod to Git's history highlights the evolution of collaborative coding practices.
However, what happens when it is not merged and needs to be reverted? This is why we’ll tell you how to revert a git pull request.
You want to avoid being in a position of reverting the pull request as often as possible, but sometimes, you just have to do it. And a lot of situations are beyond your control. So here are some of the reasons:
There are multiple ways you can revert a git pull request; some are safer than others. Here are some of the methods:
Reverting a pull request in GitHub is a straightforward process that allows you to undo changes from a previous merge. Whenever a revert is made, it creates one revert of the merge commit. If you have write permissions, go ahead with the following steps:
This thorough approach ensures that any unwanted changes from a previously merged pull request are efficiently reverted, maintaining the integrity of your project's codebase.
The Git revert command helps you create an inverse to the introduced changes and adds a new commit with these changes. This method is non-destructive, meaning it preserves the history of the repository while effectively negating the changes made by the pull request.
Here are the steps:
This step doesn’t remove the changes made but adds changes to negate the pull request. If the merge was done using methods like squash or merge commit, you can target the resulting merge commit directly. However, if rebase was used, you’ll need to reverse each individual commit.
The previous method altered the new reality caused by the merged unneeded pull request, but Git reset is like going back in time to change what was done.
While this might have unintended consequences, it might still be a route you can take if needed, and here is how you can do it.
It's crucial to understand the risks associated with this operation. Rewriting history, especially on the default branch, can lead to significant issues. You may disrupt the historical integrity of the codebase, making it difficult for anyone, including your coworkers, to trace how the code has evolved over time. This can impact collaboration negatively, as the shared understanding of the project's development might be lost.
Moreover, performing a hard reset can lead to the permanent loss of commits. This means you might lose valuable work and insights into the development process—something that cannot be undone. Be sure to thoroughly consider these potential consequences before proceeding, as the operation is not without its drawbacks.
Understanding how pull requests (PRs) operate on different source code management platforms—such as GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, and Azure DevOps—can significantly impact a team's workflow and efficiency. Each platform offers a unique experience when it comes to handling pull requests, though they all aim to facilitate collaborative coding.
Reverting a pull request in GitLab requires understanding the platform's nuances. Unlike GitHub, which allows you to easily revert any pull request regardless of how it was merged, GitLab has specific criteria. In GitLab, the Revert option is available primarily for projects using git merge to accept merge requests. This method results in a "merge commit," which GitLab can revert.
By following these steps, you can efficiently manage pull requests in GitLab while recognizing the limitations and capabilities specific to its platform.
The pull request (PR) process significantly influences the timeline of software development, often contributing to unexpected delays. One of the primary reasons for these delays is the idle time during code reviews. On average, code reviews can remain unaddressed for a substantial portion of the development cycle, which elongates the overall process.
This phase is commonly the most time-consuming aspect of development. Companies prioritize metrics like PR merge time because unresolved code reviews can lead to merging conflicts. When a PR is not reviewed promptly, it heightens the risk of conflicts that require additional time to resolve.
Improving the pull request pickup time can markedly enhance efficiency. Early attention to PRs reduces waiting periods, streamlining the process. Moreover, PR size plays a crucial role. Smaller PRs are typically easier and faster to review, which results in quicker merges and fewer issues.
In summary, by optimizing these PR-related metrics, teams can significantly reduce cycle times and improve overall productivity in software development.
While the core workflow of branching, making changes, and merging remains consistent, differences lie in integration capabilities, user interface, and review processes:
In conclusion, while the fundamental concept of pull requests remains consistent, the nuances across platforms can greatly affect how teams collaborate and manage code. Understanding these differences can help organizations choose the best tool for their development needs.
Pull requests are an integral part of working collaboratively, and merging them by mistake or without enough review can cause many issues to the codebase. Then reverting this process can have other consequences you want to avoid. Therefore, have an internal process to merge pull requests. Ensure everybody is on board with the code reviews needed for the process and a checklist to denote when a merge is acceptable.
To further avoid the need for reverting pull requests, consider implementing a more structured approach:
Reverting pull requests should be an exception, not the norm. If it becomes common, it may indicate deeper problems within the team. Addressing these core issues can lead to a more stable development cycle.
