Articles from Stepsize | AI for Software Teams

The 4-Step AI Adoption Strategy for Software Teams in 2024

There's mounting evidence that the right AI strategy unlocks substantial competitive advantages. Is your software development team ready to adopt AI?

Nick Omeyer

It's nearly 2024. Why is our Agile reporting still so poor?

Reporting on our development progress isn't revenue-generating. And it's often unproductive, tedious, and nobody actually gets value out of them. So why is Agile reporting still so poor?

9 Best-in-Class AI Tools Scrum Masters Will Need in 2024

Which are the best AI tools and software for Scrum Masters to master in 2024? Learn how to do less busy-work and have more impact. 1. Stepsize 2. Motion 3. Otter 4. Forecast 5. Hive 6. Monday 7. ClickUp 8. AudioPen 9. Quillbot

Ruth Dillon-Mansfield

10 Best AI Tools Project Managers Need to Know in 2024

I review the best AI for project managers to help get that competitive advantage in 2024. I'll discuss 1. Stepsize 2. Motion 3. Notion 4. Process Street, 5. Forecast 6. Ayanza 7. ClickUp 8. Trello 9. Asana 10. Monday

9 of the Best AI Tools for Software Developers in 2024

We've picked out 9 best-in-class AI tools and software for software developers and software engineers. 1. Stepsize 2. Cody 3. Tabnine 4. Mutable 5. Codium 6. Mintlify 7. Grit 8. WhatTheDiff 9 Bugasura

Ruth Dillon-Mansfield

Most teams are fumbling their sprint reviews

What's the challenge with sprint reviews, and why do so many antipatterns creep in? Here's why it happens, and four things we can do about it.

8 Ways to Run a Bad Sprint Review

Recognise these sprint review antipatterns? Here's what to watch out for and how to run a great sprint review that gets everyone engaged and has actionable outcomes.

Velocity Reporting Gone Wrong (And 5 Strategies to Do it Right)

Many of our standard methods and approaches to velocity reporting are getting outdated. Here are 5 strategies and tools we can use to get velocity charts and reporting right.

Ruth Dillon-Mansfield

12 Antipatterns Ruining Your Sprint Reviews

Running sprint reviews is easy, but running great ones is hard. Look out for these 12 sprint review antipatterns and learn how to run impactful sprint reviews.

The Engineering Lead's 12 Best AI Tools for 2024

2024 is just around the corner, and we have a perfect opportunity as leaders to trial and introduce the best AI tools for software development teams that are going to give us a lasting competitive advantage in 2024.

Sprint Review Vs. Sprint Retrospective – And How to Run Them

What is the difference between the Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospective Agile and Scrum ceremonies? How can we run them effectively and benefit from impactful and actionable meetings?

Ruth Dillon-Mansfield

Outgrowing Jira’s Sprint Reports? Here are 2 alternatives you should consider.

Every Scrum engineering team needs to report on sprints – but Jira's sprint reporting is leaving teams behind. Here are two options to consider if you're ready to get the benefits of better sprint reporting...

Software Engineers: 8 Best AI Tools To Level Up Your Productivity [2023]

We've made a list of 8 best-in-class AI tools and AI software for software engineers to improve productivity. We discuss Stepsize AI, Mintlify, Phind, Audiopen, Bloop, Otter, Quillbot and RegexGPT.

The 3 Simple Reporting Mistakes Most Dev Teams are Making

Every Agile software development team needs to report – often in Sprint reports or Kanban reports. But we see three common but simple mistakes regularly. Here's what they are and how to fix them.

Ruth Dillon-Mansfield

3 GenAI Tools to Eliminate Time Wastage in Engineering and Product Meetings

How can we make our product development meetings more effective and productive? I want to share three of my favourite GenAI tools that are already making a splash.

It's 2023. We can do better than Jira sprint reports

I get it – Jira's sprint reporting is out-of-the-box. But it has serious limitations which hold teams back. Here’s why – and what we can do instead.

Engineering Leads: 7 AI Productivity Tools for your Devs in 2023

Strategic adopters of AI are pulling ahead. Here are 7 best-in-class AI productivity tools for your software development team: 1. Stepsize 2. Otter 3. Mintlify 4. Phind 5. Quillbot 6. WhatTheDiff 7. RegexGPT

Ruth Dillon-Mansfield

6 Geekbot Alternatives: Comparing Async Daily Standup Software in 2023

There are some great asynchronous agile daily scrum and daily standup tools. We'll look at six excellent alternatives to Geekbot, including Stepsize, Status Hero, Dailybot, Jell, Range and Standuply.

Ruth Dillon-Mansfield

The CTO's 4-Step Guide to Adopting AI

When we successfully adopt AI, we unlock a substantial competitive advantage. Here's how I'd go about adoping AI, and go about doing it safely.

4 reasons SaaS engineering teams stall – and ways to fix them before 2023 ends

4 reasons SaaS engineering teams stall: alignment issues, technical debt, outdated tools, and failure to adopt AI. Learn how to overcome these challenges and boost productivity in your team.

