<description>&lt;div class="shownotes"&gt;&lt;p&gt;Podcasting has definitely been a journey for both of us. When we started BJ wasn't even a developer and Will was working for himself. Now 8 years later BJ is leading a team of developers and Will is back working for himself. It has been an amazing journey with you all this past years. We have both learned a lot about ourselves, programming, leadership, and audio engineering (well Beej learned about audio).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;However, like all things, it can't last forever. Sometimes you just hit a point where you realize that you can go on, but your heart really isn't in it any more. That's kind of where we both are. We've enjoyed our time podcasting and it's been a very memorable eight years. The podcast has changed us both a lot, and that's the real reason we are stepping away from it. We've both gained many new skills, and more comfort with more difficult tasks. And now we both have goals of our own that don't really mesh well with the podcast.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class="links"&gt;&lt;h3&gt;Links&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;h3&gt;&lt;a href="https://completedeveloperpodcast.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cucGF0cmVvbi5jb20vQ29tcGxldGVEZXZlbG9wZXJQb2RjYXN0&amp;#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=4215" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"&gt;Join Us On Patreon&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;h3&gt;&lt;a href="https://completedeveloperpodcast.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cubGV2ZWx1cGZpbmFuY2lhbHBsYW5uaW5nLmNvbS8%2FY2Rw&amp;#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=4215" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"&gt;Level Up Financial Planning&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt; &lt;img src="https://completedeveloperpodcast.com/?feed-stats-post-id=4215" width="1" height="1" style="display: none;" /&gt;&lt;p&gt;The post &lt;a rel="nofollow" href="https://completedeveloperpodcast.com/a-farewell-to-our-fans/"&gt;A Farewell To Our Fans&lt;/a&gt; appeared first on &lt;a rel="nofollow" href="https://completedeveloperpodcast.com"&gt;Complete Developer Podcast&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;hr&gt;&lt;p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'&gt; Hosted on Acast. See &lt;a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'&gt;acast.com/privacy&lt;/a&gt; for more information.&lt;/p&gt;</description>

In this episode, we discuss our journey through podcasting, where it all started, where it lead us, and why we are stepping away from it.Read more ›

<div class="shownotes"><p>Podcasting has definitely been a journey for both of us. When we started BJ wasn't even a developer and Will was working for himself. Now 8 years later BJ is leading a team of developers and Will is back working for himself. It has been an amazing journey with you all this past years. We have both learned a lot about ourselves, programming, leadership, and audio engineering (well Beej learned about audio).</p><p>However, like all things, it can't last forever. Sometimes you just hit a point where you realize that you can go on, but your heart really isn't in it any more. That's kind of where we both are. We've enjoyed our time podcasting and it's been a very memorable eight years. The podcast has changed us both a lot, and that's the real reason we are stepping away from it. We've both gained many new skills, and more comfort with more difficult tasks. And now we both have goals of our own that don't really mesh well with the podcast.</p><div class="links"><h3>Links</h3><h3><a href="https://completedeveloperpodcast.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cucGF0cmVvbi5jb20vQ29tcGxldGVEZXZlbG9wZXJQb2RjYXN0&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=4215" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Join Us On Patreon</a></h3><h3><a href="https://completedeveloperpodcast.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cubGV2ZWx1cGZpbmFuY2lhbHBsYW5uaW5nLmNvbS8%2FY2Rw&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=4215" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Level Up Financial Planning</a></h3></p></div></div> <img src="https://completedeveloperpodcast.com/?feed-stats-post-id=4215" width="1" height="1" style="display: none;" /><p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://completedeveloperpodcast.com/a-farewell-to-our-fans/">A Farewell To Our Fans</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://completedeveloperpodcast.com">Complete Developer Podcast</a>.</p><br /><hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>