Improve your engineering metrics, such as the time it takes for a pull request to be picked up and reviewed. Long review times can lead to conflicts and delays, so work on reducing these durations.
By adopting these practices, you can significantly enhance your code review process and minimize the need to undo pull requests, fostering a more efficient and reliable workflow.
Counting lines of code can be used as one of the metrics to assess your developers' productivity and the efficiency of code bases. Therefore, in this blog, we dive into the different methods to count lines of code and what we think about this metric.Let’s dive in!
There are several ways to count LOC, some more efficient than others with different objectives. So we have a list for you to use the best method that suits your needs.
Counting lines of code manually involves going through each line of code and tallying the lines while excluding comments, blank spaces, and non-executable lines.To do this, open the source code file and count the lines with a paper or text editor. Go through it line by line and check for executable code.Once you are done, note the total count.However this method might sound simple, yet it is tedious and prone to errors. Automated tools are more accurate and efficient, and we will discuss them in the following methods.
The Count Lines of Code (CLOC) command is a tool that automates counting lines of code.Here's how to use the CLOC command:
Here is an example of the tool and its results.
The automated categorization of lines into different types and comprehensive statistics using CLOC makes it superior to manual counting. You can trust the reliability and efficiency of this tool to save you a lot of time and effort.
Here is an example of the tool and its results. CLOC offers outputs in various formats, ensuring you can extract data in nearly any text format you need. This flexibility makes it an excellent choice for teams needing detailed insights across diverse file types.
For those using integrated development environments, consider VS Code's extension that offers a user-friendly approach. The VS Code Counter extension can be installed directly into your IDE. It provides real-time tracking of lines of code in your current file and across entire workspaces. Moreover, it allows teams to customize how it interprets each tracked language using a file, without requiring complex terminal commands.
By leveraging these tools, teams can efficiently monitor their codebases, making these solutions invaluable for developers aiming to maintain clean and well-documented projects.
While the above methods show the lines of code, if your code increases in more blanks, comments, and statements, then the number gets inflated without any value added to the functionality.Therefore, statements count is much more helpful in understanding the executability and functional efficiency of the code.In languages like C, C++, C#, or Java, a statement ends with a semicolon (;). And in languages like basic and VB, several statements can be added with a colon (:). Thus, the way it is done differs, but the logic remains the same.The executability (XQT) is calculated by dividing the number of executable statements (STMTX) by all the statements (SMT).Here are some specifics of this method:
While this does provide code complexity information, it still needs to be a fool-proof method. Factors such as data dependency and error handling can hamper the executability of the code.
When measuring developer productivity, it's crucial to select the appropriate metrics. Simply counting lines of code may not be dependable. Instead, experts advise measuring the number of executable statements within the runtime environment, which is a more comprehensive and precise comprehension of progress.Here are the steps:
Following these simplified steps, you can easily count the lines of IL code in your program.
When evaluating your codebase, understanding the difference between various lines of code metrics is crucial. Let's explore the distinctions between raw lines of code, source lines of code (SLOC), and logical lines of code.
Raw lines of code are the simplest form of counting. This metric includes every single line in your code file—comments, empty lines, and all. While it may not offer the finest granularity, it serves as a quick snapshot showing the size or scale of a given code segment. For instance, if a branch in your repository suddenly swells to thousands of lines, it might be a signal to review and possibly refactor to maintain code quality.
Source lines of code take a more refined approach by filtering out non-essential lines such as comments and blank spaces. This metric aims to capture the "active" lines in a codebase—those that are truly part of the executable logic. SLOC counts only the lines that contribute directly to the functionality, offering insights into the real complexity of a project. For example, consider a loop in JavaScript:
for(let i=0; i<10; i++) {
console.log(i);
}
Here, the curly braces and other syntactic elements take up space but offer no added functionality, which SLOC doesn't account for, giving a clearer picture of functional length.
