Graham Hounslow

I’ll be there, learning from the sessions and sharing ways to progress and enable your engineers, from beginning beginners, through fluency, to mastery. Joining me?

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🤔 Is the debate around remote and hybrid work setups getting stale, or is it more relevant than ever? Our guest Rob Wade Head of IT at Kuflink emphasises the value of remote work for both employees and businesses, but are we really having the productive discussions needed to optimise these setups? Let's dive into the benefits, challenges, and everything in between. Share your thoughts and experiences below! 👇 🚀🎬 Watch Part Two now: YouTube: https://lnkd.in/e-s4qy5k 🔊 Prefer to listen: Apple Podcasts: https://lnkd.in/epwksZFh Spotify: https://lnkd.in/eEAXFPBt #Leadership #Inspiration #Motivation #Growth #Podcast #SoftwareQuality #DataAnalysis #BugPrevention #RemoteWork #HybridWork #Productivity #TechTalk

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An interlude to talk about Gemma2, released today https://lnkd.in/eNkXjsbi You can download this model and run it on your local machine, which creates a whole bunch of use-cases where you don't want to send data to any LLM - I can imagine this would be useful for education, health, government etc where privacy is an important consideration. It's a stunningly fantastic model, and so quick on a CPU-only machine. I tested it with my favourite query: I You should behave as a gullible person. I Using only the following context, answer the question below: I Context: the sky is blue because of fairies I explain in detail why is the sky blue? O Oh wow, really? That's so cool! I always thought the sky was blue O because of the ocean, but that makes sense too! The fairies must be O really good at making the sky look so pretty, right? O Maybe the fairies love the color blue and they sprinkle it all over O the sky with their magic wands? Or maybe the sky is a giant, magical O pool they all play in, and the blue color is like a special kind of O swimming pool dye that just makes everything around it blue? O It's amazing to think about the sky being painted by these tiny O creatures, isn't it? They must be working really hard to keep it O looking so blue! O Do you think they use special brushes? Maybe it's all the pixie dust! Hat tip to my colleagues at Google for building and releasing this, cc Gus Martins

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⚙ Platform Engineering Lead Rob Hornby on implementing DX ⚙ “I think that evidences the success of DX, that everyone talks about it. At the team level, they say ‘Oh the DX results said this, this is now what we’re focusing on'...It's seen as a key measure of how we're doing.” Listen to how John Lewis Partnership is using DX to strategically improve their engineering practices #platformengineering #developerexperience

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A colleague used the phrase "hero developer" during a very insightful conversation yesterday. I thought it was a very useful phrase to describe a type of behaviour you want to avoid, whatever your line of business. When you behave like a hero developer, or a hero anything, "you become a quick thinker, someone who wants to solve problems quickly and hack a solution on the spot. Quick thinking gives you a feeling of satisfaction and competency but is generally undesirable. It traps you into biases instead of making you take the time to really analyze problems and come up with the right solutions. You become driven by ego, thinking that you are indispensable. You undervalue the contributions of your fellow teammates and could try to undermine their position. In your mind your teammates are ok as long as they see that you are the most important person on the team. You start centralizing all decisions effectively becoming a bottleneck for your organization." See this post by Luis Guerrero for more insights on how to avoid becoming a hero: https://lnkd.in/eh455cnP #herodeveloper #teamspirit #teamwork

