Category: Process

Categories
Agile Leadership Optimization Process

Filling Shoes of Scrum Master

Adopting Agile methodologies and nomencalture, our team chose to make sprint commitments in points (using Fibonacci numbers.)

Seeing an opportunity to use discipline towards making our performance go up-and-to-the-right, I began tracking some key metrics in a spreadsheet, some of which are displayed below

Figuring that the data would resonately at a gut level if visualized, I charted it as well

Results

  • Took on Scrum Master role (in addition to IC and Tech Lead responsibilities) and used a data-driven paradigm to achieve a 69% trailing-3-sprint-average improvement.
Categories
Architecture demand-side Distributed Teams eCommerce Frontend Full-Stack Management Process Prototyping supply-side

Styleguide

(CrowdFlower : 8/15-10/15)

In late August 2015, given previous successes in the year, I was tapped to lead the engineering team for delvering a visual identiy refresh (in conjunction with conference-ready AI deliverable) by early October.

Week 1

  • took Bootstrap 3/Flat UI/custom styling from Designer and created a static page as ‘gold standard’ for other engineers to reference
  • identified priority routes on which the new design would need to be rolled out
reference page

Week 2

  • created a new layout for and and began rolling out new design on the Rails app
  • drafted a plan for updating the Merb app seamlessly
  • began to onboard other engineers

Weeks 3-5

  • prototyped and tested the idea for asset precompiling in the Rails app and replacing the base assets of the Merb app
  • continued polishing
  • guided other engineers on implementation
  • continued polishing

Week 6

  • coordinated bug-free deploy in conjunction with Marketing (who was working for similarly refreshing the third-party-hosted home page)

Results

  • Organized work of four engineers (two local incl. CTO, two remote) as Tech Lead while planning (and tracking against) engineering sprints and deliverables over two months.
Categories
Architecture Collaboration demand-side Distributed Teams eCommerce Innovation Process SOA

Legacy App Port

(CrowdFlower : 4/15-8/15)

In the Spring of 2015, seven years after the company’s inception and three years after the intital movement towards an SOA paradigm and away from the monolith Merb app (essential to the company’s business,) the architectual shift was still not finished.

Towards further paying down the tech debt of needing to maintain that app, I lobbied for, organized, and oversaw the extraction of the final presentation layer components into a more modern, more maintainable Rails app.

While not quite the magnitude of the previous major refresh, I recognized it would still be a mammoth effort. In order to attack the port, I created a spreadsheet project plan, inventorying all platform routes torwards prioritizing for the eight most-important, portable, customer-facing routes.

Following is a before-and-after example of what was achieved across those eight routes over four months.

Results

  • Secured adoption by CTO, VP PROD, Lead Engineer, and VPE to port view layer from legacy Merb app to Rails app.
Categories
demand-side eCommerce Frontend Full-Stack Innovation Leadership Process supply-side

Key UX Upgrade

(CrowdFlower : 6/15-7/15)

After two years of usage, the company could tell that the paradigm previously introduced had led to improved Usability overall of the product but users were still confused about workflow.

After having tackled the welcome, we launched into rolling out a complete overhaul of the UX, moving from a left nav Master-Detail paradgigm to a top-nav Subway-Map approach.

The main challenge with rolling out a new UX was that it had to happen for both a Rails and a Merb application. Neither uses the same paradigm when it comes to layout so the approach had to be adapted to each and yet made general enough to not incur (even more than was already present) tech debt.

I served as Tech Lead and architected a solution, led other junior engineers in implementation, and managed interactions and expectation with Product and Design.

Following is a general impression of where we began and where we wound up

Results

  • Led engineering efforts around a complete UX overhaul of the company’s most important customer interaction.
Categories
demand-side Full-Stack Management Process supply-side

Groupware for Nuclear Resources

(IAEA : 8/06-9/06)

This web app – a customization of an Open Source .NET portal framework – accepts project requests from people around the world and handles the workflow.

Results

  • led award-winning dev team of 3 for custom, web-based Enterprise Project Management solution used by 3,500+ users; 2,600 unique visits per month
  • Reduced licensing costs through the use of the MVC-based, Open Source web content management system: DotNetNuke
  • Implemented standardized practices for software project documentation
  • Created integrated MS Office tools to halve the amount of data entry performed by support staff
  • Retooled the application to support Unicode (e.g. UTF-8)
  • Created a prototype (using SOAP web services) for Translation Management between line-of-business web applications
Categories
Analytics APIs Building buy-in Collaboration Full-Stack Process Prototyping supply-side

The Portal for Nuclear Information

(IAEA : 8/05-8/05)

At the end of 2004, the IAEA had well over 200 scientific and technical information resources (e.g. databases, websites, applications, etc.)

In order to reduce the effort to maintain these (saving time for graphic designers, software engineers, DBAs, and resource custodians alike,) a single portal was conceived and made a priority deliverable for the IT and MIS sections.

As the Lead Information Architect, I was responsible for gathering technical details about the resources, supporting the technical architect, and driving the design behind the user experience.

Results

  • led requirements gathering and implemented modular components for the authoritative web resource on scientific and technical nuclear information
  • Met with and built buy-in among information stakeholders
  • Abstracted the business processes of the organization to the 50,000 ft view
  • Utilized user-centered methods to inform the design of the portal
  • Implemented the beta version using OpenText, LiveLink, and Java APIs for each