A Farewell To Our Fans

<description>&lt;div class="shownotes"&gt;&lt;p&gt;Simple systems fail simply. Complex systems also fail simply, but their interconnectedness with other systems makes mitigating failures much more complex. Past a certain level of complexity, system failures are an emergent property of the system &amp;#8211; that is, the set of system parts has a set of failure cases that the individual parts do not have by themselves. This means that it is more difficult to predict what can go wrong with a system. At some level, prediction is nearly impossible. However, you can predict many of the things that are likely to cause problems, simply by engaging in a few fairly simple thought exercises, you can greatly reduce the number of unexpected problems that your system encounters.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;While it can be tempting to wait until a problem occurs to try to mitigate it, this is unwise in a production system that other people are dependent on. A system failure usually costs money at a minimum, and the problems can be far more severe than that. As a result, it's common for software services to include a Service Level Agreement or SLA, that dictates expectations about the frequency of system outages, response times, and time expected to complete work. Even if your system is engineered so that it doesn't completely fall over when a problem occurs, it can still violate an SLA and cost money. The consumers of your application probably have their own clients who have their own expectations. SLAs tend to bleed inward from clients to the services that they use and then to the services that those services use.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In contrast to SLAs, systemic problems, including both errors and latency tend to bleed outward from one service to its clients and then to the clients of that service. As a result, when you are thinking about how to find potential systemic problems, it's often best to think of these problems from two different angles. That is, you need to consider how errors and latency will bleed out as a result of a problem, while also considering how SLAs bleed in to put more stringent expectations on your system than you might expect. In effect, you are dealing with a balance between tolerance for errors and difficulty in error mitigation. Depending on how critical your system is to your clients, these expectations will vary.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;You can't prevent every problem in a system, but you can usually prevent a large percentage of them by planning ahead. However, until you've encountered enough unexpected problems, it can be difficult to envision how something can go wrong, or even have a realistic thought process for thinking about what can go wrong. However, if you go through the thought exercises we've outlined here, then you have a good chance of preventing most of the problems that will plague a complicated application. While this doesn't fix everything, it can give you enough breathing room to fix the truly unusual problems that you'll occasionally encounter.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class="links"&gt;&lt;h3&gt;Links&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;h3&gt;&lt;a href="https://completedeveloperpodcast.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cucGF0cmVvbi5jb20vQ29tcGxldGVEZXZlbG9wZXJQb2RjYXN0&amp;#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=4210" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"&gt;Join Us On Patreon&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;h3&gt;&lt;a href="https://completedeveloperpodcast.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cubGV2ZWx1cGZpbmFuY2lhbHBsYW5uaW5nLmNvbS8%2FY2Rw&amp;#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=4210" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"&gt;Level Up Financial Planning&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt; &lt;img src="https://completedeveloperpodcast.com/?feed-stats-post-id=4210" width="1" height="1" style="display: none;" /&gt;&lt;p&gt;The post &lt;a rel="nofollow" href="https://completedeveloperpodcast.com/preempting-system-issues/"&gt;Preempting System Issues&lt;/a&gt; appeared first on &lt;a rel="nofollow" href="https://completedeveloperpodcast.com"&gt;Complete Developer Podcast&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;hr&gt;&lt;p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'&gt; Hosted on Acast. See &lt;a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'&gt;acast.com/privacy&lt;/a&gt; for more information.&lt;/p&gt;</description>

When major system issues occur, it's already too late. With large scale problems, it usually takes a while to diagnose the issue, fix it, get it through testing, and get a fix deployed. This is true even of hotfixes.

