#230 – February 23, 2025
Capable vs capability
How to develop capability in your team
31 minutes by Rob Lambert
Rob dives deep into the important distinction between "capable" and "capability" (those who have the potential to become capable) in the context of team management. He emphasizes that effective management requires focusing on individuals rather than teams as a whole, and presents a structured approach to developing team members' abilities. This includes setting clear goals and standards, getting to know people individually, providing on-the-job training with capable mentors, and measuring progress through behavioral changes rather than just numerical metrics.
The 12-Line Pull Request That Took 5 Days: A Context Problem
sponsored by Unblocked
Most AI developer tools are solving the wrong problem. The biggest challenge in software development isn’t writing code. It’s having enough context to know what code to write.
All Projects Are Business Projects
12 minutes by Marc G Gauthier
In this post Marc challenges the common distinction between "technical" and "business" projects in software development, arguing that all projects ultimately serve business purposes. He emphasizes that technical tasks like refactoring, updating dependencies, and adding tests should be framed in terms of their business impact, such as reducing costs, improving delivery speed, or preventing security issues. The key message is that engineers should better communicate the business value of technical work and include necessary technical aspects as non-negotiable parts of feature development, rather than treating them as separate "technical stories" that can be deprioritized.
Breaking into Staff Engineering
13 minutes by Caleb Mellas, Thiago Ghisi
Caleb and Thiago provides a comprehensive guide on how to bridge the gap between the fuzzy expectations on the engineering ladder and the day-to-day actions top performers use to drive their careers forward. The guide includes a practical framework for identifying, planning, and executing such projects, emphasizing the importance of written documentation, stakeholder buy-in, and regular progress reviews.
Improving Team Morale is not an Objective
5 minutes by Marc G Gauthier
New managers often see making their team happy as their main objective. Here's the problem with this approach. Marc argues that team morale shouldn't be treated as a primary management objective because it's difficult to measure accurately and often outside a manager's control. While maintaining good morale is important as it indicates overall company health and facilitates better work environment, it should be viewed as a byproduct of effective management practices rather than a goal itself. Instead of quick fixes like pizza parties, managers should focus on addressing underlying issues such as broken processes, toxic workplace culture, or inefficient systems.
My Washing Machine Refreshed My Thinking on Software Effort Estimation
7 minutes by Chris Horsley
In this post Chris draws a parallel between installing a washing machine in a new house and software development estimation challenges. What seemed like a simple 10-minute installation turned into a 4-hour ordeal due to multiple unexpected obstacles, much like how software projects often exceed their estimated timelines. He encountered six major blockers during the installation, each requiring additional tools and hardware store visits, illustrating how "unknown unknowns" can drastically impact project timelines. This experience mirrors common software development scenarios where seemingly familiar projects can be derailed by unexpected technical challenges, outdated tools, or new requirements that weren't apparent during initial estimation.
Tests are dead. Meticulous AI is here.
sponsored by Meticulous
Meticulous automatically creates and maintains an exhaustive e2e UI test suite that covers every corner of your application – with no developer intervention required whatsoever. Dropbox, Lattice, Bilt Rewards and hundreds of organisations rely on Meticulous for their frontend testing. It is built from the Chromium level up with a deterministic scheduling engine – making it the only testing tool that eliminates flakes.
And a highlight from the last issue: