Getting to the Core

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During a recent 1-on-1, I was asked about how I developed my ability to summarize thoughts succinctly and how that person could develop that skill as well. The question candidly caught me a little off guard. The question came from a recent meeting where a partner had spent a solid 5-10 minutes outlining the challenges…

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A Snapshot of Software Developer Maturity and Non-coding Skills

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What skills and knowledge are developers lacking? How do developers view their current skill sets? How do we help developers add to their toolbox of skills? How can we promote better software engineering practices? At a time when qualified development talent is at a premium, any organization with a development team must be asking these…

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Visual Studio Live

Visual Studio Live – Orlando

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Some of our Don’t Panic Labs team attended Live 360 (which included Visual Studio Live) in Orlando last week. I’ve never had the opportunity to participate in a Visual Studio Live conference before, so I was pretty excited to check it out. While we were there to exhibit Tenzing, our new business alignment platform, I…

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Perfect is the Enemy of Good

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So you want everything to work out just right; get and keep everything in a perfect and clean state. I think many of us engineering types want everything neat and 100% predictable. I know I tend to be this way. But often, this tendency works against us. Pushing for perfect, or the complete handling of…

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Things You Will Probably Learn in the First Year of Being a Developer

Things You Will Probably Learn in the First Year of Being a Developer

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You will learn a lot during your first year as a software developer. But the biggest surprise may be how vital communication is to the success of software projects. Many of the things learned during the first year boil down to communication. Project management, task management, standups, iteration planning, and retros are all really about…

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FU IT

FU It

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The future isn’t certain, but my decisions today will impact tomorrow. We had agency in the past, we have agency in the present, and that agency will impact our future. Sometimes we joke that a particular problem is for “Future Us”. Sometimes we shorten it to “FU It”, Future Us it. This is a silly…

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Reconnecting at HDC 2021

Reconnecting at HDC 2021

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Last week was AIM’s Heartland Developers Conference (HDC) in Omaha. Spread out over three days, this annual event was held at the CHI Health Center arena (a change of scenery from the past several years). Each day was geared toward a different experience level: Novice, Pro, and Expert. This year’s event allowed me to do…

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Latest Updates from Nebraska Dev Lab

Latest Updates from Nebraska Dev Lab

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When we began thinking about what would become the Nebraska Dev Lab Pipeline Program, we had one goal: create more software developers in Nebraska. But as time went on and we took a hard look at the state of the industry, we realized that we could also make an impact by helping to create a…

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Our Big Employee Engagement Opportunity

Our Big Employee Engagement Opportunity

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The recent news cycle has been relentlessly documenting the effects of the pandemic on our workforce and attempting to predict where we all go from here. Almost every business leader I’ve spoken with recently has this as a concern. And it’s no wonder, given the sheer amount of change happening, the amount of uncertainty, and…

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Get to Know SWEBOK

Get to Know SWEBOK

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Note: This post was originally published on Doug’s website on July 20, 2021.   Last week, I had the privilege to give the opening keynote at the 2021 Nebraska.Code() conference. My topic was Musings on Developer Maturity and Growth where I laid out a model for creating developer maturity proto-personas using IEEE’s Guide to the…

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