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Trunk-Based Thierry (they/them)

@tdpauw.bsky.social

772 followers 112 following 677 posts

most outspoken shy & introverted engineer 🙌 💪 former electromechanical engineer ⚙️ consulting CTO 🤵 founder thinkinglabs.io

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Trunk-Based Thierry (they/them) @tdpauw.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

But compliance! A welcome justification for superfluous gates and the go-to excuse for embarrassingly long delivery delays. Compliance *is* an excellent foundation for better quality, faster delivery, and accelerated feedback. Published: Continuous Compliance thinkinglabs.io/articles/202...

thinkinglabs.io

Continuous Compliance

Trunk-Based Thierry (they/them) @tdpauw.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

By the way, part 3 - Mechanics: The Mathematical & Geometrical Shades has also been published. #conwayslaw thinkinglabs.io/articles/202...

thinkinglabs.io

Beyond the Shades of Conway's Law - Mechanics: The Mathematical & Geometrical Shades

Trunk-Based Thierry (they/them) @tdpauw.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Debunking the Inverse Conway's Manoeuvre ... It has its merits for greenfield systems. However, it often fails for mature systems. Here's part 4 of Beyond the Shades of Conway's Law - Strategy: Reversing the Law #conwaysLaw thinkinglabs.io/articles/202...

thinkinglabs.io

Beyond the Shades of Conway's Law - Strategy: Reversing the Law

Trunk-Based Thierry (they/them) @tdpauw.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Published my notes on @trond.hjorteland.com 2022 #KanDDDinsky talk "Thriving in Complexity" in preparation for the upcoming part 4 of Beyond the Shades of Conway's Law. /cc @kandddinsky.bsky.social thinkinglabs.io/notes/2026/0...

thinkinglabs.io

Thriving in complexity

Trunk-Based Thierry (they/them) @tdpauw.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

The high of #ndcoslo Daughter is now lying on the ground laughing 😆

Trunk-Based Thierry (they/them) @tdpauw.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Non-Blocking Continuous Code Reviews - a Case Study The slide deck of my talk of yesterday at #ndcoslo thinkinglabs.io/talks/2024/0...

thinkinglabs.io

Non-Blocking Continuous Code Reviews - a Case Study

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Dr Abeba Birhane @abeba.blacksky.app · 19/08/2026

i don’t want “accelerated”, “increased-speed” or “fast-paced” research. in fact, am not interested in any shortcuts to mindful, intentional, and slow science

Trunk-Based Thierry (they/them) @tdpauw.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

Non-Blocking Code Reviews at #AgileOnTheBeach2026 The slides are available online. Thank you all for the lovely feedback. It’s been delightful ☺️ thinkinglabs.io/talks/2024/0...

thinkinglabs.io

Non-Blocking Continuous Code Reviews - a Case Study

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Gerald Benischke @beny23.github.io · 02/07/2026

@tdpauw.bsky.social is next up at #AgileOnTheBeach2026 talking about non blocking code reviews. Why are we doing it anyway? 1/n

Code reviews why slide?

Good reasons slide

Trunk-Based Thierry (they/them) @tdpauw.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

On my way to Agile in the Beach #AOTB Second time since 2020. Tomorrow I’m presenting a case on non-blocking code reviews. agileonthebeach.com

agileonthebeach.com

Agile on the Beach |

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Trond Hjorteland @trond.hjorteland.com · 22/06/2026

"To conclude, the tech industry spent decades trying to fix management processes, only to realise they were fighting a losing battle against the structural gravity of Conway’s Law and its implications on innovation and market leadership. Mediocrity is the default. Success is optional. Just saying …"

Trunk-Based Thierry (they/them) @tdpauw.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

Is Conway's Law just a hunch? Or is it a law? Conway didn't provide a proof in 1968. But decades later, academic research confirms the hypothesis. Part 2 of "Beyond the Shades of Conway's Law" has been published. Validation: The Research & Reality Check thinkinglabs.io/articles/202...

thinkinglabs.io

Beyond the Shades of Conway's Law - Validation: The Research & Reality Check

Trunk-Based Thierry (they/them) @tdpauw.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

Published: Beyond the Shades of Conway's Law - Foundations: The Origin & The Mirroring Principle How the communities of Product Design and Organisation Design independently made similar observations to Conway's Law, introducing The Mirroring Principle. thinkinglabs.io/articles/202...

thinkinglabs.io

Beyond the Shades of Conway's Law - Foundations: The Origin & The Mirroring Principle

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Ian Coldwater 🧊🚫 @lookitup.baby · 30/05/2026

I regularly have people ask me about Mythos these days, so here are my thoughts: Finding bugs is never the hard part. Fixing them is. How’s your organizational alignment? Are your engineers burned out? How is your production resilience? Before you worry about the new shiny, focus on your basics

Trunk-Based Thierry (they/them) @tdpauw.bsky.social · 24/04/2026

I'm starting a new series on Conway's Law 🙈 Published: Beyond the Shades of Conway's Law What started as merely note-taking in the form of "Shades of Conway's Law" became a talk, with additional reading, research, and more connections. This is work in progress 😅 thinkinglabs.io/articles/202...

