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Bumerangon Ask HN: Best book / resources on leadership, especially for tech teams?

Everything by Simon Sinek, but most important for me is "Leaders Eat Last" [0]. I haven't read the last one (The Infinite Game), but I've heard it's pretty good as well.

Also Extreme Ownership [1] and Dichotomy of Leadership [2] by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin.

All of these books had tremendous impact on me as a leader and I highly recommend them.

[0]: https://www.amazon.com/Leaders-Eat-Last-Together-Others/dp/B...

[1]: https://www.amazon.com/Extreme-Ownership-U-S-Navy-SEALs-eboo...

[2]: https://www.amazon.com/Dichotomy-Leadership-Balancing-Challe...

Bumerangon Ask HN: Does Scrum work?

In agile (from my perspective) you rely on constant feedback from the stakeholders (customers, Product Onwer, sponsors) and iterate on it - that's why it's crucial to have short sprints so you can contain the uncertainty and make sure you're heading in the right direction.

In the 'iterative waterfall' you usually split the work into several domains, with each iteration taking months up to a year. E.g. when implementing new core banking system, the first release could be 'move the customer masterhip into the new system'.

Sorry for misunderstanding, I meant that business processes are usually derived from the regulatory requirements, not IT processes. The following implementation is then affected by those regulations - again, in a way that limits potential differences between the desired outcome and implementation choices.

Bumerangon Ask HN: Does Scrum work?

You don't do the whole implementation at once - you usually split it into several chunks/releases and everything becomes more manageable. I am a fan of agile where it makes sense - in projects/products where you have a strong uncertainty about the actual outcome/desired product. Then agile gets you there faster and cheaper.

But what people seem to forget about is that waterfall is actually cheaper in those cases where you have a clear understanding of the needs, the end product, and actions and tasks you need to do. This is usually the case in banking - you usually have a box product you need to customize and integrate (the toughest part, and processes are pretty much set (also strongly determined by the regulatory requirements). Hence, most innovations are just automation of specific process steps.

Another thing to consider is that the people in the bank are used to work in this way, so it removes some traction and gets you up to speed faster.

Bumerangon Ask HN: Does Scrum work?

Yeah, currently working on a project implementing new core banking system via waterfall. You can still see it quite a lot in these extremely risk-averse industries (pharma, finance, insurance).

Bumerangon Ash HN: What is your must-read audiobook?

- Extreme Ownership, especially if you like military stories (although the book is about leadership). [0]

- The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, a refreshing perspective on life values. [1]

[0] https://www.audible.com/pd/Extreme-Ownership-Audiobook/B015T...

[1] https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Subtle-Art-of-Not-Giving-a-F-...

Bumerangon Ask HN: How your small pet project turned to business?

Check out https://www.indiehackers.com/products

Bumerangon Ask HN: How will the GDPR law handle tracking cookies?

The bigger impact on cookies in general will have the ePrivacy regulation [1], but it is not yet finalized.

For example, the proposal clarifies that no consent is needed for non-privacy intrusive cookies improving internet experience (e.g. to remember shopping cart history) or cookies used by a website to count the number of visitors.

[1] https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/news/proposal-...

Bumerangon Ask HN: Those starting new side projects in 2018 – Show and tell

I'm building a tool to help people with their decision making via the well known pros/cons lists.

https://dilectee.com

Bumerangon Ask HN: What's the best thing(s) you shipped in 2017?

Coming from system programming, I'm glad I made a website in a 2017 state-of-the-art fashion. React, DRF, Sass, JS... It's really great to see something you made out there in the wild, not just running somewhere in the depths of Linux.

It's a tool to help people with their decision making.

https://dilectee.com

Bumerangon Ask HN: Business opportunities for GDPR

Speaking from experience -- GDPR is a huge issue basically for everyone in the Financial sector (banks, insurance, etc.) and projects to address that started two years or one year ago. Now they are usually rolling their solution into production.

Our company is doing several GDPR consulting projects, with final delivery date around March. The interest from the companies on GDPR consulting has really decreased in the past months.

As an individual, you may consider a DPO (Data Protection Officer) role for several companies -- these are usually too small to have a dedicated person, but they need it according to GDPR. No formal education or certificates required, however you do need to know the law and technical things on a reasonable level.

Bumerangon Ask HN: If you were to do it today, what would you do?

Having exactly the same background (system programming, linux, c/c++, python, never touched Javascript nor web development) I did the very same recently.

My solution was to use Django (DRF) for REST API and React for the front-end and Zurb Foundation as UI framework. Javascript is really easy to pick up and there are plenty of tools and tutorials available out there. Used Facebook JS SDK for FB login and sharing (because it's easy and ready to go, plus FB is popular enough to make the effort worth). I also used JWT for auth and session management, just to explore it and because it seemed simple enough for my purposes. Django will solve most of the security concerns for you.

In total, took me ~4 months while working full time to wrap my head around everything and build the website + deployment (Nginx, Fabric, Celery, supervisor... all the usual stuff).

Bumerangon Ask HN: How do you name your side projects?

I choose several words describing the project and look them up in a Latin dictionary. These are already a natural sounding words, so you may tweak them a little.

Pros: the domains are almost always available, sounds classy and trustworthy

Cons: it usually doesn't describe what you do just by the name of it.

Bumerangon Ask HN: What technical skill should I learn to prepare for the next 10 Years?

Not sure if exactly technical, more like a meta-skill.

Learn how to analyse and decompose problems. There always will be some.

Bumerangon Ask HN: Were you a procrastinator and could overcome it? How did you do?

For me, the biggest problem is the start of the (boring) activity. Once I'm already in it, I can work for hours -- just the first step.

So my solution is simple. I say to myself: "I'm not gonna work on that boring thing, I'll just have a look at it." This relieves the pressure and allows me to get started. Next thing is: "Ok, so I'll just do this one little thing." Three hours later: "Shit, it's done.".

Also it helped me to write down activities I want to stop, e.g. "No HN before 5pm; No news before 5pm".

And the last thing is to remove all possible distractions. Put your phone out of your visual field, block sites, etc.

Bumerangon Ask HN: What book do you recommend everyone should read?

Fiction: The Martian - Andy Weir

Non fiction: Predictably Irrational - Dan Ariely

Bumerangon Ask HN: What is your side project?

https://dilectee.com

Site to help people with their decisions.

I created it as a way to learn web development (React, Django), since I'm coming from system programming.