blog on jelrikvh

code reviews are bad

Mon, 11 Jan 2021 16:32:13 +0200

Deliver better software, faster.

Yes. This is a clickbait-y title. Let me expand on it a little bit: how most development teams I know do code reviews is detrimental to delivering quality software.

A lot of questions need answering here. What’s a code review? What is quality in software? What’s “delivering”? And if code reviews are so bad, should there be an alternative? If so, what is it? Let’s explore.

liberating what?

Wed, 06 Mar 2019 16:32:13 +0200

Untangling our broken ways of working with Liberating Structures

When we’re solving problems, we work together. We have meetings, we create planning documents and distribute them, we move post-it notes from one side of a wall to another, we talk during our breaks or at the coffee machine.

What if I told you that the way we work together is fundamentally broken?

Have you ever walked into a workgroup meeting and felt the energy draining from your body the very instant you entered the room? Did you ever experience a strategic presentation in which almost every attendant was busy on their phones? Is their laptop the most important thing people seem to bring to a conversation? Have you ever wondered why some people just never seem to speak up? Or why it’s always the same people that do all the talking?

liberating structures in practice: the ux fishbowl

Wed, 06 Mar 2019 12:12:33 +0200

Shift your perspective and see an experience through someone else’s eyes.

The setting

A few months back, Max Brouwer and I hosted a workshop for the management team of Wonderkind. The product team of Wonderkind, including the CTO, Head of Development, and Product Owner recognised that the team needed to make tough priority choices. We facilitated the conversations that needed to happen and helped them create a first version of their roadmap. The whole day had been a string of liberating structures, like Impromptu Networking, Appreciative Interviews, and Purpose-To-Practice.