Dan Lines

Very proud of the work by the data science team on this project - hopefully this will help guide other engineering teams.

Thank you! I'm hoping that as we iterate on the product it'll get better and better at solving the problem. This is a strating point - would love your feedback on the beta!

I'm hoping we can have the Slack integration done early 2022 - and I think there's other ways we can leverage the data we're getting from LinearB to help Devs. I'm pretty excited about it - I'd have for a tool like this back when I was coding regularly.

Thanks Connor, appreciate you reading!

Thanks Adam, really appreciate it!

Can't wait to speak at this!

Thanks Mark and Yes, I believe a shared source-of-truth is highly beneficial for all hands on contributors and stakeholders in software projects.

2) Most project management tools have a "plan-first mindset". They make sure the initial skeleton of epics, stories, task, bugs etc...are created, defined, estimated and slotted into a backlog or sprint really well. But, what happens is as soon as coding starts, they become less valuable to the technical members (devs, tech leaders) on the team. Knowing that a ticket is "in-progress" is not very useful when you need real-time info about code, branches, PRs, releases to make good decisions during the iteration.

Lots of great comments and insights here! I've seen two main problems that happens to dev teams when using project management tools:

1) Most project management tools are highly flexible because teams work in many different ways and there are many use cases that they are trying to solve (because they have both technical and non-technical users to please). This "flexibility" makes it really easy to get the config/workflow setup into a state that is not great for the technical members of the team.

Thanks Lova!

"Why do I need to know what other groups in my department are working on?". I've success with the following formula:

1) Explain with 1 item that helps developers immediately. "If you understand what other groups in your department are working on, it can allow you to:
- Make better technical development decisions as you have expanded system context
- Make better product decisions as you may understand the customer better
- Understand dependencies that may make you have to redo your work

2) Explain 1 item that helps developers with career growth opportunities:
- Developers that get promoted to technical managers often get selected because they have a solid understanding of the entire department. (for example)

Thanks for your thoughts Oliver! The failed attempts definitely require discipline and I think the key is that the discipline through-out the company has to be accompanied with an understand of "why". If everyone buys into why allowing developers extended focus time is important it will be easier to stay disciplined.

Thanks Bruno! Great point that the company style/culture/constraints will have a major effect on your experience.

Thanks Larry! Happy that you got value from the article. I think you're right about translating to other geographies. I've been meeting with teams across the globe and I think these points are applicable for most team leads I've met with

Glad you enjoyed it!

Thanks Praphull, happy this made your personal cheatsheet :)

Thanks Jawad! Happy to help our community.

I think when this happens it's an organizational issue - not a problem with individual Sales folks. Engineering is too disconnected from Sales.

Thanks for the thoughts Rodrigo. I love the "Mentor our executives" aspect of what you are saying. Regardless of it relates to forecasting, performance metrics, capacity planning etc...providing knowledge to facilitate the right discussion is the key!

Hey Russell - I have seen this perception in general with everything getting turned against us. I think that most of the time, it is not coming out of an evil intention. I believe it's mostly due to lack of knowledge and we on the engineering side can help fix that knowledge gap (although it takes effort).