Programming with Palermo

Programming with Palermo

You can find the code used in this video at  In this episode, Jeffrey shares how to lower developer onboarding costs Situation Custom software is inherently expensive but there are plenty of easy things that your team can do to reduce those costs. I'm going to talk about one of them that aids tremendously when it comes to adding or replacing a developer on your software team. That is the one click build. Mission Anyone overseeing a software team cares about quality, efficiency and productivity. These are important because they translate directly to labor costs. Software teams are already...

Programming with Palermo

In this episode, Jeffrey shares how to measure a software team. Situation  Many software team lead architects don't implement management practices that are standard in other parts of the business. Whether it be OKRs (Objective, Key Results), EOS, Scaling Up's Scoreboard, or Kaplan's Balanced Scorecard, business measurement has long been a staple of ensuring that a part of a business was functioning well. But executives overseeing software teams often don't have a tool for measuring the effectiveness of a team or an entire software department. Mission Anyone overseeing a software group of...

Programming with Palermo

In this episode, Jeffrey shared how an executive oversees a software team Situation Our industry struggles mightily with failed software projects. On average half of the projects still fail. Failure is defined as the executive who authorized the budget wishing he hadn't. The project is so over budget and so over schedule, that the company would be better off having never started it. Even in the middle of these projects, executives can feel powerless to abort it for fear of sunk costs. And without knowing the right questions to ask or the right reports to demand, the executive in charge doesn't...

Programming with Palermo

In this episode, Jeffrey discusses the architecture of GPT-3, the technology behind ChatGPT, and how you should think about this technology in 2023. Situation- ChatGPT is getting a lot of press because it's the first freely available implementation of GPT-3 that has captured the imagination of the masses. Many are pointing out the awesome and surprising capabilities it has while others are quick to point out when it provides answers that are flat-out wrong, backward, or immoral. Mission- Today I want to raise up the conversation a bit. I want to go beyond the chatbot that has received so...

Programming with Palermo

In this episode, Jeffrey discusses why so many teams are not happy with the pace of software delivery. Situation Most software teams we see are not moving at the pace their companies would like. One of the Clear Measure Way tools is a self-assessment. It's easy to find on the Clear Measure website. One of the subjective questions included is "are you happy with the pace of delivery of your software team?". Most respondents are not able to answer YES. We're going to talk about that. Mission- Many businesses have decided to have internal software development teams. Companies that are tech...

Programming with Palermo

In this episode, Jeffrey discusses how to align a software team for high performance. Recognizing that the team's architect is the leader and has a big job to do, a tool called the Team Alignment Template facilitates the documenting and teaching of the team's purpose, values, and other strategic decisions so that all engineers can work and pull in the same direction. Situation At the beginning of a project, when a new team is formed, or when the staffing of an existing software team changes, all team members need to align and get going in the same direction. Without intentionally achieving...

Programming with Palermo

In this episode, Jeffrey discusses how to design new applications for automated DevOps. Automating the DevOps process from Day 1 is part of the "Achieving Stability" pillar of the Clear Measure Way. Situation Once a software project or new application gets going, the focus tends to be on features. And once code is being written but not being deployed frequently, the team starts to slow down right from the get-go. It might be tempting to think that you don't need devops automation just yet. But choosing not to put in a particular process is implicitly deciding to put in a manual process. The...

Programming with Palermo

In this episode, Jeffrey discusses how to empower software teams using the Clear Measure Way. Context For engineering teams serious about delivering software Achieving rare success Resolve to be in the rare 17% of projects that succeed The team rises and falls on leadership Work for clear understanding & wisdom Measure actuals & progress Establish quality Prioritize quality over speed Prevent defects (escaped defects -> process failure) Always working (first do no harm) Achieve stability Minimize undeployed software Prevent production issues Correct production issues quickly ...

Programming with Palermo

In this episode, Jeffrey discusses the suggested engineering practices for achieving stability. After establishing quality, achieving stability is the next pillar in the Clear Measure Way along the path to increasing speed. Without stability, the software team will always be devoting some portion of its capacity to diagnosing and fixing stability issues with the software in production. Priorities Prevent production issues Correct production issues quickly Stability practices Automated deployments formal release candidates low-maintenance environments Runtime automated health checks...

Programming with Palermo

In this episode, Jeffrey discusses using design patterns to increase speed. Speed is a pillar of the Clear Measure Way, just like establishing quality and achieving stability. Elements of a design pattern Problem: a tension or issue in the software. Some trait or condition that is desired to be improved Solution: the way of organizing some code elements to resolve the Problem Benefit: the concrete advantage that code applying the pattern demonstrates Language: higher-level name for code that creates a higher-order concept A design pattern is an idea. Code implementing it is merely an...