All software development projects have finite resources, so they require making tradeoffs and prioritizing work. There are all kinds of ways to prioritize but without an intentional process, most organizations default to WYTL (whoever yells the loudest). Cost of delay is a way to consider the impact of time on the delivery of features and provides a way to discuss the economic impact of ordering work in different ways.

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When we’re asked when something will be done, it’s tempting to answer the question. “It’ll be done on March 32nd,” “It’ll take 182.5 days,” or “We need 15 sprints”. Whether that answer is the best-case, average, or worst-case scenario doesn’t matter.

The answer is fundamentally wrong because using a single value hides the fact that we really meant a distribution of possible dates, durations, or outcomes. The exact value is uncertain. Development may be faster or slower than we thought. What if the tech lead wins the lottery and retires? What if a global pandemic forces us to change the way we work?

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You've figured out how to split up your backend services into microservices and scale your teams to the moon, right? But what about the front end? Are you still building monoliths for your UI? If so, you might want to check out micro frontends—basically extensions to the microservices pattern, where the concept is extended to the front end.

Find out how to package and deploy your microservices and their UIs in the same artifact, as well as make it possible to test and develop them independently.

In this live session, Matt will show you how to build a microservices and micro frontends architecture using React, Spring Boot, and Spring Cloud.

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Eric Lee, a Sr Solutions Architect with AWS, will be joining us to talk about AWS DeepRacer. It is a program that introduces participants to Machine Learning through training a model used for autonomous driving vehicles. This sessions covers how to complete the model training, how the inferencing within the vehicle works, and the different ways participants can try this out.

With over 30 years experience in IT, Eric has experience ranging from global IAM infrastructure, software development shops, to global cloud architecture. He is also on the board of directors of Mental Health Hackers, where they give talks at conferences on mental health topics.

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