non-technical
The Helpful Web - How AI will bring the next evolution of accessibility
Better buttons, cleaner HTML markup, stricter adherence to WCAG - we’ve been investing in digital accessibility for over twenty years, and that investment has opened doors for millions of people worldwide. We are nearing a plateau. I believe that the next order-of-magnitude gain in accessibility won’t come from ever-tighter contrast ratios or perfection in semantic HTML. We’ve reached the point of diminishing returns. We might build current best practice levels of accessibility faster and more effectively with better technology. Still, we are bound in our current approach to accessibility by the interfaces we ship. The next leap in accessibility cannot come from better execution of traditional interfaces; it can only come from changing the interface. Changing the interfaces means making them adaptive. Making them personal and responsive in ways that statically designed software can never achieve. ...
Architecture is gardening.
Large software projects are living things. They grow, adapt, and sometimes run wild. The way we design them - and the way we design the organisations that build them - determines whether they flourish or wither. Over the years, I’ve come to see architecture not as a static blueprint or a master plan, but as an act of cultivation. This article is the first in a series exploring my personal philosophy of architecture: how we can guide complex systems, human and technical, with the same care and intention as a gardener tending a landscape. ...
A framework for creating strategy
Recently, I wrote my very first technology strategy. Overall I’d say the process went pretty well. Of course writing the strategy is intimidating to begin with, but once I started I quickly realised that the much more intimidating thing is actually working to implement the strategy after it’s written. I felt and still at times feel like fleeing to the woods to live as a wolf as a result of this realisation but I’m pretty sure my life insurance has exclusions for fleeing to the woods in order to live as a wolf. It’s not the family oriented response you think it could be, despite wolves being good family members that live in packs. ...
The Role of a Software Developer
What if the role of the software developer is not actually about writing software? What if the most important thing I can do today isn’t to write a sweet recursive function that delights and confuses the next human that reads it in equal measure? As our industry has matured, the roles of technical staff in an organisation have changed. Increasingly, companies require that technical folk interact with customers. Some people like this. Some don’t. Let’s have a brief chat about the opportunities and costs of this happening and what that might mean for your progression through the industry and your life. ...
Trialling One Day Sprints
1-day sprints are a fantastic way of turning the traditional time pressures a team might face from negative to positive. They act as a time constraint on the team and force clarity, agility and feedback into your work system in far more significant amounts than you might already have. They can act as circuit breakers for teams struggling to meet sprint goals. They can create momentum in and outside of the team and encourage teams to focus on producing the smallest impact possible for your users. They carry risk, but some thoughtful conversations upfront can minimise any negative impact later on - and the rewards are well worth it. ...
Implementing a team topology
Any organisation that designs a system (defined broadly) will produce a design whose structure is a copy of the organisation’s communication structure. — Melvin E. Conway Introduction Team topologies are a concept created and popularised by Manuel Pais and Matthew Skelton. They describe a way of reforming your organisation shape in such a way that improves the architecture of your software while reducing cognitive load and directing more energy and focus towards the streams of value that flow through your organisation. ...
Remaining Effective in a Pressure Cooker
One thing the Army is good at is teaching you how to function under immense pressure, for extended periods. Speaking briefly about my credentials in this area, I’ve spent just under five years in the Army, nine months of which were in Afghanistan as part of a NATO mission with the New Zealand Defence Force. As with everything, there are folk out there with more experience than me, who have done it harder, for longer. I still feel it’s worth sharing this experience as perhaps the way I do that resonates with you, as the way others share their experience resonates with others. ...
When everything is digital, nothing is
Digital Transformation, Digital Experience, Digital Thought Leader, Digital Coffee Table, Digital DevOps Team, Digital Dystopia Some of these things are not like the others. Have you heard the phrase ‘digital’ so many times it loses all meaning? Try saying it a hundred times and see if the word still sticks in your brain. If you’re like me, it’ll slide right away like a fried egg off a bald head. Now imagine baldy over there is your company. It’s risky for a thing to be so pervasive that one cannot escape it, or mentions of it (or articles about it - no the irony is not lost). ...
Why digital transformations should be dead
Digital transformations don’t work. Everyone wants to talk about digital-led businesses. Every business is a software business, even when they aren’t, people will tell you. But the focus on big bang, project managed, change agent-driven initiatives tend to leave sour tastes in the mouths of long-standing staff. Naive technologists or agilists or product people for that matter exacerbate this when they perform the business strategy equivalent of the ‘seagull’. Discontent frequently morphs into outright opposition, and emotion becomes the dominant decision-making force rather than observation and planning. Eventually, what good will the agent(s) had is exhausted, and they leave the business. Sometimes voluntarily, sometimes less so. ...
Good Teams, Why Care?
I build teams. I build teams good. Good teams that do well, and they also do good. Technical teams mainly, but I’m branching out. It’s good. That’s all well and good, but what is the point? The point is that good teams are rare. That is to say, a team that you can leave alone, with the trust that they can self-regulate, self-correct and grow without you is very difficult to find, such that the effort to grow one (if you can) is a far simpler thing by comparison. ...