Backlog Free Fridays @ carwow
Much like a car, our software (and the team that creates it) requires regular maintenance to keep it running smoothly (I’m not sure this is the best metaphor, but it seemed appropriate to the domain, so let’s go with it!)
Inspired by Google’s 20% time, the carwow engineering team have backlog free Fridays as part of our ongoing efforts to maintain and motivate our team.
Every Friday, the engineering team is given the freedom to take a break from the backlog and work on something of interest that contributes to the technical maturity and stability of our codebase. This could be by refactoring a particularly tricky part of the codebase, exploring a new framework to solve some our existing problems or even developing a new tool to help make life easier for the team.
Keeping your ‘car’ in good health
Carrying on with the potentially ridiculous engine metaphor (too late to turn back now!), here are some of the benefits of backlog free Fridays, as I see them.
Check the lights
Similar to how a car’s lights ensure that it is visible and alerts other drivers to its presence, We encourage the team to use some of their time on Fridays to document and share some of what we’re learning by writing blog posts. (I’m impressing myself with how far I’m managing to stretch this metaphor!)
In all seriousness though, having a blog can be a huge benefit. Looking inwards, even if no-one else sees the blog, its already helped us is multiple ways: the team document and cement their own learnings and it supports individual development and improves our overall communication skills. Looking out, it also helps share some of our learnings with the community, many of our blog posts are born out of frustrated attempts to solve problems with little information out there, hopefully the next person facing a similar issue stumbles across one of our posts and we’ve helped them in some small way. Finally, it also helps creates some identity or ‘brand’ for our engineering team, and can potentially help in recruitment or at the very least awareness of the work we’re doing.
Check the oil levels
Keeping your engine’s oil levels topped up ensure a well lubricated and prevent an engine wearing out too quickly.
The codebase also suffers as it gets older and more stale. While refactoring is considered an integral part of daily life at carwow, it is sometimes necessary to explicitly revisit code we previously wrote and redesign it to better fit into its evolved ecosystem. You will never be as smart, or know as much, as ‘future you’.
Check the brake fluid
(starting to clutch at straws here!)
Developers can also wear out too quickly; years of experience in both situations has shown me that dedicating time to keeping the team well rested and not stretched too thin goes a long way to making us more productive. Giving us a chance to have some freedom of thought, to let our mind wonder and explore possibilities while still having the overarching guidelines that the work we’re doing should “contribute to the technical maturity and stability of our codebase” gives us an opportunity to discover innovative solutions to our problems and ultimately leads to a cleaner, better designed codebase.
As a technology company our developers are some of our most essential foundations; creating a culture that empowers them and respects the work they do contributes to more a satisfied and dedicated team. We hope that backlog free Fridays plays a small part in us building such a culture at carwow.
Check the tyres
We also use this time to observe the performance of our application, and to check what the data is telling us. Any missing indexes on our databases? Any pages that are getting a little heavy? — should we start looking at breaking them down or using javascript to help out? Perhaps we should look at rewriting this gnarly query, or storing the data in redis?
Check the windshield
(ok…I’m starting to think I’ve made a huge mistake!)
Its not just our backend that needs attention, we dedicate time to give our css some love. We have a carwow styleguide that can from time to time get a little out of date, it is important to keep on top of things and we try to maintain it as well as we do the rest of our code.
We’re all full stack developers, but we’re learning and getting stronger as we grow. We know we’re not perfect, and as time goes on we ‘re learning more and more about better practices. We try to review and evolve our stylesheets, and Fridays provide us with the perfect time for this.
..Something about riding a bike maybe?
(I’ve officially given up, I couldn’t find a way to fit this one in. I’ve failed you all :( I’m sorry)
Sometimes when we’re working on our backlog, ploughing through cards and delivering features at a break-neck pace you can end up with blinders on. We can get so focussed on what we’re working on that we forget to lift our heads up and look around.
Our Fridays give us a chance to experience this on a regular basis. It lets us lift our heads out of the weeds and take a deep breath. we can explore and experiment with new technologies, try our hand at learning something new and trying a new approach to some problem we’re facing, and ultimately expand our minds.
Much like someone who spends all their time behind the wheel, only to one day stop, put their keys back down and instead go for a long bike ride, discovering all new beauty they never knew existed (oh my god, I did it! I brought it back! …drops the mic).
Interested in making an Impact? Join the carwow-team!
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