Lack of alignment is silently undermining your software delivery (and how to fix it)

How does lack of alignment damage your software operations and software delivery? This article looks at strategic alignment five ways to make it happen.

Ruth Dillon-Mansfield

Engineering Leads: Equip Your Team with These 6 AI Tools Before 2023 Ends

Unlock your team's potential before 2023 ends by mastering these 6 game-changing AI tools for efficiency, speed, and a competitive edge.

You're Wasting Your Time With Your Daily Standup

Daily standups costs average-sized product engineering teams six-figure sums every year, so we sure as heck need to make them count. Here's how I think we do it.

How Stepsize Transformed Standups at OpusFlow and saved 25+ hours per week

Read about how Stepsize changed the way OpusFlow think about their daily standups to create true alignment, and saved 25+ hours per week

6 AI Tools and Software Product Managers Should Know

Discover 6 essential AI tools for product managers to optimise your workflow and decision-making. We’ll cover Motion, ClickUp, Notion, Otter and more.

Ruth Dillon-Mansfield

Dailybot Alternatives: Comparing 6 Daily Standup Tools for 2023

So, you're thinking about alternatives to Dailybot. Explore five excellent daily standup tools and daily standup alternatives including Range, Geekbot, Stepsize, Jell and Standuply.

3 ways I get my engineers to optimise their dev environment for max productivity

Boost software engineering productivity with effective IDE feature adoption, DevOps skills enhancement, improved collaboration strategies and more.

The Complete Guide to Developer Experience (DX) in 2023

What is developer experience? How can we spot a subpar developer experience, and how can we improve it? Here's the last guide you'll ever need on DX.

Ruth Dillon-Mansfield

How Stepsize AI Saved SenseHawk 50+ hours per week

Read how Stepsize AI enabled SenseHawk to win back more than fifty hours a week so they could focus on strategic work that moved the needle.

4 Forward-Thinking Strategies for CTOs to Improve Developer Productivity

I explain four strategic levers for CTOs and software engineering to improve developer productivity, ship faster and get better outcomes.

Here’s how I think AI can help developers collaborate

I consider the potential of AI to transform how developers collaborate and stay informed about the things that matter that happen around us.

Daily Standups Tools Vs Traditional Standups: The Verdict

The debate about the best way to run daily standups or daily Scrums for software development teams has plenty of nuance. I dig into the options we have for this crucial agile ceremony.

Ruth Dillon-Mansfield

How to Leverage AI to Enhance Developer Experience

Discover how AI can significantly enhance the Developer Experience (DX), boosting productivity and innovation. Learn about groundbreaking AI tools transforming software development workflows.

Comparing the 4 Best Slack Summary AI Tools

Struggle to keep up with the endless stream of Slack channels and threads? I've done a side-by-side comparison of four of the best Slack summarisation AI tools.

Your daily standup should be asynchronous. Here's why

Learn why asynchronous daily standups are beneficial for team collaboration. Explore daily standup alternatives, tools and AI to streamline updates and improve productivity.

Why is cross-functional collaboration so hard? (And how to fix it)

I explore the challenges of cross-functional collaboration and how we can overcome our human limitations to improve team synchrony, efficiency, and project success.

The 8 Best AI Tools and Software for Project Managers

Every project manager should know these smart AI tools. Improve workflow, make better decisions, gain a competitive advantage. 1. Stepsize AI. 2. Motion. 3. Notion. 4. Ayanza...

Ruth Dillon-Mansfield

7 AI Tools Every Software Developer Needs to Know [2023]

Stay ahead of the curve with awesome AI tools for software engineers. 1. Sourcegraph Cody. 2. Stepsize AI. 3. Mintlify. 4. Adrenaline. 5. Grit. 6. What The Diff. 7. Otter.

How I Prevent Burnout in Software Teams

Here are the strategies I use to prevent burnout in Agile software teams. Getting wellbeing strategies right helps improve productivity and work-life balance.

Choosing the Best Slack Summary Tool for Your Team (And 3 Top Picks)

Every team using Slack could benefit from a slack summariser. Here’s how to choose the right Slack app for your team to save time and surface insights.

The Complete Guide to Daily Standups for Agile Teams

Want to run effective, impactful daily standup meetings? This is the only guide you'll ever need. Learn how to run standups, standup strategies and avoiding pitfalls.

Ruth Dillon-Mansfield

8 Best Daily Standup Tools and Software in 2023

Discover the top 8 daily standup tools you can use in 2023. 1. Stepsize AI · 2. ClickUp · 3. Range · 4. Geekbot · 5. Jell · 6. Standuply · 7. ScrumGenius · 8. Dailybot

Ruth Dillon-Mansfield

6 Best-In-Class Slack Apps & Integrations for Software Teams

There are a tonne of Slack apps and integrations. Here are 6 of the very best Slack add-ons for software developers, from summarisation to bug tracking.

Why Extra Engineers Don't Mean Faster Development (And What Does)

Simply inflating your team doesn't guarantee quicker development. Sometimes, it can even slow you down. So how do you ship faster and improve velocity?

