Wednesday
Room 2
10:20 - 11:20
(UTC+01)
Talk (60 min)
Taming Pre-loved Systems and Teams
No software system is perfect. At least that keeps the work interesting and keeps us busy, but what do you do when your system is further away from perfection than you’re comfortable with?
It may be you are dealing with a legacy monolith, a system that has strange logic, no documentation and/or hardly any conventions you can recognise. Everything seems to be on fire and you need to stabilise the situation.
In this session I will talk about some of the techniques I've developed while working on systems that need a little love, with teams that feel disempowered. At a high-level, I will cover how to identify the work to stabilise these systems and how to demonstrate the value of that work. Also, how to tackle prioritisation when everything is urgent and the non-technical metrics that can help with buy-in for stabilising your system and team.
The aim of this session is for you to not only learn how to deal with these situations but want to tackle the challenges they present and be excited about the change you can lead.
Jessica Brentnall
Jessica is a Distinguished Architect and Head of Architecture at NewDay, a five times Microsoft MVP in Developer Technologies, an international speaker and a mentor.
Through her career Jessica has worked at a range of size and complexities of tech companies. A common theme is improving the maintainability and stability of systems; while also ensuring they are compliant and pass the various audits they are subject to. She is passionate about this not only being a technical and design challenge; but also a people and cultural one.
Outside of her day to day, Jessica is passionate about contributing to wider tech communities and outreach, She was an elected member of the .NET Foundations Board of Directors and Chair of the .NET Foundation Membership Committee (2022 - 2023), and still is an active member of the membership committee. She is also the co-organiser and co-founder of DDD East Midlands Conference, and manages the repositories for this event and a meetup.