Software Lead Weekly
Issue #148, 25th September 2015
This Week's Favorite
Assisted Serendipity – Fostering Peer to Peer Connections in Your Organization
4 minutes read.
Etsy open-sourced a great tool to foster serendipity inside of your organization, something you have to try if you reached the point where the following sounds true: "It happens at every growing company – one day you pass someone in the hallway of your office and have no idea whether they work with you, or if they’re just visiting your office."
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
4 minutes read.
Etsy open-sourced a great tool to foster serendipity inside of your organization, something you have to try if you reached the point where the following sounds true: "It happens at every growing company – one day you pass someone in the hallway of your office and have no idea whether they work with you, or if they’re just visiting your office."
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
Culture
Your Resume vs Your Twitter
1 minutes read.
As always, my humble effort to help you start the weekend with a smile on your face. Pretty much accurate.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
1 minutes read.
As always, my humble effort to help you start the weekend with a smile on your face. Pretty much accurate.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
Supporting Development Velocity Downstream
6 minutes read.
This post (and video, if you have the time on your commute to work) is golden. Every system at scale, may it be an organization or a product, needs to understand how it can remove steps, and simplify the remaining ones rather than insisting on doing it all as the system grows. From my experience, it's really hard to do right as we default to negative, thus assuming lack of trust, lack of skills, lack of hunger to learn etc. We have to keep building a positive momentum, disallowing cynicism to lead our path.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
6 minutes read.
This post (and video, if you have the time on your commute to work) is golden. Every system at scale, may it be an organization or a product, needs to understand how it can remove steps, and simplify the remaining ones rather than insisting on doing it all as the system grows. From my experience, it's really hard to do right as we default to negative, thus assuming lack of trust, lack of skills, lack of hunger to learn etc. We have to keep building a positive momentum, disallowing cynicism to lead our path.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
The Beauty of Amazon's 6-Pager
3 minutes read.
Amazon's way of conducting meetings require a very strong and opinionated leadership. Nevertheless, it's exactly the attitude that allow you to scale, as this scales well as the company grow: keeping people and meetings effective, making it clear that your teammates' time is valuable and striving for excellence. Can you barrow some of this attitude and apply it to your meetings? Don't be quick to dismiss it.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
3 minutes read.
Amazon's way of conducting meetings require a very strong and opinionated leadership. Nevertheless, it's exactly the attitude that allow you to scale, as this scales well as the company grow: keeping people and meetings effective, making it clear that your teammates' time is valuable and striving for excellence. Can you barrow some of this attitude and apply it to your meetings? Don't be quick to dismiss it.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
Put an End to Feature Creep
3 minutes read.
Great move by the team at Intercom, a company with a world-class product team, explaining why you should say "no" more often when it comes to introducing new features in your product (aka feature creep). The visual is just fantastic. Share it internally, I'm sure people will appreciate this attitude.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
3 minutes read.
Great move by the team at Intercom, a company with a world-class product team, explaining why you should say "no" more often when it comes to introducing new features in your product (aka feature creep). The visual is just fantastic. Share it internally, I'm sure people will appreciate this attitude.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
Peopleware
So What Exactly Is A Junior Software Engineer?
5 minutes read.
James Turnbull (VP of Engineering at Kickstarter) explains why our industry struggling so much with what we call "talent shortage" and how we should be more thoughtful when looking for junior software engineer: "Emphasize the aspirational opportunities for an junior engineer and the organization’s commitment to building their skills."
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
5 minutes read.
James Turnbull (VP of Engineering at Kickstarter) explains why our industry struggling so much with what we call "talent shortage" and how we should be more thoughtful when looking for junior software engineer: "Emphasize the aspirational opportunities for an junior engineer and the organization’s commitment to building their skills."
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
I Love Days With Nine Meetings in a Row
4 minutes read.
Something I started to experiment with when scheduling my 1:1s with my teammates. It's getting harder to keep as the team is growing really fast, but interesting idea for you to try, if meetings take a substantial chunk of your day.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
4 minutes read.
Something I started to experiment with when scheduling my 1:1s with my teammates. It's getting harder to keep as the team is growing really fast, but interesting idea for you to try, if meetings take a substantial chunk of your day.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
How I Try to Lead When Making Changes That Affect People
3 minutes read.
Joel Gascoigne (Buffer's CEO) is always thoughtful, honest and transparent about the way he wants to build his company. Figuring out what would be the best way to architect the company's communication, is indeed a huge struggle I think every leader is facing with, even if it's on the team's level. Great lessons learned from Joel on how to build that communication, offering the context and problems, yet avoiding the urge to force the solutions.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
3 minutes read.
Joel Gascoigne (Buffer's CEO) is always thoughtful, honest and transparent about the way he wants to build his company. Figuring out what would be the best way to architect the company's communication, is indeed a huge struggle I think every leader is facing with, even if it's on the team's level. Great lessons learned from Joel on how to build that communication, offering the context and problems, yet avoiding the urge to force the solutions.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
Inspiring Tweets
- 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.