<div class="shownotes"><p>Simple systems fail simply. Complex systems also fail simply, but their interconnectedness with other systems makes mitigating failures much more complex. Past a certain level of complexity, system failures are an emergent property of the system &#8211; that is, the set of system parts has a set of failure cases that the individual parts do not have by themselves. This means that it is more difficult to predict what can go wrong with a system. At some level, prediction is nearly impossible. However, you can predict many of the things that are likely to cause problems, simply by engaging in a few fairly simple thought exercises, you can greatly reduce the number of unexpected problems that your system encounters.</p><p>While it can be tempting to wait until a problem occurs to try to mitigate it, this is unwise in a production system that other people are dependent on. A system failure usually costs money at a minimum, and the problems can be far more severe than that. As a result, it's common for software services to include a Service Level Agreement or SLA, that dictates expectations about the frequency of system outages, response times, and time expected to complete work. Even if your system is engineered so that it doesn't completely fall over when a problem occurs, it can still violate an SLA and cost money. The consumers of your application probably have their own clients who have their own expectations. SLAs tend to bleed inward from clients to the services that they use and then to the services that those services use.</p><p>In contrast to SLAs, systemic problems, including both errors and latency tend to bleed outward from one service to its clients and then to the clients of that service. As a result, when you are thinking about how to find potential systemic problems, it's often best to think of these problems from two different angles. That is, you need to consider how errors and latency will bleed out as a result of a problem, while also considering how SLAs bleed in to put more stringent expectations on your system than you might expect. In effect, you are dealing with a balance between tolerance for errors and difficulty in error mitigation. Depending on how critical your system is to your clients, these expectations will vary.</p><p>You can't prevent every problem in a system, but you can usually prevent a large percentage of them by planning ahead. However, until you've encountered enough unexpected problems, it can be difficult to envision how something can go wrong, or even have a realistic thought process for thinking about what can go wrong. However, if you go through the thought exercises we've outlined here, then you have a good chance of preventing most of the problems that will plague a complicated application. While this doesn't fix everything, it can give you enough breathing room to fix the truly unusual problems that you'll occasionally encounter.</p><div class="links"><h3>Links</h3><h3><a href="https://completedeveloperpodcast.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cucGF0cmVvbi5jb20vQ29tcGxldGVEZXZlbG9wZXJQb2RjYXN0&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=4210" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Join Us On Patreon</a></h3><h3><a href="https://completedeveloperpodcast.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cubGV2ZWx1cGZpbmFuY2lhbHBsYW5uaW5nLmNvbS8%2FY2Rw&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=4210" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Level Up Financial Planning</a></h3></p></div></div> <img src="https://completedeveloperpodcast.com/?feed-stats-post-id=4210" width="1" height="1" style="display: none;" /><p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://completedeveloperpodcast.com/preempting-system-issues/">Preempting System Issues</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://completedeveloperpodcast.com">Complete Developer Podcast</a>.</p><br /><hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>

Preempting System Issues

<description>&lt;div class="shownotes"&gt;&lt;p&gt;Feedback is any information, observation, or even opinion about the performance or behavior of another individual our group. It can be formal as in performance or peer evaluations or informal such as with mentoring a junior developer. It is a form of communication designed to provide guidance that helps the other person to grow and achieve their goals.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Providing feedback gives insights and identifies areas of improvement. Often it is used to guide those you are leading toward personal and professional growth. To the person receiving the feedback it can be stressful, especially if it is not all positive. It can also be very stressful to the person who is providing the feedback, especially if they are not a confrontational or naturally assertive person. Having a plan of action when providing feedback not only helps the person receive it better but also helps the person providing the feedback.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;As feedback is a way to help achieve goals the technique for creating effective goals (SMART) can also be applied to providing feedback. To review, SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound. Applying SMART to feedback will better define what you are getting across and make it more actionable.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound) is a framework most often used in goal setting. However when applied to providing feedback it will enhance the abilities of the person providing the feedback and allow the recipient to better understand what they need to do to achieve their goals. Using this framework ensures that the items coming from the feedback are actionable, well defined, and focused on the issue or goal at hand. Whether you are doing performance plans for those working for you, peer or code reviews, or just mentoring someone who is not as far along as you apply the SMART framework to your feedback and see the improvement in reception and accomplishment.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class="links"&gt;&lt;h3&gt;Links&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;h3&gt;&lt;a href="https://completedeveloperpodcast.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cucGF0cmVvbi5jb20vQ29tcGxldGVEZXZlbG9wZXJQb2RjYXN0&amp;#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=4207" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"&gt;Join Us On Patreon&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;h3&gt;&lt;a href="https://completedeveloperpodcast.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cubGV2ZWx1cGZpbmFuY2lhbHBsYW5uaW5nLmNvbS8%2FY2Rw&amp;#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=4207" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"&gt;Level Up Financial Planning&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt; &lt;img src="https://completedeveloperpodcast.com/?feed-stats-post-id=4207" width="1" height="1" style="display: none;" /&gt;&lt;p&gt;The post &lt;a rel="nofollow" href="https://completedeveloperpodcast.com/smart-feedback/"&gt;SMART Feedback&lt;/a&gt; appeared first on &lt;a rel="nofollow" href="https://completedeveloperpodcast.com"&gt;Complete Developer Podcast&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;hr&gt;&lt;p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'&gt; Hosted on Acast. See &lt;a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'&gt;acast.com/privacy&lt;/a&gt; for more information.&lt;/p&gt;</description>

