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The FIRE methodology

16.08.22

by Chris Palmer

FIRE stands for ‘Formative Ideas, Research & Experimentation’ – it’s a brilliant strategy that helps our team at the Sydney office to generate exciting ideas, discover new ways of thinking, and increase productivity

16.08.22

by Chris Palmer

FIRE stands for ‘Formative Ideas, Research & Experimentation’ – it’s a brilliant strategy that helps our team at the Sydney office to generate exciting ideas, discover new ways of thinking, and increase productivity

FIRE stands for ‘Formative Ideas, Research & Experimentation’ – it’s a brilliant strategy that helps our team at the Sydney office to generate exciting ideas, discover new ways of thinking, and increase productivity.

The basic concept of FIRE is that experimentation leads to innovation. This idea originated in engineering, but the principles can easily be applied to every discipline.

So how does FIRE work in practice?

Start by gathering your team together in a regular weekly slot. Individuals can then share progress updates on their key projects while receiving real-time feedback, thoughts, and ideas.

These new suggestions could be different tools, technologies, or skills that can help to expand the knowledge of both specific individuals and the wider team.

Progress check-ins should then occur roughly every second session to ensure that everyone is on track. Successful FIRE projects should always be acknowledged and celebrated.

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FIRE sessions should be highly focused, but also fun. The idea is to generate innovative ideas that can help individuals to resolve problems, complete tasks, and improve performance. Some ideas may be too ambitious, but they can always be refined later down the line – plus, bold suggestions can often inspire other ideas.

The more experimentation we encourage, the more likely we are to succeed. But it’s not all about the end result. Creative thinking and open collaboration result in a better working environment and tighter teamwork, which benefits everyone.

Ultimately, the aim of FIRE is for each team member to deliver 3-4 projects over the course of a year.

Once a FIRE project begins, individuals should produce a clear and concise proposal document for peer review. Once a proposal is signed off, work can begin – but it’s important to remember that any extra processes should be kept lean and time efficient.

It’s also vital to show off successful FIRE projects to the team through demos, to stimulate new ideas and showcase the power of the process.

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Our team has developed some exceptional ideas through FIRE – we created log bouncer, a kubernetes operator for dynamically changing log levels of services. We also improved our load testing infrastructure so tests can be initiated using a GitOps approach and metrics can be sent to our favourite visualization tool, Grafana.

FIRE has also given us the chance to explore new languages.

Some have dived into Rust or explored Go’s generics. The F/E team has even begun rewriting the F/E architecture in Typescript, a language which gives guarantees about type safety so we can write code faster.

When I think of what FIRE actually means to our business, I think of the P/PC balance that Stephen R. Covey outlines in his book the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

The P stands for Production and the PC stands for Production Capability.

At the heart of the principle is the fundamental understanding that Production is dependent on our ability to refresh, be creative, and ultimately fuel that understated resource of Production Capability.

Without it, Production grinds to a halt, and it does not come back without considerable effort. For these very reasons, FIRE is an essential aspect of the developer life in the Sydney office, and has an important role to play in keeping us productive.

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