In 1968 a group of computer scientists gathered in Garmisch, Germany for what became known as the NATO Software Engineering Conference. The conference was themed around the apparent software crisis: the world is becoming more reliant on software, yet software systems are getting larger, miss deadlines, go over budget, and are brittle to change. The attendees gathered to discuss this, the factors that contribute to this reality, and propose ways to align the creation of software to the …

Delivery Lead Time (DLT) is a software delivery metric popularised in the book Accelerate (2018). It measures the time it takes to ship changes for a given code base. I work on an Engineering Insights system at a BigTech company. Delivery Lead Time is one of the metrics we measure and provide for teams to use and drive improvement. Through my experience in developing and operating the Engineering Insights system I’ve learned a lot about Delivery Lead Time. Here I share my observations, best …

Olive groves and vineyards as far as to the sea
Red fishing boats farther still to memory
Golden cricket husks of August in a midday sleep
With shells or seaweed. And that boat’s hull
Newly built, green, that in the water’s peaceful embrace still reads:
The Lord Will Provide

Like leaves like pebbles the years went by
I remember the young men, the sailors, leaving
And painting the sails in their hearts’ image
They sang of the four corners of the horizon
They wore the north winds …