7 Signs of Subpar Developer Experience (and How to Improve It)

Learn how to enhance Developer Experience (DX). Spot signs of poor DX and discover solutions. Learn best practices and tools to boost developer productivity.

4 ways Scrum Masters can Leverage AI today + tool recommendations

Scrum Masters can use AI to improve their efficiency, collaboration, and project success. Learn how AI can be used to make agile project management more efficient.

How I Think AI will change Agile Project Management

How will AI transforms Agile Project Management & Scrum practices? Can we unlock better planning, collaboration, and continuous improvement?

5 Leading AI Coding Tools for Engineering Teams

Discover 5 top AI coding tools revolutionising software engineering. Enhance team efficiency, accelerate development, and stay competitive.

4 Ways to Improve Developer Experience with AI

Improve developer experience with AI-powered tools for efficient code delivery, documentation generation, and collaboration.

Ruth Dillon-Mansfield

7 Best-In-Class AI Tools Every CTO Needs to Know

Don't fall behind in the AI revolution of software engineering. Our list of the 7 best AI tools for CTOs will keep you ahead of the game.

Adapting Team Roles to AI-Driven Software Delivery

Don't let outdated practices hold you back. Discover how to prepare your organization for the future of AI-powered software delivery in our latest blog.

5 of the Best Software Estimation Techniques (and 4 to Avoid)

Software estimation techniques are vital for successful project delivery. I discuss the best techniques to ensure accurate planning and efficient delivery.

Ruth Dillon-Mansfield

How to Handle Technical Debt in Scrum

Learn how to manage technical debt in Scrum to improve code quality. Choose the right strategy to prioritise and fix tech debt and gain a competitive edge.

Ruth Dillon-Mansfield

The 4 Types of Tech Debt: With Examples and Fixes

Learn how to manage technical debt in your codebase with this guide on the 4 types of tech debt, with examples. We'll look at how to fix each type of tech debt.

How to build a culture of code quality

Learn how to build a culture of code quality to improve maintainability, scalability, and efficiency, and stay ahead of the competition.

The Engineering Leader’s Guide to Code Quality Metrics

Learn why code quality matters, the most important metrics you need to manage quality, and how to track and manage code quality issues.

How to Solve Technical Debt in 2023: A Guide for Leaders

Learn how to address technical debt in your engineering team with this comprehensive guide for leaders. Discover effective strategies and best practices to tackle tech debt head-on.

Jira Vs Stepsize: Compare Jira Alternatives in 2023

Stepsize Vs Jira comparison for project management tools for engineers. Learn the difference between Jira and Stepsize and decide which is best for your software development team.

Ruth Dillon-Mansfield

The 3 Best VS Code Extensions to Handle TODOs

As software engineers, we use TODOs and FIXMEs all the time. We've picked out the three best Visual Studio Code extensions to help you handle them.

Ruth Dillon-Mansfield

5 of the Best Jira Extensions for Engineers

Jira can be hard work for engineers. Here are 5 of the very best Jira plugins that make Jira much, much more pleasant to work with.

Ruth Dillon-Mansfield

Technical Debt: Lessons from 10 Years of Change

What can we learn from 10 years of change in software engineering, and the impact of technical debt on code quality and outcomes?

Why it’s Time to Shift Left Technical Debt

We need to talk about shifting tech debt left. Here’s how we can improve codebase health and push quality upstream by focussing on tech debt.

Ruth Dillon-Mansfield

How modern engineering teams approach refactoring

Having a great refactoring process is an integral part of software development. In this article, we outline how modern teams continuously refactor and tackle technical debt.

The Engineer’s complete guide to writing excellent internal documentation

Having internal code documentation can transform your engineering team. It allows you to capture knowledge and encourage active knowledge sharing. How should you approach internal documentation? Let’s take a look!

How to Reduce Time Spent on Refactoring?

Recently, I had to deal with an old codebase that was difficult to maintain and scale. In this article, I'll share how my team and I decided to deal with maintenance and the best practices we implemented to reduce time spent on refactoring.

The Engineer's Guide to Creating a Technical Debt Proposal

This article will guide you through the process to craft a technical debt proposal to justify the time spent solving technical issues.

How one small change allowed Terakeet to fix 70% of their technical debt

Learn how Stepsize customer Terakeet resolved 70% of their critical technical issues.

Measuring Sprint Velocity: Formulas & Mistakes to Avoid

We’re going to look at what sprint velocity is, how it can affect your development cycle, and what formulas you can use to measure sprint velocity.

Product Documentation: Types and Best Practices for Devs

Here's how to communicate new features to external users and structure product tutorials and guides.

The 3 Best Tactics to Prevent Technical Debt

The negative impact of technical debt on businesses is massive. Here are the best ways to prevent and manage technical debt that both startups and enterprise companies can implement today.

An Engineer's Guide to TODOs: How to Get Things Done

A lack of focus, lack of visibility into our codebase problems, and context switching decrease developer productivity. Here are the best ways and tools that'll help you get things done.