Dude, that was terrible, you shouldn't do it that way. This is an example of terrible feedback from a peer. In order to be useful you want your feedback to be direct and actionable.Read more ›

<div class="shownotes"><p>Feedback is any information, observation, or even opinion about the performance or behavior of another individual our group. It can be formal as in performance or peer evaluations or informal such as with mentoring a junior developer. It is a form of communication designed to provide guidance that helps the other person to grow and achieve their goals.</p><p>Providing feedback gives insights and identifies areas of improvement. Often it is used to guide those you are leading toward personal and professional growth. To the person receiving the feedback it can be stressful, especially if it is not all positive. It can also be very stressful to the person who is providing the feedback, especially if they are not a confrontational or naturally assertive person. Having a plan of action when providing feedback not only helps the person receive it better but also helps the person providing the feedback.</p><p>As feedback is a way to help achieve goals the technique for creating effective goals (SMART) can also be applied to providing feedback. To review, SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound. Applying SMART to feedback will better define what you are getting across and make it more actionable.</p><p>SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound) is a framework most often used in goal setting. However when applied to providing feedback it will enhance the abilities of the person providing the feedback and allow the recipient to better understand what they need to do to achieve their goals. Using this framework ensures that the items coming from the feedback are actionable, well defined, and focused on the issue or goal at hand. Whether you are doing performance plans for those working for you, peer or code reviews, or just mentoring someone who is not as far along as you apply the SMART framework to your feedback and see the improvement in reception and accomplishment.</p><div class="links"><h3>Links</h3><h3><a href="https://completedeveloperpodcast.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cucGF0cmVvbi5jb20vQ29tcGxldGVEZXZlbG9wZXJQb2RjYXN0&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=4207" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Join Us On Patreon</a></h3><h3><a href="https://completedeveloperpodcast.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cubGV2ZWx1cGZpbmFuY2lhbHBsYW5uaW5nLmNvbS8%2FY2Rw&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=4207" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Level Up Financial Planning</a></h3></p></div></div> <img src="https://completedeveloperpodcast.com/?feed-stats-post-id=4207" width="1" height="1" style="display: none;" /><p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://completedeveloperpodcast.com/smart-feedback/">SMART Feedback</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://completedeveloperpodcast.com">Complete Developer Podcast</a>.</p><br /><hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>

SMART Feedback

<description>&lt;div class="shownotes"&gt;&lt;p&gt;Database sharding is a process of storing a large database across multiple machines. Because a single machine can only hold and process so much data, eventually some systems will scale beyond the ability of a single machine to handle data. Further, as systems scale, they may also need to split data between machines due to security and location considerations. Database sharding overcomes these problems by splitting the system into smaller chunks, allowing work to either be done in parallel, or only in the locations with the relevant data.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Obviously, it matters a lot how you split up your data. For instance, it's unlikely that splitting a customer table based on the customer last name will be as helpful in a large distributed system as it would be to split up customers by location. You probably also want to have shards that are roughly the same size. The idea behind sharding is to improve performance, specifically via parallelization, but it's also helpful if it also provides some resilience to outages. So that will also need to be a consideration when you start thinking about sharding.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Database sharding can be a very useful tool for making your application more resilient to load. However, it's complex and you really need to think through it carefully if you are considering using it in your environment. There are several different ways to do it, with different advantages and disadvantages, and these will need to be thoroughly considered before starting. Plus, sharding is actually a fairly drastic operation, requiring support and extra work for the remaining lifetime of your application. This means that you shouldn't really consider it until most other options have been exhausted.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class="links"&gt;&lt;h3&gt;Links&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;h3&gt;&lt;a href="https://completedeveloperpodcast.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cucGF0cmVvbi5jb20vQ29tcGxldGVEZXZlbG9wZXJQb2RjYXN0&amp;#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=4205" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"&gt;Join Us On Patreon&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;h3&gt;&lt;a href="https://completedeveloperpodcast.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cubGV2ZWx1cGZpbmFuY2lhbHBsYW5uaW5nLmNvbS8%2FY2Rw&amp;#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=4205" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"&gt;Level Up Financial Planning&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt; &lt;img src="https://completedeveloperpodcast.com/?feed-stats-post-id=4205" width="1" height="1" style="display: none;" /&gt;&lt;p&gt;The post &lt;a rel="nofollow" href="https://completedeveloperpodcast.com/database-sharding/"&gt;Database Sharding&lt;/a&gt; appeared first on &lt;a rel="nofollow" href="https://completedeveloperpodcast.com"&gt;Complete Developer Podcast&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;hr&gt;&lt;p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'&gt; Hosted on Acast. See &lt;a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'&gt;acast.com/privacy&lt;/a&gt; for more information.&lt;/p&gt;</description>

