Software Lead Weekly
Issue #184, 3rd June 2016
This Week's Favorite
The Quiet Crisis Unfolding in Software Development
12 minutes read.
A lot of strong statements in this post by Bill Jordan. Some I don't really agree with, but all of them are honest and will make you think about your own point of view based on your experience. My favorite parts: "Recognize Leaders", "Prefer Private Workspaces", "Let Employees Leave (to a different team)" and "Never Turn Down Small Requests."
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
12 minutes read.
A lot of strong statements in this post by Bill Jordan. Some I don't really agree with, but all of them are honest and will make you think about your own point of view based on your experience. My favorite parts: "Recognize Leaders", "Prefer Private Workspaces", "Let Employees Leave (to a different team)" and "Never Turn Down Small Requests."
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
Culture
Tabs vs Spaces
1 minutes read.
My humble effort to help you start the weekend with a smile on your face. Great clip from the awesome Silicon Valley TV show, based on real-life events.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
1 minutes read.
My humble effort to help you start the weekend with a smile on your face. Great clip from the awesome Silicon Valley TV show, based on real-life events.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
Building Company Culture at Buffer: Radical Transparency and Experiments (Video)
26 minutes read.
I just love the team at Buffer and how brave they are to continuously experiment and share their journey. From opening their salary and equity, changing roles and the way they set responsibilities to how they grew a truly distributed team of 93 people with $10M ARR. Great talk by Leo Widrich, this one is golden: "Focusing on company culture allows you to stop operating by policy and start operating by principle."
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
26 minutes read.
I just love the team at Buffer and how brave they are to continuously experiment and share their journey. From opening their salary and equity, changing roles and the way they set responsibilities to how they grew a truly distributed team of 93 people with $10M ARR. Great talk by Leo Widrich, this one is golden: "Focusing on company culture allows you to stop operating by policy and start operating by principle."
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
Growing Your Company Culture Without Chaos
4 minutes read.
"It all comes down to individuals, until it can’t" -- focusing early on at building the communications between people and then between teams is often missed as we scale. This requires building trust between individuals, which in turn builds trust between different parts of the organization. We need to focus more of our energy there, dealing with many difficult situations where trust doesn't come naturally due to expertise or teams' goals: "Leaders also evolve as a company scales, when the relationship between individuals and the larger organization gets more complicated."
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
4 minutes read.
"It all comes down to individuals, until it can’t" -- focusing early on at building the communications between people and then between teams is often missed as we scale. This requires building trust between individuals, which in turn builds trust between different parts of the organization. We need to focus more of our energy there, dealing with many difficult situations where trust doesn't come naturally due to expertise or teams' goals: "Leaders also evolve as a company scales, when the relationship between individuals and the larger organization gets more complicated."
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
Great Software Isn’t Built to Last, It’s Built to Die Gracefully
4 minutes read.
One of the best articles I've read this week. All of the sections under "Don’t build for the future, build for future change" are simply a must read if you're trying to build a learning organization.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
4 minutes read.
One of the best articles I've read this week. All of the sections under "Don’t build for the future, build for future change" are simply a must read if you're trying to build a learning organization.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
Peopleware
Don’t Let Them (Your Best Employees) Go
3 minutes read.
One of my biggest challenges is to retain our amazing team, even after we will cross the 4-5 years where people often decide to switch positions. I love this sentence by Jason Lemkin so much: "If you come up with one good idea a week to keep one of your best employees … every single week, and implement it … I think magic will happen."
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
3 minutes read.
One of my biggest challenges is to retain our amazing team, even after we will cross the 4-5 years where people often decide to switch positions. I love this sentence by Jason Lemkin so much: "If you come up with one good idea a week to keep one of your best employees … every single week, and implement it … I think magic will happen."
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
The Secret Ingredient Behind a Successful Tech Lead
4 minutes read.
Building a non-SPOF solution to your team is just as important as it is to your software: "one thing in common that I noticed about all the great tech leads that I’ve seen in my career, and that is having a great second-in-command engineer." -- great advice on why you should set up Tech Lead and Vice Tech Lead by Guido de Caso. Figuring out the path to do it in each team should be an interesting challenge.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
4 minutes read.
Building a non-SPOF solution to your team is just as important as it is to your software: "one thing in common that I noticed about all the great tech leads that I’ve seen in my career, and that is having a great second-in-command engineer." -- great advice on why you should set up Tech Lead and Vice Tech Lead by Guido de Caso. Figuring out the path to do it in each team should be an interesting challenge.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
Malory Isn’t the Only Imposter in Infosec
5 minutes read.
Wonderful read for anyone who feels the imposter syndrome, may it be due to losing your technical edge (cannot keep up wit HN), transitioning to a new position or role, joining a new company or anything else really. This post is for all of us.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
5 minutes read.
Wonderful read for anyone who feels the imposter syndrome, may it be due to losing your technical edge (cannot keep up wit HN), transitioning to a new position or role, joining a new company or anything else really. This post is for all of us.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
Inspiring Tweets
@crewlabs: Maybe leadership's less about making sure your team loves you and more about making sure your team loves each other.
@frank_chimero: should designers be coders? should design coder? hould des coder hou des oder houdesoer hodesor hodor
- 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.