Developer Productivity Tools: 17 Trending Apps You Need to Try

To help you build the ultimate workflow, we went looking for the developer productivity tools that are currently trending in coding communities.

10 Must-Know Patterns for Writing Clean Code with React and TypeScript

Clean code is a reader-focused development style that improves our software quality and maintainability. Here are the 10 most important patterns that'll help you write clean code with React and TypeScript.

The Power of Code Refactoring: How to Measure Refactoring Success

Many engineering teams struggle to measure the effectiveness of their refactoring efforts. Let's look at the 5 metrics that will help you measure refactoring success.

How Arcane fixed 50% of their technical debt and improved productivity, quality, and morale

Learn how the Arcane team achieved tech debt visibility and fixed half of their codebase issues with Stepsize.

8 Top Metrics for Measuring Your Technical Debt

Technical debt metrics help you to monitor deficiencies in your current codebase. We decided to look at how they work, and pick out the best tracking tools.

Why TODOs and Jira Tickets Are not Working Anymore

Here's how you can improve your engineering team communication to transform a codebase health.

Software Engineering Best Practices That High-Performing Teams Follow

I've deliberately approached this article with broad strokes to move a little beyond the typical laundry list. Let's take a look at the software engineering best practices that high-performing teams follow.

Top 20 Web Development Learning Resources

These 20 online learning platforms will help you learn web development from beginning to advanced level and grow as a professional.

Code Review: A Comprehensive Checklist

This code review checklist will help you give actionable and valuable feedback to your peers.

How to Measure Code Quality: 7 Metrics Every Engineer Should Know

High-quality code is critical to creating functional error and bug-free software that is easy to edit and understand. But while we sometimes spot our own errors, we need to really dig a little deeper.

How To Reduce Context Switching as a Developer

Context switching prevents developers from finishing tasks quickly and getting into deep work. Let's look at how to avoid constant context switching to improve your productivity.

Browse & Interact with Issues Directly from the Editor

See how to browse, upvote, and mark issues as resolved directly in your editor.

Start Reducing Technical Debt with Stepsize

Here is how to get started with Stepsize to reduce your technical debt in 3 simple steps.

Stepsize vs Code Quality Tools

Stepsize is a powerful tool that helps Engineering teams fight technical debt and improve their codebase health. Here is how it's different from the code quality analysis tools.

5 Best Project Management Tools You Need to Try in 2022

Sprint planning meetings of old consisted of a whiteboard, marker, and post-it notes. But these days, digital tools have emerged that make planning more effective, leading to a more successful sprint.

How to Run an Effective Sprint Planning Meeting + Tips to Plan Technical Debt Work

I want to offer practical strategies to make planning a Sprint less painful so that you feel organised rather than overwhelmed, and give tips on how to include technical debt work into your sprint.

When Should I Refactor Code and How to Get Buy-in for Refactoring?

Let's take a look at when you should consider refactoring your codebase and how to convince your management to spend time on refactoring and technical debt.

JetBrains Plugin & Linking Code to Issues

This month marks the release of a major update to our JetBrains IDE plugins — and we do mean major! We've rebuilt it from the ground up to leverage new JetBrains APIs and bring you the features we introduced in VSCode recently.

Can Low-Code Really Solve the Problem of Technical Debt?

Software vendors are presenting a plethora of low-code software solutions to reduce the mundanity of software development. But, what are their actual advantages, how can they reduce, and also cause technical debt?

The Engineer's Complete Guide to Legacy Code

In this guide, you'll learn what is legacy code, its characteristics, tools and the best practices for working effectively with legacy code and technical debt.

4 Most Important Metrics For Engineering Team Performance

What’s the overall performance of your engineering team? It's a question many development teams can’t answer. Let’s look at how we can improve your team’s performance.

Snyk Delivers the Highest Quality Software Using Stepsize to Prioritise Technical Debt

The Snyk team aspires to ship flawless software at the highest pace possible while keeping their engineers happy. To do that, they turned to Stepsize and built an effective process to manage technical debt.

The Engineer’s Guide to Writing Meaningful Code Comments

Great code commenting practices don't just benefit engineers. They boost code quality and fight tech debt. So what are the types of code comments, and when and how should we write them?

Developers Share How They Prevent and Manage Technical Debt (Part 2)

Developers deal with technical debt every day, and they know how to prevent and manage it better than anyone else. Here’s just some of what they had to say.

Bookmark Code, Create Issues from VSCode, See Your Team's Activity

This month we've created a new homepage for your team in the web app and completely rebuilt our VSCode extension (JetBrains IDEs are up next 🛠).

Developers Share Technical Debt Horror Stories (Part 1)

There’s plenty of jokes around technical debt, but what happens when companies leave it to languish? I asked a bunch of developers to share some of their horror stories of technical debt.

4 Ways You Can Organise Your TODOs as a Software Engineer

TODOs has been a great organisational tool for decades. It’s a simple method to manage your work and remind us of unfinished tasks. Here are the 4 best ways to organise your TODOs.

