Technical Excellence Workshop

Technical Excellence Workshop

What if every revision to your codebase made it cleaner, smaller, tidier, and easier-to-manage? And what if your software didn’t become slower, more fragile, and more risky to change over time?

We created the Technical Excellence Workshop with those goals in mind.

You will learn the mindset, habits, and practices that result in continuously improving both your software and your teamwork. By the end of this workshop, you’ll have a deeper understanding of what technical excellence is, and how you and your team can achieve it.


"If you are an Agilist (SM/Agile coach/Change/Transformation Agent) who have tech/coding background but struggling to make impact in your organization on technical agility, then this course is highly recommended." past student
  • "This course has made me a much better programmer." Steffen Paige
    "This workshop teaches skills and a perspective that should be our baseline." past student
    "There is no course that is equivalent and rich like this in the industry." past student

Workshop Editions

Our online version of this workshop takes place over 16, 90-minute sessions that span 8 weeks. We can customize this schedule to best meet your needs.
  • Establishing Agreements
  • Microhabits and Iterations
  • Code Smells
  • Journaling the Journey
  • Safeties
  • Seeing Hazards
  • Technical Safety
  • Process Safety
  • Refactoring
  • Microhabits and Kaizen
  • Mobbing and Pairing
  • Baby Steps
  • Microtesting
  • Test-first Ratchets
  • Three Roles of a Test
  • Disciplined Breaks
  • Continuous Integration
  • Repls, Tools and Exploration
  • Study Breaks and Peel-offs
  • Argue In Code
  • Today I Learned
  • Informal Specification
  • Role-Action-Context
  • Squeeze vs Slice
  • Slicing Methods
  • Standard Legacy Code Steps
  • E.P.I.C.
  • Read By Refactor
  • Seams
  • Atomic
  • Autonomous
  • Eagerness and Patience
  • Put It All Together
Here is a 4-day edition of this workshop. We are happy to customize the workshop duration and content to best meet your needs.
  • Establishing Agreements
  • Microhabits and Iterations
  • Code Smells
  • Journaling the Journey
  • Safeties
  • Seeing Hazards
  • Technical Safety
  • Process Safety
  • Refactoring
  • Microhabits and Kaizen
  • Mobbing and Pairing
  • Baby Steps
  • Microtesting
  • Test-first Ratchets
  • Three Roles of a Test
  • Disciplined Breaks
  • Continuous Integration
  • Repls, Tools and Exploration
  • Study Breaks and Peel-offs
  • Argue In Code
  • Today I Learned
  • Informal Specification
  • Role-Action-Context
  • Squeeze vs Slice
  • Slicing Methods
  • Standard Legacy Code Steps
  • E.P.I.C.
  • Read By Refactor
  • Seams
  • Atomic
  • Autonomous
  • Eagerness and Patience
  • Put It All Together

What Will You Learn?

outcome

Technical Safety: create and apply mechanisms that keep an error from creating a crisis

outcome

Teamwork: how to help others apply habits and skills to engender technical excellence

outcome

Incrementalism: learn to build and improve in small steps without reversals and regressions

outcome

Extreme Programming skills: testing, refactoring, and Test-Driven-Development

outcome

Psychological safety: recognize gaps, recover from conflict, and repair trust

outcome

Continuous Learning: ways to weave learning new skills and new techniques into the fabric of daily work

Target Audience

This workshop is useful for people who participate materially in the making of software either as a programmer, tester or lead.

Exercises (homework) are mostly coding exercises and will require some programming skill.

It is recommended that companies send technical leads, coaches, and technical process professionals in order to improve their ability to communicate and lead technical teams.

Instructors