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Engineering Excellence

Fostering superior software practices and craftsmanship for sustainable development and continuous improvement.

Promoting high standards in software craftsmanship and development practices.

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Overview

Engineering Excellence: Driving High-Quality, Sustainable Software Development

Engineering excellence is the foundation of high-quality, maintainable, and scalable software systems. It is about fostering a culture that values continuous improvement, technical rigor, and long-term sustainability in software development. This category is dedicated to discussions on how organisations can elevate their engineering standards to deliver predictable, resilient, and valuable software.

Why Engineering Excellence Matters

Core Principles of Engineering Excellence

  1. Software Craftsmanship - Engineering excellence is grounded in a deep understanding of design, architecture, and maintainability. It prioritises clarity, simplicity, and adaptability, ensuring that software remains robust over time.
  2. Modern Software Engineering Practices - A commitment to continuous validation, automation, and integration enables teams to build and evolve software with confidence. These practices ensure that software remains reliable, scalable, and secure, while allowing teams to respond quickly to change.
  3. Technical Debt Management - Engineering excellence requires a proactive approach to code health and system maintainability. It involves regular assessment, improvement, and simplification to prevent long-term inefficiencies and ensure that systems remain adaptable.
  4. Metrics & Observability - Effective engineering is driven by measurable outcomes and transparency. By establishing clear metrics and monitoring, teams gain insights into performance, stability, and efficiency, enabling data-driven improvements.
  5. Security & Compliance - A secure and compliant system is fundamental to engineering integrity. Engineering excellence ensures that security is embedded into development processes, reducing vulnerabilities and aligning with regulatory and organisational standards.
  6. Scalable & Resilient Architecture - Scalability and resilience are essential to long-term software success. Engineering excellence ensures that systems are designed to handle change, growth, and unexpected conditions, enabling sustainable evolution.

Learn More about Engineering Excellence

Tags

Definition of Done

Getting Started with the Definition of Done (DoD). Every team should define what is required, what criteria must be met, for a product increment to be considered releasable.
Engineering-Notes

Building a Resilient Token Server: Engineering for Flow, Fault Tolerance, and Speed

Explains how to engineer a robust, fault-tolerant token counting server using FastAPI and PowerShell, covering error handling, retries, fallbacks, and resilient workflows.
Videos

Building a culture of Quality

Explores how fostering a culture of quality and engineering excellence across teams leads to better, safer products, highlighting the impact of leadership and shared values.
Videos

The Power of Technical Excellence in Agile Development

Explores how technical excellence in Agile development reduces risk, prevents technical debt, and boosts product quality and delivery speed through strong engineering standards.
Tags

One Engineering System

One Engineering System (1ES) is a strategic standardised, integrated framework designed to streamline software development by unifying tools, processes, and practices across teams. It provides a consistent, scalable foundation that supports high-quality, efficient, and secure software delivery.
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Test First Development

Test First is a practice that defines success before implementation. It supports manual and automated testing, with a strong preference for automation to improve flow and quality.
Blog

Quality enablement with Visual Studio 2012

Discover how Visual Studio 2012 enables continuous quality in software development, helping you meet modern user expectations and enhance brand differentiation.
Tags

Shift Left Strategy

A Shift-Left Strategy brings testing, security, and compliance earlier in development, reducing defects, accelerating feedback, and improving quality for faster, more reliable delivery.
Tags

Acceptance Test Driven Development

Drive high-quality software development with Acceptance Test Driven Development (ATDD). Define clear, testable acceptance criteria before implementation to ensure alignment with business needs.
    Blog

    Your Evolving Definition of Done

    Explains how the Definition of Done evolves in Scrum, aligning team practices with organisational standards to ensure consistent quality, compliance, and business value delivery.
    Blog

    A better way than staggered iterations for delivery

    Explains why staggered iterations harm software delivery, increasing technical debt, and recommends cross-functional teams, test-first, and working software each sprint.
    Videos

    Mastering Site Reliability: Insights from Azure DevOps on Building a Resilient Live Site Culture

    Explore proven strategies from Azure DevOps for building resilient, reliable software systems—covering transparency, automation, telemetry, incident response, and team culture.
    Blog

    Stop Hiding Behind Complexity and Start Delivering Continuously

    Continuous delivery is achievable for any software, regardless of complexity. Success depends on investment in automation, quality, and process improvement—not technical barriers.
    Blog

    Without Delivery, There Is No Value

    Value in software is only realised through delivery. Frequent releases validate assumptions, reduce risk, and enable rapid feedback, adaptation, and continuous improvement.
    Blog

    Delivery is the only Measure of Progress in Scrum

    Scrum teams must deliver working software to real users every Sprint; true progress is measured by delivery to production, not just by completing internal work.
    Videos

    Transforming Chaos into Clarity: How Optimising Systems Fuels Engineering Excellence

    Explores how optimising systems, reducing technical debt, and strong leadership improve engineering quality, productivity, and innovation while minimising chaos.
    Videos

    Transforming Engineering Excellence: The Power of Naked Agility in Quality and Leadership

    Explores how adopting naked agility boosts engineering excellence, quality, and leadership by addressing technical debt, shifting left, and fostering a culture of improvement.
    Videos

    Cultivating a Culture of Quality: Lessons from Boeing and Volkswagen for Engineering Excellence

    Explores how fostering a culture of quality and engineering excellence prevents failures, using Boeing and Volkswagen as examples, and highlights the impact on software development.
    Videos

    The Crucible of Learning: Transforming Organizational Effectiveness Through DevOps

    Explores how DevOps transformation, refactoring, and ownership reduce technical debt, streamline development, and boost efficiency, team satisfaction, and business value.
    Blog

    Professional Scrum teams build software that works

    Professional Scrum Teams prioritise software quality, accountability, and continuous improvement, ensuring each release is reliable, defect-free, and delivers real value.
    Blog

    Definition of Done - Objective vs Subjective

    Explains the difference between subjective goals and the objective Definition of Done in Scrum, highlighting how clear, measurable criteria ensure consistent product quality.
    Videos

    Navigating Technical Debt: How to Transform Challenges into Opportunities for Quality and Efficiency

    Explains how managing technical debt and distinguishing it from poor quality can boost product efficiency, reduce costs, and support sustainable software development.
    Videos

    Mastering Technical Debt: Strategies to Transform Challenges into Opportunities for Your Development Team

    Explains technical debt in software development, its impact on teams, and practical strategies to identify, manage, and reduce it for long-term productivity and code quality.
    Videos

    NKD Agility: Your partner in developing engineering excellence

    Learn how NKD Agility supports organisations in building engineering excellence through modern practices like performance engineering, testing in production, and leadership.
    Videos

    Technical Debt Management for Long-Term Quality

    Explains how managing and repaying technical debt improves software quality, delivery speed, and long-term value by addressing both known and unknown code issues.
    Blog

    Avoid the pick-n-mix branching anti-pattern

    Discover how to avoid the pick-n-mix branching anti-pattern in software development. Learn effective strategies to enhance code quality and team trust.
    Blog

    Stop Promoting Branches

    Explains why promoting code through multiple branches slows delivery, increases risk, and suggests GitHub Flow or Release Flow as simpler, safer alternatives for deployment.
    Videos

    Maximising Deployment Frequency: The Key to Faster Time to Market and Business Success

    Explores how increasing deployment frequency, stable environments, and fast feedback loops improve software delivery, reduce time to market, and align with business goals.
    Videos

    The Hidden Costs of Poor Quality Code—and How to Turn It Into a Superpower

    Explores the financial, productivity, and reputational impacts of poor-quality code, and offers practical steps to turn code quality into a competitive advantage.
    Blog

    Getting started with a modern source control system and DevOps

    Learn key practices for adopting modern source control and DevOps, including automation, release pipelines, and team collaboration to improve software delivery quality.
    Blog

    Testing in Production Maximises Quality and Value

    Explains how audience-based deployment and testing in production enable faster feedback, safer rollouts, and higher software quality by targeting real users and reducing risk.
    Videos

    Code Reviews for Quality Assurance

    Explores modern code review practices, emphasising automation, pre-reviewed code, and shift-left strategies to improve software quality, speed, and team collaboration.
    Blog

    You are doing it wrong if you are not using test first

    Explains how adopting test-first practices in software development improves quality, reduces bugs, and enables confident continuous delivery by validating requirements early.
    Videos

    Embracing Automation: The Key to Transforming Your Development Process and Boosting Confidence

    Explores how automation in testing, deployment, and validation streamlines development, reduces technical debt, and builds confidence for teams and customers alike.
    Videos

    Unlocking Code Quality: The Transformative Power of Frequent Deployments

    Explores how frequent code deployments improve code quality, reduce technical debt, enable faster feedback, and support iterative, user-focused software development.
    Videos

    Evidence-Based Management: The Four Key Value Areas in Scrum

    Explains Scrum’s four key value areas—current value, unrealised value, ability to innovate, and time to market—for data-driven product and organisational improvement.
    Videos

    From Chaos to Clarity: My Journey Through DevOps and the Three Key Challenges to Overcome

    Explores a developer’s transition to DevOps, highlighting key challenges: cultural change, toolchain automation, and continuous learning for effective software delivery.
    Blog

    Getting started with a Definition of Done (DoD)

    Explains how to create, apply, and improve a Definition of Done (DoD) in Scrum to ensure software quality, transparency, and consistent delivery of working increments.
    Blog

    Metrics that matter with evidence-based management

    Discover how Evidence-Based Management can enhance your metrics and KPIs for better decision-making in software development. Elevate your team’s performance!
    Blog

    Building a release pipeline with Release Management with Visual Studio 2013

    Learn to build a scalable release pipeline with Visual Studio 2013’s integrated release management. Enhance your DevOps practices for continuous delivery success!
    Blog

    Quality enablement to achieve predictable delivery

    Achieve predictable software delivery by establishing quality enablement. Learn key strategies to enhance your development process and reduce bugs.
    Videos

    Unlocking the True Power of Continuous Delivery: How Automation Transforms Software Development

    Explains how automation in continuous delivery improves software reliability, reduces risk, and enables faster, safer deployments through consistent, rapid feedback loops.
    Videos

    Security by Design Building Secure Software

    Explains how integrating security and quality early in software development—using practices like TDD, pair programming, and continuous feedback—builds robust, reliable systems.
    Videos

    Code Reviews for Quality Assurance

    Explores code review practices for quality assurance, highlighting automation, pull requests, and early defect detection to ensure high-quality, reliable software delivery.
    Videos

    Unlocking Continuous Delivery: How Feature Flags Transform Software Development

    Explains how feature flags enable safe, incremental software releases, support continuous delivery, and use user feedback to improve features before full rollout.
    Videos

    Unlocking the Future of Software Development: Why Automation is Your Key to Success

    Explores how automation boosts software development by reducing errors, speeding up deployments, and ensuring consistent, high-quality releases in dynamic environments.
    Videos

    Why Embracing Automation is Essential for Reducing Human Error in Software Development

    Explores how automation in software development reduces human error, improves reliability, and streamlines workflows, using real-world examples and practical insights.
    Blog

    Standard Environments for Automated Deployment and Testing

    Discover how to automate deployment and testing with Standard Environments in Visual Studio 2012 TFS, enhancing your DevOps practices for seamless delivery.
    Blog

    Automated Testing in a modern application lifecycle

    Discover the essential role of automated testing in modern application lifecycles. Learn how to enhance software quality and streamline your development process.
    Tags

    Continuous Delivery

    Continuous Delivery is the practice of frequently delivering small increments of valuable product directly to real users, enabling rapid feedback, validation, and continuous improvement from the very first iteration.
    Blog

    Release planning and predictable delivery

    Explores how agile teams can achieve predictable software delivery through quality focus, effective release planning, and continuous improvement, despite inherent uncertainty.
    Tags

    Behaviour Driven Development

    Align development with business goals using Behaviour Driven Development (BDD). Improve collaboration and create clear, testable requirements.
      Videos

      Scaling Smart: How to Tackle Technical Debt for Sustainable Growth

      Learn how unmanaged technical debt can hinder growth, and discover strategies like sustainable architecture, DevOps, and automation to scale efficiently and maintain quality.
      Videos

      Transforming Agility: How Azure DevOps Went from Two-Year Releases to 880,000 Deployments

      Explores how Azure DevOps shifted from slow, two-year releases to rapid, continuous delivery, highlighting the benefits of fast feedback, agility, and frequent deployments.
      Blog

