November 14, 2021 teams

The Individual Contributor (IC) term is often used to distinguish team members who has no mangerial set of responsibilities from those who has. The problem with it is that it can drive a culture of scoping, measuring and rewarding work per individuals rather than teams.

November 14, 2021 teams

The matter of fact is that once you have more than one person working towards a shared goal, putting together their compatible interests and their complementary skillsets and knowledge, their success in reaching that goal will depend largely on how quickly they become and how effectively they behave like a team.

November 13, 2021

You are the product as a user of all free services on the internet, solely by providing data to these providers (willingly or not) that they then sell to advertisers. That’s their business model, and you are the commodity in it.

March 19, 2020 product developers

The web and the powerful and affordable computers and hand-held devices have upgraded our lifestyle and markets; the digital product sector was born.

February 05, 2020

In 2019, having been hired by Wikimedia Deutschland, I got to take part as a co-supervisor in what turned out to be a beautiful game called Q-Wiki, backed by Wikidata.

February 04, 2020 experiments

Beginning of last year, I started wondering whether my smart phone, with all its related effects (evident or not so yet) on my habits and intellect, have a net postitive or a net negative impact. So I started to test removing my smart phone from different settings, in phases.

February 04, 2020 cs

I went to Damascus University to study Information Systems and Software Engineering 2007. On my second year, I shifted my focus to the market and having “real” work in the field became my main priority. You should do that too!

December 24, 2019 product developers

A competent and valuable product engineer does not stop at the boundaries of engineering, and say “give me what I should build, and I will build it”. They engage actively in the process of figuring out what to build in the first place.

December 24, 2019 experiments

This experiment is a recurring event, with unspecified schedule, of drafting up as many posts as possible in under one hour.

December 24, 2019

We live in the age of Data. Content is created and shared in unprecetended volume by people, for people, across all domains of human affairs. Even politics has become in some part subject for social media influence.

April 28, 2019 product developers

From a software developer, to a full-stack developer, and now to a product developer, I changed my views on any professional roles I take and maintain at work. The last one, product developer, has no link because I don’t seem to find any definition that satisfies my understanding and vision for the concept.

April 07, 2019 experiments

Until late 2018, I’ve always been a very loyal consumer of Google products such as Translate, Gmail, Drive, Calendar, Keep, Hangouts, Google+ and Android under the belief that it is a fair exchange of privacy for convenience. Or is it?

March 09, 2019 meta-agile

Problems with the development process can and will arise all the time. The team have the responsibility to identify and resolve those problems, and one way to do that is through reflection.

March 08, 2019 meta-agile

Agile has significantly improved our feedback loops with only two small changes to their length and openness.

Like software, agile in essence is subtly different from the typical waterfall mindset of development. However, that subtle difference have big impact on the development process and requires a bigger change in the team’s mindset.

September 15, 2018

When you review your own code, you are in a different state of mind compared to when you read the comments from other reviewers. In that state of mind, you will take (your own) criticism more easily and immediately switch to thinking of improvements.

July 22, 2018

You need to assess only two things to answer this questions. The tasks Size, and the level of Autonomy.

February 13, 2018

These are 5 alarming statements that I have repeatedly heard over the years, enough times to think that maybe many developers still do live them.

January 29, 2018 product developers

Product Developers understand the process of product development, and collectively have the skill-set required to develop the product in question.