You’ll become successful through overcoming challenges and facing your obstacles.

… but that doesn’t mean it has to lack inspiration or fun.

Here’s a few links that you can skim in under 60 seconds.

I hope it will inspire you, and on occasion help you get unstuck.

1. Elite Performance Is Wasted on Feature Factories. Steven Fenton from the DORA Community Newsletter highlighted a key problem with the percentile stratification of the various DORA reports (including adjacent reports like McKinsey’s and LinearB): the performance is not comparable apples-to-apples between organizations. Many orgs he highlights simply want the key KPIs met, without having a clear focus on organizational learning and true CI/CD.

2. Refactoring: Constructor <-> Builder. Kent Beck is a chameleon. I love the way he pivoted his writing towards bite-sized lessons to augment his book-writing. It’s a treat for the audience providing concise insights and complements to websites like refactoring.guru and minimumcd.org.

3. Simplicity & Complexity: The Beauty & the Beast? • Sander Hoogendoorn & Kevlin Henney • GOTO 2022. A wonderful conversation about pragmatic organizational development and software development processes by two of my idols.

4. Working Software Is Not The Primary Measure of Progress. Christopher Okhravi has been on fire lately on YouTube. I tip my hat to you, sir! This is a great example of oft-repeated mistakes by CTOs and product leaders stuck on a treadmill of “delivering working software” with no end in sight.

5. Quick Takes. Just say no to DIY. Allen Holub launched his substack presence this week. It grew to a generous hub of conversation about neo-agile practices and pragmatism in engineering cultures.

6. Business Flow: Watch the Baton, Not the Runner. Olympic season is a great time to remind ourselves of the unintuitive math and benefits of pair programming.

7. Pair Programming w/ Tim Ottinger—Google DORA Group Discussions. I attended this one live. It was a great live presentation. Tim has extraordinary connections with the research and practicalities of organizations practising (or experimenting with) Pair Programming and Ensembling.