      Why Handoffs Are Killing Your Agility

      Excessive handoffs in software development create delays, reduce quality, and harm team morale. Learn how eliminating handoffs boosts agility, flow, and value delivery.
      Blog

      The Insufficiency of Scrum is a fallacy

      Explore the myth of Scrum’s insufficiency and learn how effective engineering practices can enhance Agile success. Elevate your team’s performance today!
      Blog

      The Sprint is a container for Planning and not necessarily for Delivery

      Explore how Scrum can enhance planning without strict delivery schedules. Learn to embrace Continuous Delivery for better software development practices.
      Videos

      Embrace Simplicity: How to Transform Complexity into Continuous Delivery Success

      Explains how simplifying complex software and committing to change enables continuous delivery, highlighting the need for cultural shift, resilience, and ongoing improvement.
      Videos

      Rethinking Continuous Delivery: Why Best Practices Don't Exist in Complex Environments

      Explores why fixed best practices don’t suit complex continuous delivery, highlighting adaptive approaches like audience-based delivery, testing in production, and ongoing improvement.
      Videos

      Transforming Waste into Value: How to Boost ROI with Agile Metrics

      Learn how agile metrics like innovation rate, product index, usage index, and version adoption help identify waste and improve ROI by focusing on value-driven engineering.
      Blog

      All technical debt is a risk to the product and to your business.

      Technical debt increases risk to products and businesses, leading to hidden costs, reduced quality, and slower delivery. Ignoring it can harm long-term value and growth.
      Blog

      Release Management with Team Foundation Server 2012

      Enhance your release management strategy with Team Foundation Server 2012. Discover automation techniques and best practices for seamless deployments.
      Blog

      Professional Scrum Developer (.NET) Training in London

      Join the Professional Scrum Developer training in London to enhance your .NET skills, collaborate in teams, and master Agile practices. Sign up now!
      Blog

      Who broke the build?

      Discover why broken builds matter in development. Learn how to identify issues and maintain code quality with effective build management strategies.
      Blog

      Create a Release Management pipeline for Professional Developers

      Learn to create a Release Management pipeline for developers, enhancing automation and deployment efficiency with Team Foundation Server. Dive in now!
      Course

      Continuous Delivery Using Azure DevOps Services Training

      This two-day course provides students with the DevOps principles and related hands-on practices to work better as a team, scale their agility, share and integrate their work, and deliver working software continuously in order to enable faster delivery of value and receive early and valuable feedback.
      Course

      Applying Professional Scrum for Software Development (APS-SD) with Certification

      Experience APS-SD: Hands-on Scrum training for delivering quality software. Gain practical skills in Agile, DevOps, and Scrum principles. Free PSD I certification exam included. Enhance your software development expertise.
      Course

      Assuring Quality Using Azure Test Plans Training

      Azure DevOps provides a set of cloud-hosted tools that software teams can use as an end-to-end solution to plan, develop, test, and deliver value in the form of working software.
      Course

      Mastering Azure Repos Training

      Azure DevOps Services provide a set of cloud-hosted tools that software teams can use to quickly plan, develop, test, and deliver value in the form of working software. Azure Repos provide public or private Git repositories that enable better collaboration and cleaner code. To maximize learning, students will work in teams, in a common team project, on a common codebase.
      Tags

      Azure DevOps

      Azure DevOps is a product from Microsoft that provides tools around CI/CD, collaboration, and agile project management. Other names are Team Foundation Server, TFSOnline, Visual Studio Online (VSO), and Visual Studio Team Services.
      Videos

      Navigating the Unpredictability of Software Development: Embrace Agile for Success

      Explores how Agile principles, technical leadership, and engineering excellence help teams manage unpredictability, adapt to change, and deliver quality software projects.
      Videos

      Empowering Teams for Success: The Key to Thriving Product Development

      Explores how empowering and engaging diverse software teams boosts motivation, collaboration, and product quality through trust, feedback, skills development, and shared goals.
      Videos

      If a client hasn't considered DevOps consulting as part of their Agile Consulting needs, why should they?

