Toyota introduced the andon cord in their manufacturing lines to help people to stop the production line and alert the people around if an abnormal situation arises. It is a cord that hangs above the head within easy reach of any to help to immediately gather the attention of the others. While the rest of the industry was treating production line is something that never should be stopped and let quality control take care, this one put power in the hands of people on the line to take a call to improve quality by attacking the problem at its source.

The idea then widely got adopted in different forms like ‘Help’ buttons in various manufacturing sectors. It was easy to adopt in manufacturing as we can see what is going wrong and gather together to immediately fix the problem. In software development it is not obvious when to pull the andon cord and how to collect thoughts of people on what to solve.

Dev huddles are the answer to the andon cord in software development. Huddles are very common in any team sports, team members quickly huddle to celebrate a goal or discuss a plan. The team also optimises over time to communicate very effectively in fewer words and quick time.

When to call for a dev huddle?
We need to call for a dev huddle when

• Our programming has deteriorated from a flow to brute force or trial/error method. Manuals did not help to resolve and even a quick help from another team member did not help.
• We find a badly developed code and need to bring it to attention of the team when it is still fresh in mind.
• We are about to make a major change in the code base and every body needs to be aware of the incoming change so they are not surprised.

How to make sure that we don’t waste other’s time?

Team time interruption is expensive, so before calling for a dev huddle we need to make sure that we have all our show and tell pieces ready for discussion. One example is when stuck at a problem, quickly jot down the problem and the steps tried to resolve that did not work on the whiteboard in diagrams or words; then call for the huddle. If the resolution or direction is not found within 10~15 minutes, break the huddle to come and do a detailed research on the problem.

Why should dev huddles work?

Dev huddles work on the idea of crowd wisdom, the average output of a group is always higher than best individual in the group in most cases. Ideas & solutions can come from any one provided they are given a good explanation about the problem. Dev huddles also help in knowledge sharing in a terse & effective manner.