Monday Links: Daily Meetings, Estimates, and Challenges

14 Feb 2022 #mondaylinks

This Monday Links episode is about careers and developer life. Four reads. Let’s start with a rant on daily meetings. Enjoy!

Daily Standup Meetings are useless

I think I could have written this article myself. I’ve been in those daily meetings you want to finish as quickly as possible to get back to your life. -“I’m working on ABC, no blockers.” We need to stop doing daily meetings as a micromanaging strategy. Otherwise, let’s replace them with an email or a message in a group chat. That would be more productive for everyone. Read full article

Is tasking developers with creating detailed estimates a waste of company money?

I’ve worked in places where developers spend half a day estimating tasks and, they have to resend their estimates every time they change them. And, I’ve heard stories from past coworkers where they spend a whole day estimating tasks for the next 6-month period. This is a common thing and I don’t see an easy way out because “that’s how we have always done things here”.

Quoting the article about why project management techniques don’t work on software projects… “software development involves messy discovery of new tasks in the complex and abstract environment of code, which results in software development task durations being a ‘?’.” Read full article

5 Signs It’s Time to Quit Your Job

Are you planning to change jobs? This article can help you to decide. One common factor is learning. Ask yourself if you’re learning new skills and if your learning is still valuable in another company. Quoting the article “Sometimes five years of experience is just… the same year of experience, five times over.” Read full article

Bring your own code

Have you ever been in a hiring process where you are asked to work on a coding exercise without getting clear instructions? This article shows an alternative to coding exercises: bring an already-written piece of code. I like this idea. Also, it shows hiring managers what to look for. Hiring managers…“you need to be comfortable with the fact that you’ll lose some candidates who are unwilling to do your assignment but would take a different option.” Read full article

Voilà! Another Monday Links about career and workplaces. I don’t know if this topic will become a trend in future “Monday Links.” Stay tuned to find it out.

In the meantime, check my Unit Testing 101 series. Don’t miss the previous Monday Links on Better programming, flags, and C# and Workplaces, studying and communication.