As your system scales, eventually you'll find that your database is the source of all your problems. Apps are often a lot easier to scale than databases, but eventually you have to deal with the database itself.Read more ›

<div class="shownotes"><p>Database sharding is a process of storing a large database across multiple machines. Because a single machine can only hold and process so much data, eventually some systems will scale beyond the ability of a single machine to handle data. Further, as systems scale, they may also need to split data between machines due to security and location considerations. Database sharding overcomes these problems by splitting the system into smaller chunks, allowing work to either be done in parallel, or only in the locations with the relevant data.</p><p>Obviously, it matters a lot how you split up your data. For instance, it's unlikely that splitting a customer table based on the customer last name will be as helpful in a large distributed system as it would be to split up customers by location. You probably also want to have shards that are roughly the same size. The idea behind sharding is to improve performance, specifically via parallelization, but it's also helpful if it also provides some resilience to outages. So that will also need to be a consideration when you start thinking about sharding.</p><p>Database sharding can be a very useful tool for making your application more resilient to load. However, it's complex and you really need to think through it carefully if you are considering using it in your environment. There are several different ways to do it, with different advantages and disadvantages, and these will need to be thoroughly considered before starting. Plus, sharding is actually a fairly drastic operation, requiring support and extra work for the remaining lifetime of your application. This means that you shouldn't really consider it until most other options have been exhausted.</p><div class="links"><h3>Links</h3><h3><a href="https://completedeveloperpodcast.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cucGF0cmVvbi5jb20vQ29tcGxldGVEZXZlbG9wZXJQb2RjYXN0&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=4205" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Join Us On Patreon</a></h3><h3><a href="https://completedeveloperpodcast.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cubGV2ZWx1cGZpbmFuY2lhbHBsYW5uaW5nLmNvbS8%2FY2Rw&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=4205" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Level Up Financial Planning</a></h3></p></div></div> <img src="https://completedeveloperpodcast.com/?feed-stats-post-id=4205" width="1" height="1" style="display: none;" /><p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://completedeveloperpodcast.com/database-sharding/">Database Sharding</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://completedeveloperpodcast.com">Complete Developer Podcast</a>.</p><br /><hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>

