• Effective ML Teams on Thoughtworks Tech Podcast

    Effective ML Teams on Thoughtworks Tech Podcast

    I recently recorded an episode of the Thoughtworks Technology Podcast with my Effective Machine Learning Teams co-authors Ada Leung and David Tan, hosted by Scott Shaw and Ken Mugrage. The episode is number 146 – Building at the intersection of machine learning and software engineering. It was great to chat about the book and share…

  • What to expect when you weren’t expecting an R&D project

    What to expect when you weren’t expecting an R&D project

    This was supposed to be a regular digital project that consistently made progress towards the objective… right? Problem statement, some analysis, build a solution bit by bit, deploy, …, nice linear progression… but no… we were wrong! It turned out to be an R&D project. Often R&D projects change direction and sometimes seem to go…

  • EMLT Q&A

    EMLT Q&A

    A fun Q&A with Thoughtworks on the drivers, key messages and writing process for Effective Machine Learning Teams (EMLT) with my fellow authors Ada and David. It’s neat to be featured alongside all the other many great books from Thoughtworks authors. Find the book, trial and purchase options at O’Reilly, and find yourself a nice…

  • Dealing with data inventory

    Dealing with data inventory

    Data held by businesses is often described as an asset. This can be misleading or even incorrect. In any case, data managed inappropriately leaves value on the table, inflates cost, reduces responsiveness, and creates risk. Some data held by businesses would better be described as inventory. It might one day be a true asset, but…

  • EV adventuring with resilience

    EV adventuring with resilience

    Road trips are the most demanding EV use case currently in Australia, especially to remote destinations. However, a little planning shows that they are still quite doable. Did the plans survive contact with reality? Mostly. In short, it was a pleasure to drive an EV long distances and the only inconvenience was faulty public charging…

  • R&D burn up

    R&D burn up

    This article captures the key points of a conversation I have quite often with teams involved in exploratory work, and their stakeholders. Typical burn up We’re used to burn up charts looking like the examples in this description from Atlassian – a roughly horizontal scope line which we work towards with a roughly diagonal completed…

  • Effective Machine Learning Teams in print

    Effective Machine Learning Teams in print

    My book Effective Machine Learning Teams is now in print! Building ML solutions requires multi-disciplinary collaboration. EMLT shows how to use design practices to identify the right products, how to apply good data science and software engineering practices to build products right, and how to structure ML teams and organisations so that they are right…

  • EV adventuring

    EV adventuring

    Electric Vehicles (EVs) are great for weekend adventures and more. In Australia in 2024, it still requires a little extra planning, but many adventures are achievable with that little extra, and as infrastructure continues to improve, there will be ever less transport planning for ever more adventuring! For the time being, I’ll run you through…

  • Ten years of the safetydave.net blog

    Ten years of the safetydave.net blog

    This blog recently turned 10! Let’s have a brief indulgent look at the highlights. Origins Though the safetydave.net domain has a longer history (and the “Safety Dave” nickname a longer history before that), I’d been reluctant to blog about work-related topics prior to joining Thoughtworks, probably because: After a couple of years in enterprise consulting,…

  • Effective Machine Learning Teams

    Effective Machine Learning Teams

    I’m very excited to be writing a book with my colleagues David Tan and Ada Leung. The topic and title Effective Machine Learning Teams was born from our combined work on team technical and delivery practices, and wider organisational patterns, applied to developing machine learning applications. The book has two landing pages where you can…