The last months have been busy with (re)starting teams somehow. This is a small note to self in order to keep a record of aspects that need to be addressed.

The kick off is the first step of a continuous mechanism to learn and deliver the best possible outcome for your audience.

Ensure your kick off allows to change everything, including the process.

Process, Content and Operations need to be part of the kick off.

Everyone in software development knows the words: ‘just add this small thing and…’.
Mostly the people requesting the addition don’t have to live with the consequences. These consequences double each and every time you add another option to an existing structure.

Every option you add, adds to the number of combinations your software must be capable to handle and combinations double according to the formula 2^n. So when you say yes for the 7th time. you go from 64 (2^6) to 128 (2^7) combinations that need to work and tested.

Today a respected colleague called and we had a conversation on technology choices. A team choose the React framework over the Angular framework and that caused a stir at the company.

He asked me what my top 5 elements for selection would be.

We ended up that a single question to answer should be enough.
Will the whole team take the responsibility to make this choice a success ?

Sometimes the actual technology matters, most of the times, it matters more that ownership is at the right spot.