Database Sharding

<description>&lt;div class="shownotes"&gt;&lt;p&gt;Effective communication is a vital aspect of any organization or team's success, and one tool that has been proven to be very useful is the Four Square Report. This report is a simple and effective way to communicate information about a project or task to a team or stakeholders. It was originally developed by the U.S. military to help soldiers communicate critical information in a clear and concise manner, and has since been adopted by many organizations and industries.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;4 square reports were refined by the construction industry and have since been adapted to fit the needs of software development teams. The reports are based on the idea of breaking down progress and issues into four categories: achievements, roadblocks, plans, and risks. By providing updates on these four areas, the entire team can quickly understand what has been accomplished, what challenges are being faced, what the plans are moving forward, and what potential risks may arise.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The effectiveness of 4 square reports lies in their simplicity and clarity. They are quick to create and easy to read, making them ideal for agile development teams that need to keep pace with fast-moving projects. Additionally, by regularly updating the reports, everyone on the team can stay up-to-date on progress and potential issues, allowing for early identification and resolution of problems.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The 4 Square Report is a versatile tool that can be used in a variety of situations to help with decision-making and project planning. By considering four key aspects of a project or decision and filling out a simple, visual report, you can gain valuable insights and make informed choices. Remember to identify the most important aspects, be thorough and objective, use the report for collaboration, and revisit it regularly. By using the 4 Square Report effectively, you can increase the chances of success for your projects and decisions, and learn valuable lessons for the future.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class="links"&gt;&lt;h3&gt;Links&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;h3&gt;&lt;a href="https://completedeveloperpodcast.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cucGF0cmVvbi5jb20vQ29tcGxldGVEZXZlbG9wZXJQb2RjYXN0&amp;#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=4199" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"&gt;Join Us On Patreon&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;h3&gt;&lt;a href="https://completedeveloperpodcast.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cubGV2ZWx1cGZpbmFuY2lhbHBsYW5uaW5nLmNvbS8%2FY2Rw&amp;#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=4199" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"&gt;Level Up Financial Planning&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt; &lt;img src="https://completedeveloperpodcast.com/?feed-stats-post-id=4199" width="1" height="1" style="display: none;" /&gt;&lt;p&gt;The post &lt;a rel="nofollow" href="https://completedeveloperpodcast.com/four-square-reports/"&gt;Four Square Reports&lt;/a&gt; appeared first on &lt;a rel="nofollow" href="https://completedeveloperpodcast.com"&gt;Complete Developer Podcast&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;hr&gt;&lt;p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'&gt; Hosted on Acast. See &lt;a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'&gt;acast.com/privacy&lt;/a&gt; for more information.&lt;/p&gt;</description>

Four square is more than a game for the playground. It is also an effective communication tool used to provide concise information about a project or task.Read more ›

<div class="shownotes"><p>Effective communication is a vital aspect of any organization or team's success, and one tool that has been proven to be very useful is the Four Square Report. This report is a simple and effective way to communicate information about a project or task to a team or stakeholders. It was originally developed by the U.S. military to help soldiers communicate critical information in a clear and concise manner, and has since been adopted by many organizations and industries.</p><p>4 square reports were refined by the construction industry and have since been adapted to fit the needs of software development teams. The reports are based on the idea of breaking down progress and issues into four categories: achievements, roadblocks, plans, and risks. By providing updates on these four areas, the entire team can quickly understand what has been accomplished, what challenges are being faced, what the plans are moving forward, and what potential risks may arise.</p><p>The effectiveness of 4 square reports lies in their simplicity and clarity. They are quick to create and easy to read, making them ideal for agile development teams that need to keep pace with fast-moving projects. Additionally, by regularly updating the reports, everyone on the team can stay up-to-date on progress and potential issues, allowing for early identification and resolution of problems.</p><p>The 4 Square Report is a versatile tool that can be used in a variety of situations to help with decision-making and project planning. By considering four key aspects of a project or decision and filling out a simple, visual report, you can gain valuable insights and make informed choices. Remember to identify the most important aspects, be thorough and objective, use the report for collaboration, and revisit it regularly. By using the 4 Square Report effectively, you can increase the chances of success for your projects and decisions, and learn valuable lessons for the future.</p><div class="links"><h3>Links</h3><h3><a href="https://completedeveloperpodcast.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cucGF0cmVvbi5jb20vQ29tcGxldGVEZXZlbG9wZXJQb2RjYXN0&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=4199" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Join Us On Patreon</a></h3><h3><a href="https://completedeveloperpodcast.com/?feed-stats-url=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cubGV2ZWx1cGZpbmFuY2lhbHBsYW5uaW5nLmNvbS8%2FY2Rw&#038;feed-stats-url-post-id=4199" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Level Up Financial Planning</a></h3></p></div></div> <img src="https://completedeveloperpodcast.com/?feed-stats-post-id=4199" width="1" height="1" style="display: none;" /><p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://completedeveloperpodcast.com/four-square-reports/">Four Square Reports</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://completedeveloperpodcast.com">Complete Developer Podcast</a>.</p><br /><hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>

Four Square Reports

A podcast by coders for coders about all aspects of life as a developer.<br /><hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>

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