The Kyle Rowland Podcast

Delivering at scale is a challenging problem. Kevin Fleming joins us to give us some tips and tricks that will make our software delivery safer and more reliable, today and as we scale into the future. Join us on the Kyle Rowland Podcast as we dig into this interesting and important topic. -- With over 25 years of experience in the industry, Kevin Fleming brings a deep knowledge on how to successf...

It emerges from a common set of conditions - and so in many ways it is an unsurprising thing to see in large enterprise. However, so-called "Enterprise Architecture", and really any software architecture that hardens into a role or department, is nothing but waste.  On this episode we discuss why that is, and what you can do about it. Like any other deep organizational wound - simply pulling the k...

Coaching is an indispensible part of the engineering leader's work. Knowing how to lift people with respect to both deep technical concerns and difficult people concerns can seem daunting. Though it really boils down to simply being interested in people - and in seeing them meet their potential.  Join us as we discuss this important topic with Danny Kirchmeier on this month's edition of The Kyle R...

Join in as we discuss with Molly Jaggers the implications we face as we adopt cutting edge AI technology. A key takeaway from this episode is what the adoption implies about the most constructive behavior for members of the workforce in these turbulent days. Ultimately, it's a time of great opportunity and hope - though as in any epoch - those that are lazy or slow to change will quickly be left b...

Here at The Kyle Rowland Podcast we like to focus on the "Plateau of Productivity" (see Gartner's Hype Cycle) - as such, we bring you our latest episode on actually useful, highly practical artificial intelligence.  If you've ever asked yourself the question - "On what and how might I actually use this AI tech in real life?" This is the episode for you.  We start with basic definitions and move on...

In the late 2000's the phrase "breaking down the monolith" was being uttered in every corner of the tech universe. The passion was connected to technical features like scalability and performance - even spawning a number of techniques and technologies for operating these isolated runtime components. The real win seemed to have been largely missed - the ability for teams to be separate and thus fas...

Our guest today is Sean Merron - a seasoned software engineering leader. Together we dig into some of the unique challenges involved in remote work - a capability that has developed rapidly over the last several years. Because the expansion has been so rapid, it's useful to ask questions about its efficacy as a method for delivering software. With the agile manifesto, the idea of the superiority o...

From change management to marketing and product management, our guest Egil Østhus and I hit on a wide array of topics in our quest to understand and illuminate the humble feature flag. The idea of the feature flag is an important one because it's one of the primary supports to *actual* continuous delivery - it enables engineering teams to deliver with minimal friction. This multiplies creativity (...

Taking the step from focusing on tactics to delivering a well-crafted, world-class engineering organization isn't as difficult as you might think. It's a lot like improving your health, though - easy to talk about but takes relentless discipline to do.  Listen this month for some clarity on this topic - as we explain the move from Executive Tactician to Executive Craftsman.

Join in as our guest, Molly Jaggers, and I dive into the details of an emerging best practice - structuring organizations around a holistic product-engineering approach. Disappearing are the days when engineers can crawl into their coding corners only to emerge days or weeks later with some new bit of functionality. Disappearing also are the days when a product management organization disappears o...

The role of engineering manager is often quite enigmatic.   It often finds itself in emergency mode - with little time to fix the broader structural issues that are hindering the team or teams being led.   Much more of this dilemma falls under the control of the engineering manager himself - much more than is immediately apparent.   Listen to this month's episode for a framework that will help to...

Looking into the future with our guest Erik Erichsen.  AI is already making a huge impact on our craft, changing the way we solve problems and even how we conceive them.  As Engineering Leaders it falls on us to prepare our people, and to keep our perspective broad enough so that the ongoing evolution of our industry is something that we can leverage and not something that crushes us. This means u...

Working up from first principles, it becomes clear that code reviews (as typically conceived) do far more damage than good.  If we want to move past this legacy approach into the faster, better, more valuable world of continuous delivery, we do need to really understand these baseline principles. This episode works through this - and will help you understand how you can apply these principles in y...

Join us as seasoned engineering leader Chuck Goss pops the hood on his eminently practical but quite refined engineering practice.  Currently leading the engineering organization at the innovative Kizen Technologies, Chuck will share some key tactical tools that he's used to create a powerful and productive engineering machine - even in a highly distributed context.

Dr. Kyle Smith joins us today on this extra special episode.  This neuro-ophthalmologist turned technology executive explains the lessons he learned as he made the transition from customer to creator!  I know you'll appreciate his perspective as much as I do - and that you'll take some great wisdom away from his unique perspective. So grab some coffee and settle in as we take in what Dr. Smith has...

2025 is all set to be an epic year.   As 2024 is coming to a close the question is - what can I be doing to make sure my organization and I are nice and early to the party.  How can we be setting ourselves up to maximize the impact and growth that will be coming to us from this bright future.  As John Maxwell says, everything rises and falls on leadership.  That's even more true in technology, whe...

There aren't a lot of metrics out there that actually work.  At least toward building up a great software engineering practice.  There is one that does carry a bit of signal with regard to health, and that's TBD.  Your maturity with TBD implies maturity with a number of the core practices involved in building software well.  Further, it implies that you are actually pretty good at those things (as...

Ask 5 people this question and you'll likely get 5 different definitions - "what is software architecture?"  It's a challenge because it originates from an very interesting metaphor; one that explains a lot, but that simultaneously opens a number of questions. In this episode with guest Erik Erichsen, we dive into what software architecture is, how it provides value for an organization, and some t...

Large swaths of our technology brethren have concerned themselves with "keeping the lights on".  That is, we want to apply technology, but only in proven, predictable ways that don't rock the boat.  Like the King's sycophantic advisor, we like our cushy life and we don't want to make waves.  Unforunately trying to ensure we safely and securely profit from our easy life is the best way to ensure we...

This month we dive into the tricky topic of dealing with jerks.  Eric Williamson teaches us some tricks for dealing with difficult people.   More importantly, of course, he sheds some light on how to not be difficult people ourselves. I hope you enjoy listening in on this conversation as much as Eric and I did having it. Just for some background, Eric is a professional development consultant, busi...

While you might have seen this month's topic - "Maximizing Innovation" - on corporate motivational posters, we assure you that we go deep in this month's podcast to uncover exactly how we can win in this arena.   The phrase we like, "Building more cool, useful stuff" maybe says it more aptly.   Whatever words you use though - a central part of software development is simply to figure out how we cr...

Improving in the art of software development can be intimidating.   With this month's episode we dive quickly into the basic algorithm that we've used repeatedly to realize powerful improvement on software teams!

Is this a feature? Or is it an implementation detail? It's easy to get the answer to this question wrong - and the wrong answer here can have profoundly negative consequences.   We'll look at three regularly mis-interpreted aspects of software development and talk about how to correctly think about them - ultimately, learning to leverage them better in order to enhance our ability to deliver softw...

Join us this month as we dive further into team make-up - asking the difficult question, what is a senior engineer?   And more practically - how do we create and/or discover them? We have Bob Provencher - CTO at PDHI - with us again to help tackle these tricky but tactically terrific questions.  Last month he coined and defined a great term   - SINO - senior in name only.   This month he will help...

How do we balance our engineering teams?   What are the challenges involved in getting that balance right? Join me as I dig into these questions with Bob Provencher - PDHI's Chief Technology Officer.   He offers   powerful insights mined from his many years of success in this arena. You will come away better-armed to optimally shape your teams and your organization!