thinkinglabs.io

Beyond the Shades of Conway's Law

Trunk-Based Thierry (they/them) @tdpauw.bsky.social · 12/04/2026

Published: Don’t Let AI Invert The Testing Pyramid AI has not changed a single thing about the mechanics of software delivery. The fundamental principles, including the Testing Pyramid, are still valid and necessary. thinkinglabs.io/articles/202...

thinkinglabs.io

Don’t Let AI Invert The Testing Pyramid

Trunk-Based Thierry (they/them) @tdpauw.bsky.social · 09/03/2026

Revisiting @stevesmithtech.bsky.social's Continuous Delivery patterns. some good patterns to abstract away app technology from the pipeline www.stevesmith.tech/blog/tag/pat...

stevesmith.tech

Pattern – Steve Smith

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Jason Gorman @jasongorman.bsky.social · 11/02/2026

And I can fit XP inside pretty much any less iterative methodology. Sure, we'll give you a detailed architecture plan. * starts reverse-engineering releases into a UML model *

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Jason Gorman @jasongorman.bsky.social · 11/02/2026

Two reasons: 1. I didn't want to spend 2-3 decades sitting in meetings, and b. It's in the inner feedback loops when changes tend to have the most leverage. I can "Agile" your team at a fraction of the cost of trying to "Agile" your boss.

Trunk-Based Thierry (they/them) @tdpauw.bsky.social · 27/01/2026

But, compliance! Somehow, a welcome justification for all the superfluous gates in our software delivery process, and to embarrassingly uphold the unreasonable delays. (1/3)

Trunk-Based Thierry (they/them) @tdpauw.bsky.social · 25/01/2026

I will be speaking at @fosdem.org in the Testing and Continuous Delivery dev room next weekend. Non-Blocking Continuous Code Reviews at 12:05 on Sunday First time speaking at FOSDEM fosdem.org/2026/schedul...

FOSDEM 2026 - Non-Blocking Continuous Code Reviews

Trunk-Based Thierry (they/them) @tdpauw.bsky.social · 16/01/2026

Published: Coping Mechanisms for Introverts thinkinglabs.io/articles/202...

thinkinglabs.io

Coping Mechanisms for Introverts

Trunk-Based Thierry (they/them) @tdpauw.bsky.social · 14/01/2026

A while back, someone attempted to make the case for code reviews as a better alternative to sharing knowledge over Pair Programming. The main arguments put forward were economics, poor feedback and least-common-denominator performance. Let me debunk that 🚀 thinkinglabs.io/articles/202...

thinkinglabs.io

On the Effectiveness of Pair Programming

Trunk-Based Thierry (they/them) @tdpauw.bsky.social · 09/01/2026

Published: What is Continuous Delivery? It takes nine principles, one heuristic, three foundations, one pattern and three practices to practice truly Continuous Delivery. thinkinglabs.io/articles/202...

thinkinglabs.io

What is Continuous Delivery?

Trunk-Based Thierry (they/them) @tdpauw.bsky.social · 29/12/2025

Let's talk about failed IT projects ... Remember how agile methodologies were introduced to exactly counter that. You would think that failed IT projects are a thing of the past. Hell not! Good article on the state of IT in 2025. It's not pretty! (credit DORA) spectrum.ieee.org/it-managemen...

spectrum.ieee.org

Trillions Spent and Big Software Projects Are Still Failing

Why do software failures persist despite soaring IT budgets? Dive into the complexities that keep success elusive.

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Jason Gorman @jasongorman.bsky.social · 28/11/2025

If you asked me to characterise software development in its essence, I'd say it's a process of reducing uncertainty. Otherwise known as "learning". codemanship.wordpress.com/2025/11/28/w...

codemanship.wordpress.com

We Don’t Out-Deliver The Competition. We Outlearn them.

I’ve long considered software development as a process of removing uncertainty. The customer asks us for “Instagram, but for cats” – which could have infinite possible inter…

Trunk-Based Thierry (they/them) @tdpauw.bsky.social · 27/11/2025

The art and skills for delivering software in much more smaller incremental steps were lost with the global adoption of Pull Requests.

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Peter Hilton @hilton.org.uk · 13/11/2025

There’s also the other way around, where management says they tried OKRs and found that they ‘don’t work’, so you can’t introduce them. So you agree, and instead talk to the team about your ‘goals’ and ‘success measures’ 😶

Trunk-Based Thierry (they/them) @tdpauw.bsky.social · 12/11/2025

OKRs is like Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery. Everybody says they do it. But in reality don’t🤷

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João Proença @jrosaproenca.bsky.social · 16/10/2025

I’ve heard @tdpauw.bsky.social talk about this before, and it clicked instantly — totally agree. But every time I share this idea, people look at me like I’ve just declared code reviews are a myth from ancient folklore. 😂

Trunk-Based Thierry (they/them) @tdpauw.bsky.social · 17/10/2025

Slack channels are a good indicator of silos in an organisation 🤷

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Gitte Klitgaard @nativewired.com · 01/10/2025

