Achieving Better Outcomes Through Structure: A Conversation with Elisabeth Hendrickson

The Idealcast with Gene Kim by IT Revolution

In Episode 3, Gene Kim is joined by Elisabeth Hendrickson, who inspired many ideas in The DevOps Handbook and, more recently, The Unicorn Project. She has shaped the way Gene sees the world of DevOps. From Developer to Tester ratios, to the importance of architecture, and the need for leaders to decompose systems well.
Together they explore her years as VP R&D for Pivotal Software, Inc., software development, and the link between organizations and architecture. In a wide-ranging discussion, they cover Elisabeth’s mental model of balance, structure, and flow, to her view of how organizations really work. Listen as Gene and Elisabeth explore her WordCount Simulation, to her personal experience with MIT’s Beer Game, and much more.

ABOUT THE GUESTS

Elisabeth Hendrickson is a leader in software engineering. She most recently served as VP R&D for Pivotal Software, Inc. A lifelong learner, she has spent time in every facet of software development, from project management to design for companies ranging from small start-ups to multinational software vendors. She has helped organizations build software in a more efficient way and pioneered a new way to think about achieving quality outcomes and how that hinges on fast and effective feedback loops. Her book, Explore It!: Reduce Risk and Increase Confidence with Exploratory Testing, was released in 2013 and is explores technical excellence and mastery, and creating effective feedback loops for everyone. She spoke at the DevOps Enterprise Summit in 2014, 2015, and 2018, and received the Gordon Pask Award from the Agile Alliance in 2010.

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YOU’LL LEARN ABOUT

• How to build software in a more efficient way
• Elisabeth’s mental model of balance, structure and flow
• How Conway’s law applies to Elisabeth’s model
• Elisabeth’s WordCount Simulation

Episode Timeline:

• [00:09] Intro
• [00:15] Meet Elisabeth Hendrickson
• [04:14] “Better Testing - Worst Quality?”
• [04:54] “Managing the Proportion of Testers to (Other) Developers”
• [08:25] How to get great testing behaviors
• [13:29] How structure enables developers to work on features
• [16:08] Applying principle to non-functional requirements
• [18:43] Conway’s law and Inverse Conway Maneuver
• [27:43] Elisabeth’s model on balance, structure and flow
• [31:01] MIT’s Beer Game
• [36:41] The WordCount Simulation
• [44:54] Becoming a good partner
• [50:03] Drawing lines as a leader
• [55:39] The Five Ideals
• [57:33] Stuck in a cost center
• [1:05:44] It’s all about feedback
• [1:10:50] The Phoenix Project’s Sarah’s background
• [1:19:09] Who is your first team?
• [1:28:07] Finding Elisabeth Hendrickson
• [1:28:29] Outro

RESOURCES

• Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity by Kim Scott
• The four quadrants of Radical Candor
  • Ruinous Empathy
  • Manipulative Insincerity
  • Obnoxious Aggression
  • Radical Candor
• Dangerous Company: The Consulting Powerhouses and the Businesses They Save and Ruin by James O’Shea
• Explore It!: Reduce Risk and Increase Confidence with Exploratory Testing by Elisabeth Hendrickson
• Better Testing, Worse Quality? by Elisabeth Hendrickson
• Managing Proportions of Testing to (Other) Developers by Dr. Cern Kaner, Elisabeth Hendrickson, and Jennifer Smith-Brok
• When NASA Lost a Spacecraft Due to a Metric Math Mistake by Ajay Harish
• Lockheed: New Carrier Hook for F-35 by Dave Majumdar
• Conway's law
• Decoding the DNA of the Toyota Production System by Steven Spear and H. Kent Bowen
• The WordCount Simulation by Elisabeth Hendrickson
• "The Beer Game" by Prof. John D. Sterman