How to Refactor Code in Visual Studio Code

This article looks at how you can refactor your code using Visual Studio Code (VS Code) and Visual Studio Code plugins.

What Do You Need to Know about Software Maintenance Types as an Engineer

Software developers need to constantly nurture their product to enhance its functionality. This is achieved through software maintenance.

The 4-Step AI Adoption Strategy for Software Teams in 2024

There's mounting evidence that the right AI strategy unlocks substantial competitive advantages. Is your software development team ready to adopt AI?

It's nearly 2024. Why is our Agile reporting still so poor?

Reporting on our development progress isn't revenue-generating. And it's often unproductive, tedious, and nobody actually gets value out of them. So why is Agile reporting still so poor?

9 Best-in-Class AI Tools Scrum Masters Will Need in 2024

Ruth Dillon-Mansfield

10 Best AI Tools Project Managers Need to Know in 2024

9 of the Best AI Tools for Software Developers in 2024

Ruth Dillon-Mansfield

Most teams are fumbling their sprint reviews

What's the challenge with sprint reviews, and why do so many antipatterns creep in? Here's why it happens, and four things we can do about it.

8 Ways to Run a Bad Sprint Review

Recognise these sprint review antipatterns? Here's what to watch out for and how to run a great sprint review that gets everyone engaged and has actionable outcomes.

Velocity Reporting Gone Wrong (And 5 Strategies to Do it Right)

Many of our standard methods and approaches to velocity reporting are getting outdated. Here are 5 strategies and tools we can use to get velocity charts and reporting right.

Ruth Dillon-Mansfield

12 Antipatterns Ruining Your Sprint Reviews

Running sprint reviews is easy, but running great ones is hard. Look out for these 12 sprint review antipatterns and learn how to run impactful sprint reviews.

The Engineering Lead's 12 Best AI Tools for 2024

Sprint Review Vs. Sprint Retrospective – And How to Run Them

What is the difference between the Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospective Agile and Scrum ceremonies? How can we run them effectively and benefit from impactful and actionable meetings?

Ruth Dillon-Mansfield

Outgrowing Jira’s Sprint Reports? Here are 2 alternatives you should consider.

Software Engineers: 8 Best AI Tools To Level Up Your Productivity [2023]

We've made a list of 8 best-in-class AI tools and AI software for software engineers to improve productivity. We discuss Stepsize AI, Mintlify, Phind, Audiopen, Bloop, Otter, Quillbot and RegexGPT.

The 3 Simple Reporting Mistakes Most Dev Teams are Making

Every Agile software development team needs to report – often in Sprint reports or Kanban reports. But we see three common but simple mistakes regularly. Here's what they are and how to fix them.

Ruth Dillon-Mansfield

3 GenAI Tools to Eliminate Time Wastage in Engineering and Product Meetings

How can we make our product development meetings more effective and productive? I want to share three of my favourite GenAI tools that are already making a splash.

It's 2023. We can do better than Jira sprint reports

I get it – Jira's sprint reporting is out-of-the-box. But it has serious limitations which hold teams back. Here’s why – and what we can do instead.

Engineering Leads: 7 AI Productivity Tools for your Devs in 2023

Ruth Dillon-Mansfield

6 Geekbot Alternatives: Comparing Async Daily Standup Software in 2023

There are some great asynchronous agile daily scrum and daily standup tools. We'll look at six excellent alternatives to Geekbot, including Stepsize, Status Hero, Dailybot, Jell, Range and Standuply.

Ruth Dillon-Mansfield

The CTO's 4-Step Guide to Adopting AI

When we successfully adopt AI, we unlock a substantial competitive advantage. Here's how I'd go about adoping AI, and go about doing it safely.

4 reasons SaaS engineering teams stall – and ways to fix them before 2023 ends

4 reasons SaaS engineering teams stall: alignment issues, technical debt, outdated tools, and failure to adopt AI. Learn how to overcome these challenges and boost productivity in your team.

Lack of alignment is silently undermining your software delivery (and how to fix it)

How does lack of alignment damage your software operations and software delivery? This article looks at strategic alignment five ways to make it happen.

Ruth Dillon-Mansfield

Engineering Leads: Equip Your Team with These 6 AI Tools Before 2023 Ends

Unlock your team's potential before 2023 ends by mastering these 6 game-changing AI tools for efficiency, speed, and a competitive edge.

You're Wasting Your Time With Your Daily Standup

Daily standups costs average-sized product engineering teams six-figure sums every year, so we sure as heck need to make them count. Here's how I think we do it.

How Stepsize Transformed Standups at OpusFlow and saved 25+ hours per week

Read about how Stepsize changed the way OpusFlow think about their daily standups to create true alignment, and saved 25+ hours per week

6 AI Tools and Software Product Managers Should Know

Discover 6 essential AI tools for product managers to optimise your workflow and decision-making. We’ll cover Motion, ClickUp, Notion, Otter and more.

Ruth Dillon-Mansfield

Dailybot Alternatives: Comparing 6 Daily Standup Tools for 2023

So, you're thinking about alternatives to Dailybot. Explore five excellent daily standup tools and daily standup alternatives including Range, Geekbot, Stepsize, Jell and Standuply.

