Nick Hazekamp on Atomic Spin

Embracing Sprint-Based Backlogs to Prepare our Home for Sale by October

My wife and I borrowed from the world of programming and use sprint-based backlog management in preparation for an upcoming home sale.

Developer Tools

How to Use Docker Layers to Optimize Your Container Size

Docker images can quickly become large and unwieldy. Let's explore using Docker layers to build a space-optimized Docker container.

Project & Team Management

How Adding a Delivery Lead Changed Our Project

Adding a Delivery Lead to my project led to a huge shift in a number of ways. I only wish we had done it sooner.

Project & Team Management

4 Tips for Developers to Lighten the Cognitive Load for Your Lead

While it's not the developer's job to remove the cognitive load from the Lead, it is greatly appreciated when the developer helps lighten it.

UX & Design

3 Great Benefits of Design Workshops for a Developer

I am not a designer, so why was I recently in a design workshop? I want to point out some less obvious benefits I observed upon reflection.

Development Practices

3 Steps to Creating Spikes with Lasting Value

Spikes are great for exploring and de-risking problems. I'll outline three steps I take to make sure that spikes have lasting value for a software project.

Project & Team Management

5 Tips for Preparing a Project and Team for Your Parental Leave

We recently had our first child, and let's just say things didn't go as planned. Here are a few tips to prepare you & your project for your parental leave.

Project & Team Management

Changing Team Habits is Hard: Get Them Right the First Time

Good team habits are not established by accident (though bad habits might be). They take diligence and intentionality to get right.

Growing as Makers

4 Tips for Facilitating an Engaging Discussion with Your Team

Here are four tips I used for facilitating a discussion with my team about soft skills, keeping it engaging and avoiding the need to lecture.

Effective communication

3 Ways to Nip Software Project Problems in the Bud

Here are three strategies to put in your toolbox for resolving software project concerns, with an emphasis on early and honest communication.

Project & Team Management

How to Give New Developers Meaningful Work

Onboarding a new developer is a fun but hectic time for any project. I have found that assigning meaningful work can be the biggest challenge.

Project & Team Management

3 Tips for Writing Meaningful Stories

Building a workflow piece by piece and story by story will drive development and clearly communicate the purpose of your development stories.

Nick Hazekamp

Keep up with our latest posts.