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Text of the page (random words):
processes a living rhythm with formal points dev community skip to content navigation menu search powered by algolia search log in create account dev community close add reaction like unicorn exploding head raised hands fire jump to comments save boost pick as gem more copy link copy link copied to clipboard share to x share to linkedin share to facebook share to mastodon share post via report abuse mansur fattakhov posted on sep 14 originally published at mind mansur expert processes a living rhythm with formal points leadership management productivity devops bringing order to a project 7 part series 1 how to bring order to a project a track map 2 how developers can monitor production and why it matters 3 more parts 3 the state snapshot your first week on a new project 4 processes a living rhythm with formal points 5 infrastructure and deployment order by iteration 6 architecture write it down before rewriting 7 people bus factor expectations and day one the final track of the how to bring order to a project series processes it came last not because it matters least but because it leans on everything before it without observability status updates degrade into retelling feelings you can only say we re fine while looking at metrics without reliable deployment a regular release cadence simply won t happen every rollout stays manual work everyone wants to postpone and straight to the main prejudice process is not a boring faceless instrument of corporate management a living process changes it adapts to the team drops what s useless grows what s needed that s how it should be but for all its liveliness it defines formal points and artifacts the task is filed the decision is written down the status is spoken out loud these points pin the work down and keep it from getting lost yes in the moment it s faster to dm someone than to file a ticket but the dm is only faster today a month later that agreement exists nowhere not in the plan not in the history not in the other person s head a formal point feels like a detour but over the distance it shortens the path to a delivered result that s the whole bet a good process is not more paperwork it s fewer decisions on the fly and less lost work the task lifecycle one explicit path every task in a team should travel one route everyone knows ours looked like this discussion architecture discussion when the task calls for it decision on paper an rfc or adr decision review planning in the tracker development code merge request review deploy watching production documentation update enter fullscreen mode exit fullscreen mode looks like bureaucracy in reality for a small team most steps take minutes an architecture discussion is five minutes at a whiteboard a decision on paper is half a page and development is a single step even though it contains code mr review and deploy once the infrastructure track is done that s one well worn conveyor not four separate events the point of the ladder isn t meetings it s this no step gets skipped silently you may consciously decide no rfc needed here you may not fail to notice that a decision was never written down two rules from practice major architecture changes never skip the rfc step ever work is not done until the documentation is updated not i ll write it later not done planning sprints or kanban is the wrong question the right question is what s the nature of your work building a feature with a deadline you can plan out take sprints a fixed window a clear scope and at the end you can see whether you hit it handling a flow of tasks support testing bugfixes small improvements take kanban tasks stream through columns throughput matters not did we make it by friday both live peacefully in one team feature work in sprints the flow on a kanban board it s all individual the tool serves the work not the other way around only two things are universal a short cycle a week or two beyond that plans lie and a visible backlog anyone on the team can open it and see what s next status updates and dailies not optional the most underrated part of process and the one where i hold my firmest position status updates are mandatory always even if the team is two people even as plain text in chat always without regular sync the same thing happens every time i ve watched it more than once people don t know about each other s problems don t know whom to go to quietly stall for weeks and everything falls apart not because anyone works badly but because nobody sees the whole picture the working mechanics a status always short and regular what i did what s next what s blocking me for a two person team three lines of text are enough but every day the daily is for discussion not for reporting to the boss you hear about a neighbor s problem you say i ve had something similar come over problems get solved after in the right circle something half hour sized surfaces on the daily we don t solve it with everyone we note it and after the call exactly the two or three people who need it gather the daily stays short the problem gets a real deep dive it s the cheapest process of all ten minutes a day with the highest return it s the only one that keeps a finger on the pulse release cadence predictable and boring this section is suspiciously short because releases are a science of their own windows frequency staging rollbacks the fear of friday deploys it deserves and will get a separate article for this track one principle is enough a release should be boring a clear scheme mine candidate tag staging release tag production identical for every service with a notification in the channel if the team s pulse rises before a release that s not a cadence it s an arrhythmia and you fix it in the infrastructure track not with courage incidents blameless reviews when production goes down and it goes down for everyone process beats heroism the minimal skeleton pin the timeline when it started what coincided most often a deploy fix first analyze after not the other way around a review with no blame and one action item not we ll be more careful but a concrete change an alert a ci check a checklist line the postmortem goes into a registry before the next review first search the history for a similar case how to set this up in a small team with one or two people the minimal artifacts and where to grow from there will also become a separate article with a real incident walkthrough the meeting audit the final step of the track is the most enjoyable open the calendar and honestly answer for every recurring meeting what it produces the rule is simple a meeting either produces decisions or syncs people or dies it s historical is not a third option it s a diagnosis from the architecture track what survives the audit almost always the daily it syncs see above and incident reviews they produce decisions what dies first the weekly hour long all hands sync where everyone waits for their minute and stays silent for the other fifty nine the series is complete with this article the how to bring order to a project map is closed all six tracks now have their articles the state snapshot a week of fixing nothing observability turn on the lights infrastructure and deployment order by iteration architecture write it down first people bus factor and expectations processes you are here a reminder of what order has arrived feels like deploying is not scary a new person is useful in their first week an incident is a procedure rather than a panic and why is it like this here has a written answer you ll never reach perfection it s enough that every week feels a little calmer than the last the series is finished the topics aren t separate articles on release cadence small team incident handling and hiring are coming stay around originally published at mind mansur expert bringing order to a project 7 part series 1 how to bring order to a project a track map 2 how developers can monitor production and why it matters 3 more parts 3 the state snapshot your first week on a new project 4 processes a living rhythm with formal points 5 infrastructure and deployment order by iteration 6 architecture write it down before rewriting 7 people bus factor expectations and day one top comments 1 subscribe personal trusted user create template templates let you quickly answer faqs or store snippets for re use submit preview dismiss some comments may only be visible to logged in visitors sign in to view all comments code of conduct report abuse are you sure you want to hide this comment it will become hidden in your post but will still be visible via the comment s permalink hide child comments as well confirm for further actions you may consider blocking this person and or reporting abuse mansur fattakhov follow cto software architect 15 years in backend and infrastructure writing about bringing order to projects observability architecture teams processes blog mind mansur expert joined sep 13 2026 more from mansur fattakhov people bus factor expectations and day one leadership management teamwork career architecture write it down before rewriting architecture documentation backend devops infrastructure and deployment order by iteration devops infrastructure cicd docker dev community a space to discuss and keep up software development and manage your software career home dev challenges dev videos dev education tracks dev help advertise on dev organization accounts dev showcase about contact free postgres database dev shop mlh code of conduct privacy policy terms of use built on forem the open source software that powers dev and other inclusive communities made with love and ruby on rails dev community 2016 2026 we re a place where coders share stay up to date and grow their careers log in create account