Software Lead Weekly
Issue #112, 16th January 2015
This Week's Favorite
Letting Go of Efficiency Can Accelerate Your Company — Here's How
12 minutes read.
While writing my book, I had the privilege to interview Kris Gale. At the time, Kris was the VP of Engineering at Yammer, and he was kind enough to share with details the way their organization is built to allow agility, maximizing the effort in those areas the company was looking to deliver value. This is the gist: "The minute the future becomes unpredictable, efficiency can become your enemy" and as such, you learn to appreciate speed and autonomy over certainty and control. Also loved this quote by Adam Pisoni: "Most startups believe in iteration of their products. Now they need to apply the same thinking to their organizations."
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
12 minutes read.
While writing my book, I had the privilege to interview Kris Gale. At the time, Kris was the VP of Engineering at Yammer, and he was kind enough to share with details the way their organization is built to allow agility, maximizing the effort in those areas the company was looking to deliver value. This is the gist: "The minute the future becomes unpredictable, efficiency can become your enemy" and as such, you learn to appreciate speed and autonomy over certainty and control. Also loved this quote by Adam Pisoni: "Most startups believe in iteration of their products. Now they need to apply the same thinking to their organizations."
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
Culture
Correlation Does Not Imply Causation
1 minutes read.
As always, something to start the weekend with a huge smile on your face. An important lesson to remember.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
1 minutes read.
As always, something to start the weekend with a huge smile on your face. An important lesson to remember.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
Early Reflections on Buffer’s Switch to Working Without Managers
5 minutes read.
Interesting retrospective from Leo on their newest experiment at Buffer, moving toward a no-managers approach. If you haven't read the story of their transition yet, check the link inside of the post "There’re no managers or bosses". I must admit that their Decision Maker Framework is interesting to experiment with, even inside an engineering organization - instead of having dedicated managers around specific domains, what if you could have decision makers, creating a flat organization based on meritocracy?
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
5 minutes read.
Interesting retrospective from Leo on their newest experiment at Buffer, moving toward a no-managers approach. If you haven't read the story of their transition yet, check the link inside of the post "There’re no managers or bosses". I must admit that their Decision Maker Framework is interesting to experiment with, even inside an engineering organization - instead of having dedicated managers around specific domains, what if you could have decision makers, creating a flat organization based on meritocracy?
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
The Case for Distributed Teams
7 minutes read.
Avleen Vig (from Etsy) with a wonderful post on how to approach building a distributed team, even if the entire company is not distributed. This was actually written in a response to Paul Graham's essay (on changing immigration laws), but I feel that it's worth reading even without that context. "The success or failure of a distributed team hinges on your organisational culture and the strengths of management, not on the product you're creating or the nature of distributed teams themselves."
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
7 minutes read.
Avleen Vig (from Etsy) with a wonderful post on how to approach building a distributed team, even if the entire company is not distributed. This was actually written in a response to Paul Graham's essay (on changing immigration laws), but I feel that it's worth reading even without that context. "The success or failure of a distributed team hinges on your organisational culture and the strengths of management, not on the product you're creating or the nature of distributed teams themselves."
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
Don’t Leave Developers in the Dark
4 minutes read.
Justin Jackson brings some nostalgia back (gosh, I miss playing video games), as he explains why it's imperative to keep our engineers in-sync with the entire strategy of taking their code into the customers' hands. Are you making it easy for the engineers in your team to understand how their effort translate to the business's success? If you were to ask different engineers in the team "why are you building this feature?", what would be their answer?
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
4 minutes read.
Justin Jackson brings some nostalgia back (gosh, I miss playing video games), as he explains why it's imperative to keep our engineers in-sync with the entire strategy of taking their code into the customers' hands. Are you making it easy for the engineers in your team to understand how their effort translate to the business's success? If you were to ask different engineers in the team "why are you building this feature?", what would be their answer?
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
Peopleware
Why Are Some People So Good at Persisting?
6 minutes read.
I truly love Nathan Kontny's way of writing. This time, a few short stories we can learn on how to persistently follow our dreams and desires. This sentence caught my attention (I'm guilty of it too): "We’re told to fake it till we make it. Nonsense. I can’t believe how many people tell me how well their company is doing, and three months later it’s out of business. If only they had shared their challenges, maybe I or someone in their network could have helped."
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
6 minutes read.
I truly love Nathan Kontny's way of writing. This time, a few short stories we can learn on how to persistently follow our dreams and desires. This sentence caught my attention (I'm guilty of it too): "We’re told to fake it till we make it. Nonsense. I can’t believe how many people tell me how well their company is doing, and three months later it’s out of business. If only they had shared their challenges, maybe I or someone in their network could have helped."
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
A Letter to My Team for Review Season
4 minutes read.
I learned to appreciate the effort it takes to write things down. As we had our own Feedback Review in my company, it was great to see how Camille Fournier looks at this opportunity to provide feedback and celebrate individual's progress.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
4 minutes read.
I learned to appreciate the effort it takes to write things down. As we had our own Feedback Review in my company, it was great to see how Camille Fournier looks at this opportunity to provide feedback and celebrate individual's progress.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
8 Steps for Engineering Leaders to Keep the Peace
5 minutes read.
If you're an Engineering Manager or leading other Engineering Managers, and you struggle to find the balance between pushing for more work to get done more quickly, versus saying no and prevent unnecessary stress to the team, this post is a must read. Setting clear expectations with your boss can help building stronger relationship. It would help when things aren't going as planned, and trust is needed in order to share your honest feedback to each other.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
5 minutes read.
If you're an Engineering Manager or leading other Engineering Managers, and you struggle to find the balance between pushing for more work to get done more quickly, versus saying no and prevent unnecessary stress to the team, this post is a must read. Setting clear expectations with your boss can help building stronger relationship. It would help when things aren't going as planned, and trust is needed in order to share your honest feedback to each other.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
Inspiring Tweets
@mrtazz: “You know lumberjack, sometimes you just gotta let it go. The log file is gone. It’s gone man.” #opsconversations
- Oren
P.S. Can you share this email? I'd love for more people to experiment and improve their company's culture.
P.S. Can you share this email? I'd love for more people to experiment and improve their company's culture.