3 ways I get my engineers to optimise their dev environment for max productivity

Boost software engineering productivity with effective IDE feature adoption, DevOps skills enhancement, improved collaboration strategies and more.

How Stepsize AI Saved SenseHawk 50+ hours per week

Read how Stepsize AI enabled SenseHawk to win back more than fifty hours a week so they could focus on strategic work that moved the needle.

4 Forward-Thinking Strategies for CTOs to Improve Developer Productivity

I explain four strategic levers for CTOs and software engineering to improve developer productivity, ship faster and get better outcomes.

Here’s how I think AI can help developers collaborate

I consider the potential of AI to transform how developers collaborate and stay informed about the things that matter that happen around us.

Daily Standups Tools Vs Traditional Standups: The Verdict

The debate about the best way to run daily standups or daily Scrums for software development teams has plenty of nuance. I dig into the options we have for this crucial agile ceremony.

Ruth Dillon-Mansfield

How to Leverage AI to Enhance Developer Experience

Discover how AI can significantly enhance the Developer Experience (DX), boosting productivity and innovation. Learn about groundbreaking AI tools transforming software development workflows.

Comparing the 4 Best Slack Summary AI Tools

Struggle to keep up with the endless stream of Slack channels and threads? I've done a side-by-side comparison of four of the best Slack summarisation AI tools.

Your daily standup should be asynchronous. Here's why

Learn why asynchronous daily standups are beneficial for team collaboration. Explore daily standup alternatives, tools and AI to streamline updates and improve productivity.

Why is cross-functional collaboration so hard? (And how to fix it)

I explore the challenges of cross-functional collaboration and how we can overcome our human limitations to improve team synchrony, efficiency, and project success.

The 8 Best AI Tools and Software for Project Managers

Every project manager should know these smart AI tools. Improve workflow, make better decisions, gain a competitive advantage. 1. Stepsize AI. 2. Motion. 3. Notion. 4. Ayanza...

Ruth Dillon-Mansfield

7 AI Tools Every Software Developer Needs to Know [2023]

Stay ahead of the curve with awesome AI tools for software engineers. 1. Sourcegraph Cody. 2. Stepsize AI. 3. Mintlify. 4. Adrenaline. 5. Grit. 6. What The Diff. 7. Otter.

How I Prevent Burnout in Software Teams

Here are the strategies I use to prevent burnout in Agile software teams. Getting wellbeing strategies right helps improve productivity and work-life balance.

Choosing the Best Slack Summary Tool for Your Team (And 3 Top Picks)

Every team using Slack could benefit from a slack summariser. Here’s how to choose the right Slack app for your team to save time and surface insights.

The Complete Guide to Daily Standups for Agile Teams

Want to run effective, impactful daily standup meetings? This is the only guide you'll ever need. Learn how to run standups, standup strategies and avoiding pitfalls.

Ruth Dillon-Mansfield

8 Best Daily Standup Tools and Software in 2023

Discover the top 8 daily standup tools you can use in 2023. 1. Stepsize AI · 2. ClickUp · 3. Range · 4. Geekbot · 5. Jell · 6. Standuply · 7. ScrumGenius · 8. Dailybot

Ruth Dillon-Mansfield

6 Best-In-Class Slack Apps & Integrations for Software Teams

There are a tonne of Slack apps and integrations. Here are 6 of the very best Slack add-ons for software developers, from summarisation to bug tracking.

Why Extra Engineers Don't Mean Faster Development (And What Does)

Simply inflating your team doesn't guarantee quicker development. Sometimes, it can even slow you down. So how do you ship faster and improve velocity?

7 Signs of Subpar Developer Experience (and How to Improve It)

Learn how to enhance Developer Experience (DX). Spot signs of poor DX and discover solutions. Learn best practices and tools to boost developer productivity.

4 ways Scrum Masters can Leverage AI today + tool recommendations

Scrum Masters can use AI to improve their efficiency, collaboration, and project success. Learn how AI can be used to make agile project management more efficient.

How I Think AI will change Agile Project Management

How will AI transforms Agile Project Management & Scrum practices? Can we unlock better planning, collaboration, and continuous improvement?

5 Leading AI Coding Tools for Engineering Teams

Discover 5 top AI coding tools revolutionising software engineering. Enhance team efficiency, accelerate development, and stay competitive.

4 Ways to Improve Developer Experience with AI

Improve developer experience with AI-powered tools for efficient code delivery, documentation generation, and collaboration.

Ruth Dillon-Mansfield

7 Best-In-Class AI Tools Every CTO Needs to Know

Don't fall behind in the AI revolution of software engineering. Our list of the 7 best AI tools for CTOs will keep you ahead of the game.

Adapting Team Roles to AI-Driven Software Delivery

Don't let outdated practices hold you back. Discover how to prepare your organization for the future of AI-powered software delivery in our latest blog.

5 of the Best Software Estimation Techniques (and 4 to Avoid)

Software estimation techniques are vital for successful project delivery. I discuss the best techniques to ensure accurate planning and efficient delivery.

