terrybrown.me

Some pointers to some useful resources for those considering a pathway into staff engineering.

A look at the process I follow for blogging, and some tips to help those struggling to create content.

A suggested reading list to help engineers, and engineering leaders, understand, discuss, and measure those things that lead to effective software delivery.

A write up of my first in person conference since before the pandemic, for what was a superb conference.

How effective do you feel your career growth planning is? What techniques are you using? Here I'll distill some of the techniques and tools I've used and coached throughout my career when talking about career growth.

How a culture of gratitude and thanks can create the culture you aspire to.

Another way of looking at supporting people interested in management to grow.

A tool to support managers in reflection, conversation and measurement for ongoing growth.

A look at the impact managers can have in creating Psychologically Safe environments.

What do we think about when we think of 'humour' at work? Unprofessional? Inappropriate? Distracting?... or Essential? Some summarised thoughts from me on how I view humour in the workplace.

After being asked a career growth question and reflecting upon the past 20+ years of my own career, here are some thoughts that I would impart on my younger self in software engineering.

My blogging has taken a bit of a dip this year, but I thought it time to give some focus to my online presence.

🙌 Has Psychological Safety become weaponised in your workplace? An article on how this can happen, how we've seen it before in other spaces, and tanbigle steps to avoid it.

Today is #WorldSuicidePreventionDay and I would anticipate a number of posts being shared on linkedin today. Please scroll to the bottom for what I hope is useful, actionable guidance, but feel free to meander through the rest of this.

“You've read about Psychological Safety, you've looked at Project Aristotle, and you're starting to think 'What next?'. This post documents the journey we have been on at GSK”...

“Mum, Dad, there's something I need to tell you”. It’s a line that strikes fear and dread into any parent. Is my daughter in trouble at school? Is she having sex? Oh no, is she pregnant? Has she been expelled? Is she moving out – oh god, maybe she’s gay? “Mum, Dad, I think I’m a boy”...

I feel truly humbled to have spent a day in Stonewall ally training today and to have learned a phenomenal amount. I've tried to share as much of the content as I can to try to aid discussion.

Some answers to questions I received yesterday during my Psychological Safety talk. I hope these are useful to folks. I'm not an expert, it's just a subject I'm really interested in :)

My thoughts on pair (and mob) programming. Would love to hear yours!

I've found myself reflecting on what "being a manager" means to me. Here are my thoughts on the subject.

My thoughts on what makes effective 1:1 meetings. I share my approach, and some of the key questions I try to talk through with team members. How do you approach 1:1s? What do you do differently? What can I learn from you?

My thoughts on what makes effective 1:1 meetings. I share my approach, and some of the key questions I try to talk through with team members. How do you approach 1:1s? What do you do differently? What can I learn from you?

My thoughts on not releasing code to production on a Friday. It seems likely it'll spark controversy, though I hope it sparks discussion. For any of my network who are geographically close to me who'd like to debate this, the beers are on me ;) What position do you take on it?

My thoughts on estimation in software delivery. It'd be fascinating to hear from others on how they solve for this in their own orgs - what problems they've seen, and how you've risen above them.

Some thoughts on the growth of DevOps and the definitions therein. Would love to hear others' thoughts on it.

Apparently agile is dead. My thoughts after reading a great article dispelling the myths. Would love to hear views from my connections on what their views are around agile's death (or indeed, what post agile looks like). Do the views align with your own? What would you challenge? Always good to have a debate on these things :)

My thoughts on remote working. As a remote worker for 9 months now, leading a team of remote workers, in a global business, it's been an interesting journey. Would love to hear from others, especially in the North East tech community, on their thoughts on remote work.

What I think about when I think about technical recruiting. Would be interesting to hear thoughts from my peers - what do you look for when recruiting technical staff? Do you look for a strong technical fit? A strong 'culture fit'​? Something else?

I've added my own findings from this years State of DevOps report into an article. I'd encourage you to read the report, and discuss with your teams - there are some great models at the end of the report focussing on the key building blocks to high performance and it could easily provide a great launch pad towards the improvement discussions that teams would be able to have in this space.

My conference write up from one of the better conferences out there for technical leadership.

My insights from a great post from Amy Edmondson on Psychological Safety.

A quick write up of an incident that bit, caused two rollbacks, and that highlights a number of things around organisational culture.

My conference write up from one Re:Invent 2017, hosted in Las Vegas.

My conference write up from one DDDNorth 2017, hosted in Bradford.

My conference write up from one DDD Scotland 2016, hosted in Edinburgh.

My conference write up from one BuildStuff 2015, hosted in Lithuania.

My conference write up from one CraftConf 2015, hosted in Budapest.

My conference write up from one Velocity Conference 2013, hosted in London.

My farewell post to Ryan as he moved on from tombola.

A write up of what 'agile' looks like for us in 2013.

My conference write up from one DDD North 2012, hosted in Bradford.

My conference write up from one DDD 2011, hosted in Reading.

My conference write up from DDD Scotland 2010, hosted in Glasgow

My conference write up from one DevWeek 2010, hosted in London.