Logical lines of code delve even deeper by counting statements instead of relying on physical line breaks. This measure accounts for the number of logical endpoints in code, often identified by semicolons in languages like Java or C++. Logical lines adapt to languages that lack rigid syntax for line endings, like Python, where line breaks are not necessarily indicative of new logic. Thus, it's a more universal and accurate reflection of code complexity across different programming paradigms.
Each type of code line metric offers unique insights into a codebase's complexity and productivity. Depending on the programming languages in use and the team's goals, understanding and applying the right metric can improve code management and development efficiency.
In summary, knowing the distinctions between these metrics allows development teams to make informed decisions about code maintenance, refactoring, and optimizing code review processes.
Counting lines of code has been a long-time metric; however, every tool and method gives different answers.Using it as a tool for productivity can be problematic because it is not comparable or fair unless you compare the same team’s code within the same team for the same code, language, and style. Here are some more points for you to consider:
While it's tempting to use LOC as a straightforward measure of productivity, this approach is riddled with misconceptions:
In summary, while LOC can provide some insight into the coding process, it should not be the sole metric for evaluating developer performance. Emphasizing quality, collaboration, and the broader context of work is crucial to fostering a productive and positive development environment.
Relying solely on lines of code as a productivity metric can be misleading. While it may offer some insight into a software development process, it fails to capture the full picture of what your organization is achieving. Here’s how you can balance this metric with other key measures to get an accurate view of your team’s performance.
Counting lines of code offers a quantitative look at productivity, but it doesn't account for the quality of the output, problem-solving efficiency, or impact on the organization. Overemphasizing this metric could steer your focus away from meaningful achievements and place undue pressure on your team, possibly sinking the entire operation.
For a more thorough assessment, integrate lines of code with other engineering metrics. Consider incorporating:
By assembling data from various metrics, you can pinpoint areas that need improvement and develop actionable goals. This approach encourages the team to focus on enhancing both the speed and quality of their deliverables. Tools like Trello or Asana can aid in visualizing task progress and identifying obstacles.
Shift the focus from sheer volume to strategic impact. Metrics like user engagement and customer satisfaction levels can better reflect the success of your product, aligning technical achievements with business objectives.
In summary, while lines of code can be a useful starting point, it's critical to balance it with a range of other productivity and quality measures. Doing so ensures that your organization remains agile, efficient, and focused on its broader goals.
LOC can give you glimpses into code complexity, code length, and executability, but that’s where its importance should stop. Typo’s CEO and Founder, Kshitij Mohan, says, “Measuring developer productivity solely by lines of code is like assessing a painting by its brushstrokes. It focuses on solution complexity rather than the complexity of the problem at hand. And like most metrics, it means very little without context.” Therefore, we believe you can count the lines of code all you want, but don’t use it as a metric to determine which code is better or which developer is more productive. Use it as intended – as a metric to help you along the way.
Moving to a different role in your career is always exciting, but that doesn’t mean you can’t also have some self-doubt and anxiety. As a programmer, your responsibilities are more focused on your deliverables and some amount of collaboration with your team member. However, as a manager, your duties will look different.
Therefore, in this blog, we break down some tips to make the transition from a developer to a manager smooth for you.
Moving from being a programmer to a manager can seem daunting, but it's not necessarily a one-way street. With the right approach, you can transition safely using a trial period, and this allows you and your manager to assess if the new role suits you.
It's also beneficial to develop your soft skills during this time by mentoring a junior employee. This is an excellent opportunity to experience management and take responsibility for someone's career growth.
Working closely with your mentee enables you to evaluate your suitability for a management role without formal commitment. If your mentee responds positively to your mentorship style, it can be a strong sign that management is a good fit for you. Remember, this is a journey, and it's okay to take your time to determine if this is the right path for you.
As someone who understands the ins and outs of software development, you know that producing quality code and delivering outstanding products requires the collective efforts of your team.
As a manager, your role is pivotal in ensuring that your team has all the resources needed to succeed. While hands-on work may still be necessary, a significant part of your job involves managing people and projects. This could mean supporting team members who may be going through a tough time or encouraging someone contemplating leaving to stay.
It's a challenging experience that requires emotional investment, but it's crucial to remember that your efforts play a significant role in keeping your team happy and productive. Remember, as a manager, you're not just overseeing a team but also responsible for their well-being and success.