Ruth Dillon-Mansfield

How to Handle Technical Debt in Scrum

Learn how to manage technical debt in Scrum to improve code quality. Choose the right strategy to prioritise and fix tech debt and gain a competitive edge.

Ruth Dillon-Mansfield

The 4 Types of Tech Debt: With Examples and Fixes

Learn how to manage technical debt in your codebase with this guide on the 4 types of tech debt, with examples. We'll look at how to fix each type of tech debt.

How to build a culture of code quality

Learn how to build a culture of code quality to improve maintainability, scalability, and efficiency, and stay ahead of the competition.

Jira Vs Stepsize: Compare Jira Alternatives in 2023

Stepsize Vs Jira comparison for project management tools for engineers. Learn the difference between Jira and Stepsize and decide which is best for your software development team.

Ruth Dillon-Mansfield

The 3 Best VS Code Extensions to Handle TODOs

As software engineers, we use TODOs and FIXMEs all the time. We've picked out the three best Visual Studio Code extensions to help you handle them.

Ruth Dillon-Mansfield

5 of the Best Jira Extensions for Engineers

Jira can be hard work for engineers. Here are 5 of the very best Jira plugins that make Jira much, much more pleasant to work with.

Ruth Dillon-Mansfield

Technical Debt: Lessons from 10 Years of Change

What can we learn from 10 years of change in software engineering, and the impact of technical debt on code quality and outcomes?

Why it’s Time to Shift Left Technical Debt

We need to talk about shifting tech debt left. Here’s how we can improve codebase health and push quality upstream by focussing on tech debt.

Ruth Dillon-Mansfield

How modern engineering teams approach refactoring

Having a great refactoring process is an integral part of software development. In this article, we outline how modern teams continuously refactor and tackle technical debt.

How to Reduce Time Spent on Refactoring?

The Engineer's Guide to Creating a Technical Debt Proposal

This article will guide you through the process to craft a technical debt proposal to justify the time spent solving technical issues.

How one small change allowed Terakeet to fix 70% of their technical debt

Learn how Stepsize customer Terakeet resolved 70% of their critical technical issues.

Measuring Sprint Velocity: Formulas & Mistakes to Avoid

We’re going to look at what sprint velocity is, how it can affect your development cycle, and what formulas you can use to measure sprint velocity.

Product Documentation: Types and Best Practices for Devs

Here's how to communicate new features to external users and structure product tutorials and guides.

The 3 Best Tactics to Prevent Technical Debt

The negative impact of technical debt on businesses is massive. Here are the best ways to prevent and manage technical debt that both startups and enterprise companies can implement today.

An Engineer's Guide to TODOs: How to Get Things Done

A lack of focus, lack of visibility into our codebase problems, and context switching decrease developer productivity. Here are the best ways and tools that'll help you get things done.

Developer Productivity Tools: 17 Trending Apps You Need to Try

To help you build the ultimate workflow, we went looking for the developer productivity tools that are currently trending in coding communities.

10 Must-Know Patterns for Writing Clean Code with React and TypeScript

The Power of Code Refactoring: How to Measure Refactoring Success

Many engineering teams struggle to measure the effectiveness of their refactoring efforts. Let's look at the 5 metrics that will help you measure refactoring success.

How Arcane fixed 50% of their technical debt and improved productivity, quality, and morale

Learn how the Arcane team achieved tech debt visibility and fixed half of their codebase issues with Stepsize.

8 Top Metrics for Measuring Your Technical Debt

Technical debt metrics help you to monitor deficiencies in your current codebase. We decided to look at how they work, and pick out the best tracking tools.

Why TODOs and Jira Tickets Are not Working Anymore

Here's how you can improve your engineering team communication to transform a codebase health.

Software Engineering Best Practices That High-Performing Teams Follow

Top 20 Web Development Learning Resources

These 20 online learning platforms will help you learn web development from beginning to advanced level and grow as a professional.

Code Review: A Comprehensive Checklist

This code review checklist will help you give actionable and valuable feedback to your peers.

How to Measure Code Quality: 7 Metrics Every Engineer Should Know

How To Reduce Context Switching as a Developer

Context switching prevents developers from finishing tasks quickly and getting into deep work. Let's look at how to avoid constant context switching to improve your productivity.

Stepsize vs Code Quality Tools

Stepsize is a powerful tool that helps Engineering teams fight technical debt and improve their codebase health. Here is how it's different from the code quality analysis tools.

5 Best Project Management Tools You Need to Try in 2022

How to Run an Effective Sprint Planning Meeting + Tips to Plan Technical Debt Work

I want to offer practical strategies to make planning a Sprint less painful so that you feel organised rather than overwhelmed, and give tips on how to include technical debt work into your sprint.

When Should I Refactor Code and How to Get Buy-in for Refactoring?

Let's take a look at when you should consider refactoring your codebase and how to convince your management to spend time on refactoring and technical debt.

Can Low-Code Really Solve the Problem of Technical Debt?