      DevOps consulting enhances Agile by improving collaboration, accelerating delivery, and ensuring quality, making software development more efficient and resilient.
      Videos

      Transform Your Software Architecture: The Game-Changing Impact of TDD and Pair Programming

      Explores how test-driven development and pair programming improve software architecture, code quality, team skills, and long-term productivity by reducing complexity and errors.
      Practices

      Metrics and Reports

      Discover more about Metrics and Reports and how it can help you in your Agile journey!
      Videos

      DevOps: Elevating Your Organization’s Performance Through Bespoke Solutions

      Learn how tailored DevOps strategies help organisations assess current practices, streamline processes, ensure compliance, and boost software quality and delivery frequency.
      Videos

      Mastering Evidence-Based Management for Agile Success

      Learn how Evidence-Based Management uses data to guide Agile teams, improve decision-making, track value, and boost innovation, customer satisfaction, and time to market.
      Guides

      Detecting Agile BS

      Discover more about Detecting Agile BS and how it can help you in your Agile journey!
      Guides

      The Evidence-Based Management Guide: Improving Value Delivery under Conditions of Uncertainty

      Discover more about “The Evidence-Based Management Guide and how it can help you in your Agile journey!
      Videos

      Detecting Agile BS: Lessons from the Department of Defense

      Explores why true organisational agility needs more than Agile development, highlighting the importance of continuous delivery, quality, and removing bureaucratic barriers.
      Blog

      How Usable Working Products Are Your Ultimate Weapon Against Risks

      Delivering usable, working products frequently is key to reducing risk in Agile. Focus on feedback, automation, and lean practices over excessive documentation.
      Blog

      Live Site Culture & Site Reliability Engineering

      Explores how agile teams use DevOps and Site Reliability Engineering to deliver high-quality software rapidly, with insights from Microsoft’s Azure DevOps team practices.
      Blog

      Can the Definition of Done change per Sprint?

      The Definition of Done can evolve to improve quality but should not be weakened or vary per backlog item. Consistency ensures transparency and reliable product increments.
      Blog

      DOD has made it illegal to do waterfall

      The US Department of Defence now requires agile, iterative software development, ending mandatory waterfall methods and influencing global government IT practices.
      Blog

      Continuous value delivery with modern business applications

      Discover how modern business applications enable continuous value delivery, transforming software development practices for happier consumers and faster updates.
      Blog

      Testing in the modern application lifecycle

      Explore modern manual testing in agile development. Learn to integrate tools and streamline processes for effective quality assurance in your application lifecycle.
      Videos

      Balancing Speed and Stability: Why Quality Should Always Come First in Delivery Management

      Explores why prioritising quality and stability over speed in delivery management leads to better long-term outcomes, even when facing tight deadlines or external pressure.
      Blog

      Is ALM a useful term?

      Explore the significance of ALM in modern software development. Discover how Agile practices enhance quality and adaptability for all organizations.
      Videos

      Unlocking the Superpower of Software Development: How Shifting Left Transforms Quality Assurance

      Explains how adopting a shift-left approach in software development improves quality, speeds up delivery, reduces costs, and fosters collaboration by involving QA early.
      Blog

      The Definition of Done: Ensuring Quality without Compromising Value

      Explains how to maintain clear, measurable quality standards with the Definition of Done, while avoiding confusion with acceptance criteria and preserving product value.
      Blog

      Unit Testing against the Team Foundation Server 2012 API

      Learn how to effectively unit test against the Team Foundation Server 2012 API, tackling authentication challenges and enhancing your TDD practices.
      Blog

      Do you know the minimum builds to create on any branch?

      Discover the essential builds for any branch in your project. Learn how to set up Gate, CI, and Nightly builds to ensure code quality and collaboration.
      Blog

      Solution: Testing Web Services with MSTest on Team Foundation Build Services 2010

      Learn how to effectively test web services using MSTest on Team Foundation Build Services 2010. Overcome common challenges and streamline your testing process!
      Blog

      Developer Day Scotland

      Join Developer Day Scotland for insights on refactoring, dynamic languages, and MVVM in WPF. Enhance your coding skills and connect with fellow developers!
      Blog

      Does test-driven development speed up development?

      Explore how test-driven development can enhance software productivity by reducing complexity and rework. A must-read for software professionals!

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      If you've made it this far, it's worth connecting with our principal consultant and coach, Martin Hinshelwood, for a 30-minute 'ask me anything' call.

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