Essential Links in March 2022

That was a beautiful month of March with lots of sunshine here in the Rheinland. On one of the sunny days we went to the Kaffeesaurus in Bonn. Bonn has a buzzling StartUp community and it was great to see people in the open again, drink some coffee, talk about projects and ideas. Although I enjoyed home office during the pandemic, I also missed meeting people in the last 2 years.

Well, it looks like - despite the still dreading numbers - that Germany is opening up in many ways. With that, more and more gatherings and community events are taken place. To mention one of the most inspiring one, make sure to visit the re-opened beyondtellerand in May in Düsseldorf, if you feel safe enough. I have rarely seen more inspirational speakers and talks and interesting people as at this conference - you should definitely consider giving it a go.

However, let's dig into the inspirational links of last month.

• Have you ever reflected on how you should write your git commit messages? Maybe in your team? Here is a good, detailed article on the hows and whys of Git Commit Messages.
• I love laptop lids and their sticker art. Here's Antonio's website dedicated to images of stickers on laptops.
• Here is a beautiful overview picture of what you should focus on in a code review.
• Ready to create your Wardley Maps online? Here is a website to do just that!
• There is a good and relatively neutral article on the opening of the Tesla plant in Grünheide in the Irish Times. And maybe it points out why we senior and experienced engineers are having a hard time keeping up.

Leadership

• Chris Cowan gives us an holacracy overview on prioritizations.
• We have read a lot on holacracy, self-containment and -leadership and about cross-functionality. But here is also a view on Why Bounderies are Needed Sometimes.
• Have you heard of The Cobra Effect? It's pretty near to what we know as Goodheart's Law: "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure". So Never Invent Rules From The Ivory Tower.
• How groups are making decisions can be troublesome. Here's Jason Yip with his take on consent and consensus.
• Here is a practice experience article based on the ideas in the book Team Topologies

Mind Garden / Digital Garden

I have read a lot on keeping track of the things you learn in a digital garden. However, there is more to it than just collecting notes. It's about letting everything you learn run through a process of refinement until you develop it into something more valuable and insightful than when you first got the information. Here are some collected articles on creating and cultivating mind gardens.

• The originating article: You and your mind garden by Anne-Laure Le Cunff
• My blog is a digital garden, not a blog
• Building a digital garden with Jekyll
• Example: Andy's working notes
• Example: experiments in hypertext thinking (I love that title)

And - not to forget - here's the digital garden blogchain.

New work & about work in general

• A study by Microsoft on hybrid work
• A talk on improving ebay's development velocity by Randy Shoup and Mark Weinberg (very recommended!)
• Jeff Gothelf and his learnings from working at home
• How are you able to transform processes? How do you make sure to make progress? Here is a good (German) article with a view on transforming processes from within systems engineering
• Why do some teams have more trouble going forward than others. Here is John Cutler's take on it: A Tale of Two Meetings.

Software

• Owning a Tesla? Here is a great overview on all software updates.
• I love Kirby. It is one of the most leightweight and configurable CMS out there. Here is the official YouTube channel that runs you through the potential adjustments, configurations and customizations.
• Are you on a DevOps run streak? Have you read Accelerate by Dr. Nicole Forsgren? Then DevOpsMetrics probably is the exact product for you.