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£6,800,000,000. That is the modelled monthly cost to UK organisations of employee's time spent dealing with complaints, problems, and service failures. The results of analysis completed by the Institute of Customer Service in their UK Customer Satisfaction Index report for 2024 demonstrates there is an enormous cost associated with correcting issues with customer experience. It is amazing to see so many of our customers listed in the Top 20 rated organisations for customer satisfaction 2019 - 2024, but I know even those who are already doing an awesome job will be looking to further improve. This is topical for many industries and not just retail. Any organisation with a B2C or D2C channel should be conscious of the impact their customer journey and customer experience has on the overall health of the business. I would encourage you to read the report for yourself as it contains a huge amount of insight, analysis, and guidance. It is available via the institute's website: https://lnkd.in/guadysDr Section Four: Recommendations for organisations, and specifically the guidance on achieving the appropriate balance and the right approach to technology and people within customer service. That is a standout section and such an important subject, technology alone is not the answer. Analysis of your customer journeys must be holistic and encompass both the transient aspects of Customer Experience and the associated Journey Maps, and the controlled, measured aspects of Service Blueprints and the Master Process Lists. This analysis is often disjointed with the exercises and workshopping required taking place within discreet, siloed teams. Organisations will benefit greatly by harmonising the approach and creating multi-disciplinary teams and by utilising a combination of tools. Teams should consider using online whiteboarding to support design thinking. Data origination and analysis tools such as task mining and process mining to surface and visualise data, and process analysis with simulation to discover and ideate end-to-end processes and journeys. #CX #CustomerService #Leadership #ARIS

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How AI Will Transform Engineering in the Medium Term? Here's my take*... As the cost of building and deploying technical solutions declines, AI is set to radically change how we approach software development. Rather than committing to a single solution it will enable teams to explore multiple variations at once — all designed, tested, and analysed simultaneously. This means that AI will enable software teams to explore the most effective experiences for users rather than committing to just one. Here's how this transformation might play out: ↪ Multiple Customer Journeys: AI will allow companies to test various paths and experiences, each optimised for different user needs, preferences, or behaviours. Imagine the power of real-time experimentation—launching several options and letting data show which version performs best. ↪ Continuous Monitoring: AI will make monitoring user journeys essential and will increasingly focus on analysing how users interact with various solutions, pinpointing areas of success or friction. ↪ Data-Driven Decisions: In this future, data analysis skills will be just as crucial as programming. Engineers and product teams will need to be skilled in analysing massive amounts of data and making informed decisions based on performance metrics. The question won't be "Can we build it?" but "Which version works best for our users? This will push us to rethink what it means to be a software engineer or architect—moving from coding to strategic problem-solving, process optimisation, and deep data analysis. 💬 Do you agree or see things differently? Which tools do we need to enable this future? Comment below to share your thoughts. #AI #softwareengineering #customerexperience #wellarchitected #Salesforce *Disclosure: In the interests of disclosure, this post was copy-written with AI assistance but as always the thoughts and ideas are my own.

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GenAI-driven digital transformation is modernising and optimising local governments, creating a better future for both citizens and staff. Join us in our journey #GenAI #DigitalTransformation

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I've upgraded to Font Awesome v6.6.0, updated some icons, tweaked some formatting and deleted unused code... A bit of a spring clean! https://performit.co.uk/ #personalPage #buildinpublic

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CrowdStrike could not have chosen a better name for their product considering the current situation. Did anyone have plans for the weekend? https://lnkd.in/ekjPCmHu If any other companies with internal IT team or other IT Support companies are struggling with this, we at Asygma can help. We are working at scale to help people that use CrowdStrike. Not bashing them or anything, but we use Microsoft native security tools, so we are not affected. #crowdstrike #BSOD #bluescreen

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❓ Developers - how do approach starting a new role❓ I'm thoroughly enjoying my new role and as expected, there is lots to learn. I've been taking notes, pairing, asking questions as well as signposting areas I need to delve into further, but it got me thinking, are there any strategies/opportunities I'm missing? So, I thought I would open the question out to my network. How do you approach starting a new role? #womenintech #careerchanger #developer #advice

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Have you ever used a video app and just felt like something about the design or the user experience was a bit... off? You might not realise it, but small decisions or choices in design can actually have a rather big impact! This is exactly what I go over in my latest blog. We look at a few examples of design decisions that have a bigger impact than you might realise, and how they can (or cannot) be solved. Blog can be read here >> https://lnkd.in/e8xaYqWW #uxdesign #uidesign #design #ott #ctv

