Episode 53: Tribal Knowledge and Onboarding with Annie Sexton

Tribal Knowledge and On-boarding with Annie Sexton
TableXI offers training for developers and product teams! For more info, email [email protected].
Guest
Annie Sexton (https://twitter.com/anniethesexton): Core Support Engineer at Heroku (https://www.heroku.com/). Traveler. Amateur graphic novelist. More at momotarocomic.com/ (http://momotarocomic.com/).
Summary
Developers and teams build up a lot of knowledge about their code and their process which never gets written down and which makes it harder together to get new team members up to speed. Our guest, Annie Sexton, is a support engineer for Heroku and has to deal with not only Heroku’s vast amount of knowledge, but also the unwritten information of many of her support customers. We’ll talk about the practical things Annie recommends to help make this knowledge explicit, and how your team can improve its group memory and team on-boarding. We’d also like to hear from you. Is there something your team has done to write down the things everybody knows? Let us know at http://techdoneright.io/53 (http://techdoneright.io/53) or on Twitter at @techdoneright (http://twitter.com/tech_done_right).
Notes
01:51 - Why Tribal Knowledge is a Bad Thing
Annie’s RubyConf Talk: The Dangers of Tribal Knowledge (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-JL-so5Gm8)
04:50 - Legacy Code
Noel Rappin: The Road To Legacy Is Paved With Good Intentions -- WindyCityRails, Sept 2017 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGIhW3nREac&list=PLP0HXAd1Anx3xVPvdnKXtlsqJhoZHBFF_&index=1)
06:38 - Capturing Tribal Knowledge
12:55 - Keeping Things Up-To-Date
15:57 - When the “Why” and the “Overview” Get Lost
17:49 - Becoming Immune to Complexity
20:39 - Tools for Documentation
28:50 - Convincing Others that Documentation is Important
33:31 - Planning for Succession
Related Episodes
Your First 100 Days Onboarding A New Employee With Shay Howe and John Gore (https://www.techdoneright.io/37)
Your First 100 Days at a New Company with Katie Gore and Elizabeth Trepkowski Hodos (https://www.techdoneright.io/36)
Avoiding Legacy Code with Michael Feathers (https://www.techdoneright.io/11) Special Guest: Annie Sexton.

Tribal Knowledge and On-boarding with Annie Sexton

TableXI offers training for developers and product teams! For more info, email [email protected].

Guest

Annie Sexton: Core Support Engineer at Heroku. Traveler. Amateur graphic novelist. More at momotarocomic.com/.

Summary

Developers and teams build up a lot of knowledge about their code and their process which never gets written down and which makes it harder together to get new team members up to speed. Our guest, Annie Sexton, is a support engineer for Heroku and has to deal with not only Heroku’s vast amount of knowledge, but also the unwritten information of many of her support customers. We’ll talk about the practical things Annie recommends to help make this knowledge explicit, and how your team can improve its group memory and team on-boarding. We’d also like to hear from you. Is there something your team has done to write down the things everybody knows? Let us know at http://techdoneright.io/53 or on Twitter at @tech_done_right.

Notes

01:51 - Why Tribal Knowledge is a Bad Thing

Annie’s RubyConf Talk: The Dangers of Tribal Knowledge

04:50 - Legacy Code

Noel Rappin: The Road To Legacy Is Paved With Good Intentions -- WindyCityRails, Sept 2017

06:38 - Capturing Tribal Knowledge

12:55 - Keeping Things Up-To-Date

15:57 - When the “Why” and the “Overview” Get Lost

17:49 - Becoming Immune to Complexity

20:39 - Tools for Documentation

28:50 - Convincing Others that Documentation is Important

33:31 - Planning for Succession

Related Episodes

Your First 100 Days Onboarding A New Employee With Shay Howe and John Gore

Your First 100 Days at a New Company with Katie Gore and Elizabeth Trepkowski Hodos

Avoiding Legacy Code with Michael Feathers

Special Guest: Annie Sexton.