In today's hybrid or remote work environment, your communication skills are more essential than ever, especially when it comes to writing. As a manager, you spend a significant amount of time typing away on your keyboard, exchanging and managing information. To sharpen your communication skills, it's essential to set clear, measurable goals around how you respond to emails and messages.
As a new manager, you'll quickly learn that a timely response is often more valuable than a delayed one that's been meticulously crafted. Finding the right balance between timely and thoughtful communication is critical to effective management.
Additionally, as a manager, you must be more empathetic in your communication. This skill isn’t merely about language; it’s also about the tone you use and the words you choose while communicating. It will allow your team to be more transparent with you and aid in a more cooperative team spirit.
As a manager, it can be a real challenge to balance your time between overseeing your team's work and getting your hands dirty with coding. While you have a range of important tasks to manage, such as setting project goals and managing resources, these duties can often limit the time you have available for coding, which can be frustrating.
In addition to these managerial tasks, you may also find yourself supporting and mentoring your team members, engaging in strategic planning activities, communicating and collaborating with stakeholders, and managing administrative tasks. All of these activities require your presence and engagement, which can further limit your time for coding.
It's important to remember that the amount of coding you do as a manager can vary depending on the size of your team, the nature of your projects, and the structure of your organization. In some cases, you may still have opportunities to contribute code on a limited basis, particularly in smaller teams or more hands-on managerial roles.
Even though you may code less as a manager, your technical expertise and understanding of the development process remain incredibly valuable in decision-making, architectural discussions, and providing technical guidance to your team. So, don't worry, you may not be coding as much as you used to, but your contributions are still significant and appreciated by your team.
Establishing trust within your team is crucial as a manager. It's essential to provide your team members with clear instructions and expectations while assigning tasks based on their skills and expertise.
Ensuring open communication is key, and creating a safe space where team members can speak freely without fear of judgment or backlash is essential. Because remember when you were a developer and maybe someone didn’t trust you enough or when you felt micromanaged? Yeah, you don’t want your team members to feel that way.
Giving them the freedom to make decisions and solve problems within their areas of responsibility is essential too. Also, don’t forget to celebrate their accomplishments, support professional development, and practice transparency are all vital components to building trust.
Remember that trust takes time to develop, so lead by example and show your team members that you trust their abilities and support their professional growth. With these efforts, you can create a positive and productive work environment for your team to thrive.
As a manager, managing your time effectively can be a challenging task. Unlike individual contributors, you may have limited time to focus on creative problem-solving. This means you must protect your team members' time by minimizing unnecessary meetings or interruptions. To ensure maximum productivity, many managers schedule all internal meetings on a specific day of the week. As a great manager, you can get into the "flow" state quickly. By working in shorter blocks of time, usually around 20 minutes, and focusing on one task at a time, you can achieve this. By switching between tasks without losing productivity, your team can benefit from a positive and productive work environment.
A new role can be daunting, but if that’s what you want, then it can also be an exhilarating experience. Remember always to keep learning and focus on your team; you will know how you are doing as a manager in how they collaborate with you and each other and how openly they communicate with you. It can be tricky initially, but by improving, you can surely be successful.
While thinking about how to be a better manager, you can also include tools that can help you and your team. A platform that allows engineering teams to maximize productivity and reduce stress will be a game changer for your new team. Typo can be your friend in this process; you can schedule a demo to learn how!
Working collaboratively on a project means multiple people have different ideas and opinions. While working on an open source code with multiple people, imagine what happens if everyone starts updating the code haphazardly whenever they want to; that would be chaotic for the result.
This is where pull requests can help your team.
A pull request, also called a merge request, is a fundamental feature in version control systems like Git that enables developers to suggest changes to a codebase, repository, or software development project. The pull request button serves as a distinct platform for discussing and reviewing code changes and discussing the new feature. It enables keeping updates separate from the main project, promoting internal collaboration and potentially external involvement, and streamlining the debugging process.