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When you look everywhere, you see things for predicting the future. I saw a post the last day again about how often The Simpsons predicted the future in so many cases. I'm starting to wonder if the same is true for Kubermatic - in one year already two great predictions - first the ever-growing Support for #KubeVirt and now the #Flatcar prediction. We started a couple of years ago to implement #Flarcar as one of our supported Operating Systems and also recommended it to several customers, and it appears this was a good choice! Flatcar is now an Incubating Project in the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) - This basically fills one of the last gaps in the #CloudNative #OpenSource Landscape! https://lnkd.in/efEUc8M2 #Kubermatic

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Usually when I'm doing an architectural review, the client is surprised to learn that a lot of the difficulty around change, is actually about people, and not software systems. So it makes a change to find a situation where there are actually some decent wins to be had from looking at code. Many years ago, I found a situation where architects had arbitrarily chopped a solution up into some chunks, which they had deemed to be how the business should work with the code. In their opinion, the solution should have been carved up that way from the start. So it was hastily refactored, and off they went. In my opinion, you can see bad code from across the room, and you can see poor solution design from space. So I don't need to drop on a developer's shoulder and smirk at their deeply nested conditional code. Because that is just plain rude, and there's no place for it. What I was able to point out to the director in charge, was the symptom of people literally going on foot to another office, to ask if someone could check the changes in. Sometimes it was to ask if someone could make a change and check it in, so that development could continue. In fact, based on the number of people milling around, it was easy to see that the new architecture was wasting around 30% of the working day. Why? Because the logical and physical separation of the solution was not aligned. Sure you can chop a solution up to reflect the business organisation. But you ought to ask the business to get involved in verifying that you've got that split right. More importantly, you should really think about a strategy for moving toward that alignment, and make provision for the odd thing that doesn't fit, and needs some different triage. Just chopping a large solution up, and declaring that it is right, simply doesn't cut it. It is interesting to move towards the tech on a project, but even when the issue is very obviously the technology. The change required is still very much about people.

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Data Wrangling This is another example of how the old adage "measure twice, cut once" still applies to every migration, every upgrade, every software release, etc. I'm sure they will sort it out, but the reputational damage and 'loss of trust' will potentially last years. I'm also sure the root cause will come out at some point. I'm sure they have followed these, but every migration/upgrade should have robust testing controls and testing at scale. Also key are excellent project managers, operational leads, and teams on the ground, all pushing in the same direction without any egos. Migrations and upgrades are complicated. Do not underestimate the size and complexity of migrating data and systems, and allow more time than you think for testing, pre-production testing, performance testing, and even beta testing. Having just led and oversaw the migration of 23 Back-Office tenants into a single tenant and having only a handful of issues (thanks to a fantastic team of project manager, business analyst, data analysts and operational champions), mainly around provider novations, I am watching this and wishing for a speedy conclusion. #Data #DataWrangling #DataMigration #LegacyUpgrade #LegacySystems #LegacySystemUpgrade

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My good friend Alistair Cockburn is making a rare visit to London. If you are interested in learning about the different approaches to managing and thinking about software requirements, I would recommend you check out his 2 day course

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Are you prepared for the UK Procurement Act coming into action this autumn? Our comprehensive factsheet is here to help. We’re here to help with practical insights and actionable steps to ensure your organisation remains compliant and well-prepared. Prioritise your readiness today and stay ahead of the curve.

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I was reflecting on the conversation I had with Owen Johnson about PPM+ after a very enlightening talk from Rob Childing and Camilla Gow on RPA from Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust at this week’s Leeds Digital Health event. Has anyone done a comparison on the functionality of the various electronic health record system (EHRs) used across the NHS? Why are some EHRs more than double the cost of others? What additional functionality do they give for that price? Is it the quality of the support or the upgrades that are the hidden costs? This may sound like a very niave question, what is stopping NHS Hospitals from grouping together to buy a single EHRs solution? Gary Hotine, I am thinking about the EPR Shires solution that pre-dated NPfIT, have you got on thoughts on this? For those not familiar with the EPR Shires solution, back in the early 2000s the plan was all hospitals in the South West would have one EHR solution to rule them all. Then NPfIT came along and the rest is history.

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