Effective Engineer Onboarding

Effective Engineer Onboarding: Removing Speed Bumps for a Growing Team

Jake Everhart Consulting, Soft Skills Leave a Comment

I imagine that most engineers have endured at least one painful onboarding experience. Every person I’ve asked has given me a unique example, from relying on piles of outdated notes to being stuck in some sort of task-less limbo and forgotten by the rest of the team. What should be your first impression of a new team can turn into a nightmare if that process isn’t handled properly.

In this post, I will describe some common themes from these bad experiences, as well as how a team can identify them proactively and work towards a better experience for their next new engineer.

Story Point

Story Point Estimation: Could Your Team Do Better?

Rusty Divine Agile, Tutorial Leave a Comment

It can be rough to ask your development team to estimate work based on abstract story point values, especially when they are new to it or to each other. I know this and have experienced this in full.

So in this blog, I am going to share an exercise with you that will give every member of your team the same frame of reference for estimating the size of their work. I call this exercise Story Point Benchmarking.