Establishing a mature pull request process is crucial for any development team, particularly when managing a large or remote workforce. It serves as a backbone for enhancing productivity and efficiency within the team. Let's explore how a structured pull request approach offers significant benefits:
A mature pull request process allows developers to suggest changes and share them with the rest of the team. It not only helps streamline the workflow but also fosters an environment of continuous learning through feedback and suggestions. This process ensures efficient code reviews and controlled integration of changes into the codebase, boosting overall productivity.
Pull requests encourage valuable communication and feedback between reviewers and contributors. Reviewers can leave comments directly on specific lines of code, addressing concerns, posing questions, and suggesting improvements. This collaborative approach fosters peer review, knowledge sharing, and a shared understanding among team members, leading to superior solutions and effective conflict resolution.
A robust pull request process is vital for the engineering manager to track the entire software build process. It acts as a central hub where developers propose changes, providing the manager with the ability to review, offer feedback, and monitor progress. This visibility into code modifications and team discussions enhances alignment with project objectives and quality control. Integration with project management and continuous integration systems offers a comprehensive view, ensuring streamlined coordination and oversight.
Acting as a gatekeeper, a mature pull request process ensures code quality through structured and collaborative code reviews, automated testing, and adherence to coding standards. This process guarantees that proposed changes meet project standards, maintain code quality, and comply with best practices.
Draft pull requests allow for incremental development, enabling developers to work on code changes before final integration into the main codebase. This mechanism encourages continuous feedback and peer reviews, ensuring that the software development process remains flexible and aligned with project goals and standards.
In conclusion, establishing a mature pull request process is indispensable for enhancing a development team's productivity and efficiency. It provides a solid framework for collaboration, quality assurance, and process tracking, ultimately leading to successful project outcomes.
Managing pull requests is one of the most challenging and time-consuming parts of the software development process. A few of them include:
In large-scale projects, even when the team can communicate face-to-face or via email, there are always risks of something going wrong. Human errors, such as forgetting crucial details, are inevitable. Moreover, email threads can become an intricate web that complicates following discussions, leading to misunderstandings and missed information.
Implementing robust project management tools can help track all communication and changes effectively. Ensuring regular team check-ins and establishing clear communication protocols can mitigate these risks.
Managing branching for each pull request may become complicated when larger projects with multiple features or bug fixes are developed concurrently. It may also happen that change in one branch leads to change in another. Therefore, the interdependency can lead to a complex branching structure.
The engineering team must ensure that the branches are properly named, isolated, and updated with the latest changes from the main codebase.
Managing a large number of pull requests is time-consuming. Especially, when the pull requests are many and very few developers to review them. This further increases the frequency of merges into the main branch which can disrupt the development workflow.
The engineering team must set a daily limit on how many PRs they can open in a day. Besides this, automated testing, continuous integration, and code formatting tools can also help streamline the process and make it easier for developers.
During peer review, merge conflicts are a common challenge among developers. It may happen that the two developers have made changes to the same line of code. This further results in conflict as the version controller isn't sure which one to keep and which one to discard.
One of the best ways to improve team communication and using project management tools to keep track of the changes. Define areas of the codebase clearly and assign code ownership to specific team members.
Conflicts also arise when multiple developers make changes to different portions of the codebase at the same time. This can lead to integration issues that disrupt the overall development workflow.
Establishing clear code ownership and utilizing version control systems efficiently ensures smoother integration. Regularly updating branches with the latest changes can prevent many of these conflicts.
By addressing these challenges with strategic solutions, teams can manage collaborative development projects more effectively, ensuring smoother workflows and successful project outcomes.
Setting and tracking improvement goals is essential for development teams striving to enhance productivity and efficiency. Here's a comprehensive guide on how teams can achieve this:
By following these steps, development teams can effectively set and track improvement goals, leading to more efficient operation and faster delivery of features.
