Working in the open should be a default position in a team Twice a year I guide our MSc software engineering group project teams, who… Read More »Teach students to work in the open to improve collaboration
You grow when you teach others. You also grow when you ask for help when you’re stuck. We need to teach students to accept both… Read More »Teach student teams to be humble
Do what you teach and pause to reflect so that you can improve It’s time to walk the talk, and do as I tell others… Read More »Reflection on 2023
Shift left to learn more quickly about your work What follows is a story that repeats itself every academic year in our year-long software engineering… Read More »Teach student teams to shorten their feedback loops
Every student should be taught how to build a cake slice by slice When student teams, and hackathon teams get their hands on an idea… Read More »Teach Students to Build Slices of a Cake
My goal as educator since I started at the University of Aberdeen in 2001 is to prepare students for life after graduation. For me, that… Read More »Teach students trunk-based development instead of GitFlow
These are life skills they will use forever Student software teams have lots of challenges and they need to talk to each other in order… Read More »Guide students in handling crucial conversations
A team or project canvas can focus the effort of a student team Student teams seem to fall into a variety of categories when they… Read More »Team and Project Canvases Focus Student Collaboration
Teach students to use planning poker for discussion We all know estimates are guesswork. I often introduce this topic with a simple question: ‘how long… Read More »Take the Gambling out of Planning Poker
These collaboration rules will guide your student teams Students always ask me what to do next, or how they should approach a situation in their… Read More »10 Collaboration Rules for Your Software Engineering Student Teams