“Anyone who believes code reviews catch bugs, believes in fairytales” Automated and exploratory tests catches bugs… Code reviews help lower the risk that we release low quality code. @tdpauw.bsky.social #agilecam

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Gitte Klitgaard @nativewired.com · 01/10/2025

What code reviews should not be: * Ways to exercise power - it should be true peer reviews * Done by seniors missing mentoring skills * blaming or harming * a miserable experience * gate keeping (gates introduce delays) * a must @tdpauw.bsky.social #agilecam

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Gitte Klitgaard @nativewired.com · 09/10/2025

It was two days of interesting talks and workshops, where three stood out to me: First was “Non-blocking continuous code-reviews, a case story” by @tdpauw.bsky.social I always enjoy hearing Thierry’s talks. He provides great insight in various ways of getting higher quality code :)

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Stephan @thetraveller.bsky.social · 16/10/2025

I answered over @ sw-development-is.social/@TheTravelle... ➙ For more about trunk-based dev, I suggest @tdpauw.bsky.social's article thinkinglabs.io/articles/2025/… He wrote more great articles about the topic. There's even a VCS that doesn't use branches: Jujutsu ➙ jj-vcs.github.io/jj/latest/

thinkinglabs.io

Trunk-Based Thierry (they/them) @tdpauw.bsky.social · 12/10/2025

Nudging is not going to fix our lack of understanding basic principles. #justsaying 🤷

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Gitte Klitgaard @nativewired.com · 09/10/2025

Last week I spoke at Agile Cambridge, and it was great being back. I arrived in 18 degrees so started with a walk on campus :) As always the people and the discussions were the best parts. Some people I had not seen since before the pandemic, some were new, and some I got closer to 💕 #agilecam

Art outside a building. It consists of three tall triangular stone shapes in dark grey with various squares and stripes in lighter grey

Pathway next to a building with a alley of trees

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Peter Hilton @hilton.org.uk · 03/10/2025

We now have a generation of developers who’ve never experienced an alternative to blocking code reviews. But pull requests aren’t anyone’s security blanket, and it will only take a new fashion to change this. Thierry’s excellent presentation is a call to action for the trend setters.

Trunk-Based Thierry (they/them) @tdpauw.bsky.social · 02/10/2025

The slide deck of my session Non-Blocking Continuous Code Reviews - a Case Study Thank you for all the interesting questions and the lovely feedback. I’m truly grateful for that ☺️ #agilecam thinkinglabs.io/talks/2024/0...

thinkinglabs.io

Non-Blocking Continuous Code Reviews - a Case Study

Trunk-Based Thierry (they/them) @tdpauw.bsky.social · 02/10/2025

Someone just told me I am an engaging speaker. Really ⁉️ 😳 But thank you, you just made my day ☺️

Trunk-Based Thierry (they/them) @tdpauw.bsky.social · 02/10/2025

Software development may be a foreign country for the business. To gain trust we need accountability. — @jamesshore.bsky.social #agilecam

Trunk-Based Thierry (they/them) @tdpauw.bsky.social · 02/10/2025

Better to have no estimates than wrong estimates. — @jamesshore.bsky.social #agilecam

Trunk-Based Thierry (they/them) @tdpauw.bsky.social · 02/10/2025

It is still guesses at the end of the day. But it is better to have some model than a perfect model. — @jamesshore.bsky.social #agilecam

Trunk-Based Thierry (they/them) @tdpauw.bsky.social · 02/10/2025

eXtreme Programming is a foreign country. We do things differently! — @jamesshore.bsky.social #agilecam

Trunk-Based Thierry (they/them) @tdpauw.bsky.social · 02/10/2025

People think software development is about writing code. It is not! It is about: Communication Collaboration Simplicity Courage Respect -- XP Values, @kentbeck.com @jamesshore.bsky.social #agilecam

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Gitte Klitgaard @nativewired.com · 01/10/2025

This is the article behind the talk that @tdpauw.bsky.social delivered just now: thinkinglabs.io/articles/202... #agilecam

thinkinglabs.io

Non-Blocking, Continuous Code Reviews - a case study

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Gitte Klitgaard @nativewired.com · 01/10/2025

I always enjoy hearing @tdpauw.bsky.social talk :) This time he is talking about non-blocking code reviews. He always provides great insight on technical topics and new ways to get better code quality :) #agilecam

Trunk-Based Thierry (they/them) @tdpauw.bsky.social · 22/09/2025

Published: A Tester's Growth-Path to Test Automation At one client, the topic of how a growth path for Testers in Test Automation would look in their QA Community of Practice. That triggered me to ask that question in the wild. Here's the result. thinkinglabs.io/articles/202...

thinkinglabs.io

A Tester's Growth-Path to Test Automation

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Pawel Brodzinski @pawelbrodzinski.bsky.social · 17/09/2025

No, people will sit idly because they are intrinsically lazy. McGregor wrote about this in the 70s... That is, they indeed are if you treat them as if they were.

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Lynoure Braakman @lynoure.eurosky.social · 18/09/2025

Solo work is often silo work