When making a pull request, ensure you make it as easy as possible for the reviewer to approve or provide feedback. To do this well, here are the components of a good pull request:
Here are the steps to create a pull request:
Step 1: The developer creates a branch or a fork of the main project repository
Step 2: The developer then makes the changes to this cloned code to create new features or fix an issue or make a codebase more efficient
Step 3: This branch is pushed to the remote repository, and then a pull request is made
Step 4: The reviewer is notified of the new changes and then provides feedback or approves the change
Step 5: Once the change is approved, it is merged into the project repository
Once a pull request is made, fellow developers can review the alterations and offer their thoughts. Their feedback can be given through comments on the pull request, proposing modifications, or giving the green light to the changes as they are. The purpose of the review stage is to guarantee that the changes are of top-notch quality, adhere to the project's criteria, and align with the project's objectives.
If there are any changes required to be made, the developer is alerted for updating process. If not, a merging process takes place where the changes are added to the codebase.
Understanding the elements that prolong the cycle time during the code review stage is crucial for improving efficiency. Here are the primary factors:
Addressing these areas effectively can lead to faster and more efficient code review cycles, ultimately enhancing the overall development workflow.
Some best practices for using pull requests include:
The code review process significantly contributes to extended cycle times, particularly in terms of pull request pickup time, pull request review time, and pull request size. Understanding the importance of measurement for improvement, we have developed a platform that aggregates your issues, Git, and release data into one centralized location. However, we firmly believe that metrics alone are not sufficient for enhancing development teams.
While it is valuable to know your cycle time and break it down into coding time, PR pickup time, PR review time, and deploy time, it is equally important to assess whether your average times are considered favorable or unfavorable.
At Typo, we strive to provide not only the data and metrics but also the context and insights needed to gauge the effectiveness of your team’s performance. By combining quantitative metrics with qualitative analysis, our platform empowers you to make informed decisions and drive meaningful improvements in your development processes.
Understanding Context and Metrics
We believe that context is just as crucial as raw data. Knowing your cycle time is a start, but breaking it down further helps you pinpoint specific stages of your workflow that may need attention. For example, if your pull request review time is longer than industry benchmarks, it might be an area to investigate for potential bottlenecks.
Industry Benchmarks for Improvement
To truly enhance your code review process, it's beneficial to compare your metrics against industry standards. We've compiled data into engineering benchmarks, allowing you to see where you stand and identify which aspects of your process need more focus to help your team ship features faster.
Actionable Insights
By using these insights, you can prioritize improvements in your development processes, focusing on areas that need optimization. With a clear view of how you measure against industry standards, your team can set realistic goals and continually refine your approach to deliver on promises efficiently.
We understand that achieving optimal performance requires a holistic approach, and we are committed to supporting your team’s success.
48% of leaders believe their company has high-quality leadership. However, HRs in the company don’t feel the same way. Only 28% of them agree.
Technical leadership is a challenging role; getting it right is more complicated than it seems.
Take a look at this number; Georgy Todorov of Thirve My Way says as much as 79% of employees believe they could potentially quit a job due to a lack of appreciation from leaders,
All these numbers reiterate the importance of good leadership. Therefore, in this blog, we break down different facets of being a technical leader and tips to be better consistently.
Technical leadership, often represented by someone referred to as the tech lead, is the process of managing the technical professionals in a company. A successful technical leader guides the development team and helps build the products and provide the services of a company.
Good technical leadership is essential for a software company to thrive and have its software and engineering teams happy. The leadership and direction they provide directly reflect how well-organized and efficient the technical teams are.
However, being a tech leader isn’t an easy feat. Often, these are the two myths that affect technical leadership.
A good developer skilled in their craft is indispensable to the team. However, while they can be good leaders, this isn’t always true. Leadership positions combine management with technical knowledge, and often they get tired of the former part of the position.
Dreamers make the world reach greater heights. A technical leader needs to understand the ground reality and formulate practical solutions. Dreamers can often get caught up in technical fancies and innovations, which can damage productivity.
Technical leadership qualities take time to achieve. The person leading the technical experts of a company must be able to guide and manage them. Technical skills are developed in their professional career, and some managerial traits are part of their personality and habits. Here are some of the important skills they need to have:
Often in a company, many decisions related to the product, team, moving forward after a technical setback, conflicts, and a lot more come up. They have to be equipped to handle them well.
A tech leader doesn’t have to be involved in minuscule changes in the codebase. However, when needed, they have to be a part of code reviews.
