218: Adopting a Quality Mindset in Your Engineering Team

Alignment through influence to improve quality as a Staff Engineer

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Off Topic: How to Agree on What Needs to Be Done

It is only workable for a leader to convince some team members. Yet, a strong leader can still influence a significant part of the group. The opinions of others can have a much impact on our own beliefs. Those who invest a lot of effort or endure pain to do something tend to value it more than those who achieve it. We take responsibility for our actions when we choose without external pressure.

If you're deliberate, you can influence your organization's leaders. Still, you'll only get that time if you learn to remain in tight alignment at each step. As a business, it's essential to understand that each customer has unique priorities. 

Product features describe a group of behaviors that the system supports. Thus impact describes the outcome of a solution. The steps between are called deliverables. Impacts are not product features. How you agree with the client about what must be done and, more, what needs to be done, has an enormous impact on the success of your development. 

Current Work: Adopting a Quality Mindset in Your Engineering Team

Technical quality teams should communicate and provide concise documentation. They should identify and address potential problems and build relationships with other teams. Software metrics, quality gates, CI/CD, and user feedback can be used to assess and improve technical quality. Balancing technical and business needs is key.

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