Tech Done Right

Episode 62: Food and Design Thinking

May 22nd, 2019  |  37 mins 6 secs

communication, design, design sprint, food

In this episode, we have a slightly different topic for Tech Done Right - food. Table XI has been working to adapt our design sprint process out of the realm of custom software and into more general product design. In particular, we've worked with Tyson Foods Innovation Lab on a few different projects including the creation of their Yappah brand which is designed to prevent food waste. In this episode, you'll hear from Chemia Davis and Santi Proano from Tyson, Rex Chekal from Table XI and Jessie Shternshus from the Improv Effect and we'll show you how we adapted design thinking and Agile process from software to food products.

Episode 57: Unlearn with Barry O'Reilly

March 13th, 2019  |  39 mins 23 secs

career, communication, learning, management

Our guest today is Barry O’Reilly, author of the book “Unlearn: Let Go of Past Success to Achieve Extraordinary Results”. In it, he sets out a process for defining outcomes, identifying behaviors that might help or hinder reaching the outcomes, and then unlearning existing behaviors and relearning new ones. We talk about how that process works, how to use it yourself, how it might fail, and what Barry unlearned for himself in the process of writing the book. We’d like to hear from you. What’s something you’ve needed to unlearn to reach success? Let us know at techdoneright.io/57 or on Twitter at @tech_done_right

Episode 54: Code Style and Community with Sam Phippen and Justin Searls

January 30th, 2019  |  47 mins 16 secs

code, communication, developer

On this episode, we’ve got Sam Phippen and Justin Searls back for their third round on the show. Both of them have been working on new Ruby tools to better standardize your team’s style and code formatting. We talk about why they’ve decided these tools are important, what their philosophy of coding style is, how coding style relates to the Ruby community, and how they evaluate code when given a code sample to look at.

We’d like to hear from you. How does your team handle differences of opinion in code style? Let us know at techdoneright.io/54 or on Twitter at @tech_done_right

Episode 53: Tribal Knowledge and Onboarding with Annie Sexton

January 16th, 2019  |  36 mins 49 secs

career, communication, management

Developers and teams build up a lot of knowledge about their code and their process which never gets written down and which makes it harder together to get new team members up to speed. Our guest, Annie Sexton, is a support engineer for Heroku and has to deal with not only Heroku’s vast amount of knowledge, but also the unwritten information of many of her support customers. We’ll talk about the practical things Annie recommends to help make this knowledge explicit, and how your team can improve its group memory and team on-boarding. We’d also like to hear from you. Is there something your team has done to write down the things everybody knows? Let us know at http://techdoneright.io/53 or on Twitter at @tech_done_right.

Episode 47: Empowering Entry-Level Developers with Mercedes Bernard

October 10th, 2018  |  37 mins 58 secs

career, communication, developer, management

How can your company empower your entry-level developers to grow their skills and advance their careers? If you are an entry-level developer, what are skills that are important for growth? Mercedes Bernard, a Senior Software Engineer at DevMynd, joins Tech Done Right to talk about empowering entry-level developers. We talk about giving people scaffolding to support them in owning larger and larger parts of a software process, and how to align your entire company to support growth.

Episode 45: Failure Management and Response with Nickolas Means

September 5th, 2018  |  42 mins 44 secs

communication, management

How can you learn from an engineering team's failure? Can you take the examples of how others have dealt with engineering problems to improve your team's day-to-day operations. Our guest is Nickolas Means, a software manager at Muve Health, who is fascinated by engineering failures. We talk about what you can learn from studying disasters, how to create a company culture in calm times that will works smoothly in stressful times, and how a successful engineering team communicates using stories and how they handle mistakes. Along the way, we talk about the recent incident at the Seattle Airport, the CitiCorp building in Manhattan, Three Mile Island and other engineering and team missteps. We have, I hope, a successful show about failure.

Episode 42: Technical Speaking with Saron Yitbarek

July 25th, 2018  |  49 mins 3 secs

communication, speaking

Presenting a technical talk can be an important part of a developer's career.
In this episode, we're talking about how to perform a technical talk with Saron Yitbarek. Saron runs the CodeNewbie Podcast, and others, and organizes and coaches speakers for the Codeland Conference. Saron and I both have some thoughts and opinions about how to deliver a good technical talk. This episode has a lot of tips about how to prepare, what to do at the start of a talk, how to engage the audience, and why emoji are better for slides than videos? We'll give advice on how to give the talk that only you can give and how to get the best performance that you can.

Episode 40: Diversity and Inclusion at Small Companies with Meara Charnetzki, Michael Donnelly, and Elena Valentine

June 20th, 2018  |  38 mins 27 secs

communication, d_and_i

What can a small company do to improve its diversity and inclusion practices when your company just isn't changing personnel quickly enough to improve via hiring? Here to discuss this are Meara Charnetzki from Table XI, Michael Donnelly from the FWD Collective and Elena Valentine from Skill Scout. We'll talk all about company values, supporting a wider community, using internal feedback, and what to do to encourage improvement at your company.

Episode 38: Diverse Agile Teams with Marlena Compton, Betsy Haibel, and Jennifer Tu

May 23rd, 2018  |  47 mins 1 sec

agile, communication, d_and_i

How do common Agile practices like pair programming and retrospectives work when you have diverse teams? How can you make sure that underrepresented team members have their voices heard, and how does doing so improve the way that your team delivers software? Besty Haibel, Jennifer Tu, and Marlena Compton discuss ways in which Agile practices can better serve your team in the real world. For more discussion, be sure to check out PearConf.

Episode 37: Your First 100 Days Onboarding A New Employee With Shay Howe and John Gore

May 9th, 2018  |  43 mins 43 secs

communication, d_and_i, management

Tech Done Right is looking at onboarding from both sides. In this episode we talk with Shay Howe and John Gore about onboarding from the company side. We talk about what a new company can do to set a new employee up to be successful and how best to structure that support. How can you best give feedback? What are common onboarding mistakes?