They must be able to develop the strategy for the team’s work, overarching planning, and ensure execution. These are all critical parts of project management that technical leadership must undertake.
A technical leader should have effective people management skills to ensure teams and motivated. If any conflict arises, they must be able to address and resolve them swiftly.
Often the team will look at technical leadership for solutions. Therefore they need to remain calm under pressure, consider all the facts, and ensure problems are solved quickly yet efficiently.
They need to be able to look at data, analyze it, and come to reasonable decisions that could have short and long-term consequences for a team, product, and the company.
The technical lead is often the bridge between the technical teams and stakeholders; they are also the voice of reason and authority in a team. Hence effective communication is an important skill.
Any leadership or management position needs people to uphold empathy and understand others, which fosters better relationships and an understanding dynamic within teams.
The people in leadership positions have to deal with people across hierarchy levels. With good interpersonal skills, they can help the team when needed and maintain the tone and culture.
A tech leader is responsible for navigating the change effectively and fostering a culture that encourages and embraces innovation.
Often a team will prefer to work in a way incompatible with the tech lead. However, they have to change their technical leadership style and adapt to the needs of the team and company more than themselves.
Technical leadership role involves more than just being tech savvy. It includes a wide range of responsibilities. Here are some of them:
This is often a debated question, and here is what we think. Someone in the technical leadership position should be able to code. They don’t have to code regularly; however, they are responsible for:
Technical leaders shouldn’t be spending most of their day coding but helping the team make better decisions, provide architectural requirements, and ensure seamless technical processes.
Now that we discussed skills and responsibilities, here are some tips for technical leaders.
A good technical leader will always consider the team’s choices and understands different perspectives before making an important decision.
Certain rules cannot be flexible; this could be a standard coding language, how team members treat each other, and ensuring there are no prejudices or discrimination in the team. There has to be a zero-tolerance policy for specific behaviors that must be clear within the team.
Documentation encourages proof of work and accountability. It acts as a knowledge base, reiterates processes, and helps other non-technical teams better understand the team’s work.
While we addressed the positives, it is essential to understand what could lead to bad technical leadership and how to avoid it.
Technical leadership members are developers or technically skilled in one way or another. However, in this position, they will be taking a step back from core technical work, providing the team direction, and doing managerial work. This could lead to distress as some find it hard to adapt to this role and get competitive with the other developers in the team. Technical leads must understand that their position brings the team and products together; getting competitive will only be counterproductive.
In the age of digital transformation, upskilling is necessary for every role, and leadership roles aren’t an exception.
"In a working world where the speed and scale of innovation is faster than ever, one of the most important things a senior leader can do is to continually upskill," said Parvaneh Merat, Ciso’s VP of Training and Certifications
Here are some newsletters for engineering leaders that you can check out to help along the way.
A leadership position can often feel lonely and overburdened. They must make difficult decisions and consistently ensure the team is motivated and provides direction. This usually ends up with technical leaders taking on more work and trying to do a lot on their own, which could build resentment toward the team. This is among the biggest mistakes technical leadership people make.
Instead of working alone, they need to trust their team members, delegate tasks and involve the team in their tasks as much as possible.
In tandem with the point above, working in silos also leads them to make decisions alone. However, it is essential to understand the importance of client management and involve company management, business partners, and board members in more significant decisions. And include team members as well as they are also stakeholders too. This helps maintain relations and brings unique perspectives to make better-informed decisions.
Every employee in a company plays a role; however, leaders define direction. A technical leader formulates the direction of the company’s products and services and technical capabilities. These have ripple effects throughout the company. Marketing, sales, and every other department are built around this vision.
Therefore as technical leaders, they are the captain of the ship. They need to be up for the responsibility and understand their role in ensuring the ship is not only staying afloat but also steered in the right direction.
We at Typo understand this can also be challenging at the same time. We have built a product that will help you and your team work more efficiently, gain engineering insights, focus on team performance and wellbeing, and steer your engineering efforts to align with business goals.
Here’s a snippet of our product:
If you are looking for a leadership position, we hope you learned something today. Good luck!
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