4 Most Important Metrics For Engineering Team Performance

What’s the overall performance of your engineering team? It's a question many development teams can’t answer. Let’s look at how we can improve your team’s performance.

Snyk Delivers the Highest Quality Software Using Stepsize to Prioritise Technical Debt

Developers Share How They Prevent and Manage Technical Debt (Part 2)

Developers deal with technical debt every day, and they know how to prevent and manage it better than anyone else. Here’s just some of what they had to say.

Developers Share Technical Debt Horror Stories (Part 1)

There’s plenty of jokes around technical debt, but what happens when companies leave it to languish? I asked a bunch of developers to share some of their horror stories of technical debt.

4 Ways You Can Organise Your TODOs as a Software Engineer

TODOs has been a great organisational tool for decades. It’s a simple method to manage your work and remind us of unfinished tasks. Here are the 4 best ways to organise your TODOs.

How to Refactor Code in Visual Studio Code

This article looks at how you can refactor your code using Visual Studio Code (VS Code) and Visual Studio Code plugins.

What Do You Need to Know about Software Maintenance Types as an Engineer

Software developers need to constantly nurture their product to enhance its functionality. This is achieved through software maintenance.

How to Prioritise Your Product Backlog

Every person in your company probably has a different opinion about what's the company's biggest priority. But which project should be prioritised? Fortunately, there are great methods to help you prioritise your product backlog.

What Lies Beneath Hard Work: Code Churn

What is code churn, how to measure it, and what insights can it provide about your code quality and team performance? Learn in this article.

How to Maintain a Healthy Codebase while Shipping Fast

We're used to thinking that you cannot deliver fast and maintain a healthy codebase. But does it really have to be a trade-off?

Technical Debt: An Interview with Adam Tornhill

Last week we hosted a webinar where Alex Omeyer interviewed Adam Tornhill about technical debt: what is it, why is it important, and how to manage it effectively.

Calculate The Cost Of Your Technical Debt

The technical debt calculator will tell you how much your company spends on technical debt each year.

Tools to Track and Manage Technical Debt

If you are looking for a tool to start managing technical debt this article will help you make the right decision. We will look at the tools to track small, medium, and large pieces of debt and the process to reduce technical debt.

Technical Debt Horror Stories

Here is our collection of the scariest and the most entertaining tech debt stories.

How Product Managers Can Help Reduce Technical Debt

Learn 7 actionable strategies that will help you prevent and respond to technical debt.

6 Reasons to Start Managing Technical Debt in 2021

Setting your 2021 business goals? Here are 6 reasons why managing technical debt should be part of your plan.

The Cost of Technical Debt

How much does technical debt cost your company? Let's look at what the research says about the real cost of technical debt.

On-Demand Webinar: Technical Debt with Adam Tornhill and Alex Omeyer

In this Ask Me Anything webinar, we discussed some of the most common & controversial topics around technical debt together with the two technical debt rockstars: Adam Tornhill and Alex Omeyer.

On-Demand Webinar: How to Prioritize Technical Debt as a Product Manager

In this webinar, we discuss the most practical way of prioritizing technical debt.

The Complete Guide to Developer Experience (DX) in 2023

What is developer experience? How can we spot a subpar developer experience, and how can we improve it? Here's the last guide you'll ever need on DX.

Ruth Dillon-Mansfield

The Engineering Leader’s Guide to Code Quality Metrics

Learn why code quality matters, the most important metrics you need to manage quality, and how to track and manage code quality issues.

How to Solve Technical Debt in 2023: A Guide for Leaders

Learn how to address technical debt in your engineering team with this comprehensive guide for leaders. Discover effective strategies and best practices to tackle tech debt head-on.

The Engineer’s complete guide to writing excellent internal documentation

The Engineer's Complete Guide to Legacy Code

In this guide, you'll learn what is legacy code, its characteristics, tools and the best practices for working effectively with legacy code and technical debt.

The Engineer’s Guide to Writing Meaningful Code Comments

Great code commenting practices don't just benefit engineers. They boost code quality and fight tech debt. So what are the types of code comments, and when and how should we write them?

The Engineer’s Complete Guide to Code Quality

There are lots of ways you can improve your code quality, make it easier to review and test and reduce the pain later of having to fix all of the errors. Let's take a look.

The Engineer’s Complete Guide to Improving Velocity

In this article, you’ll learn what velocity means in the context of an agile/scrum methodology and how you can improve it to allow your team to move faster and ship more stuff.

The Complete Engineer's Guide to Code Refactoring

In this guide, you’ll learn all about refactoring source code: the benefits, challenges, tools, and best practices, and what is the difference between refactoring and technical debt.

The Engineer's Complete Guide to Backlog Grooming

Without organisation, backlog gets messy quickly and issues can’t be prioritised. Let's look at how Engineers, Product Managers, and the rest of the team members can work together to keep tasks organised.

The Engineer’s Complete Guide to Technical Debt

In this guide, you’ll learn how to prevent, fix and manage tech debt. Understand types of tech debt, the cost of tech debt, key metrics and tech debt tools.