Issue #298, 10th August 2018

This Week's Favorite


No Matter What You Work for Yourself
4 minutes read.

"When you divide the world into work and life, you end up falling into a trap. You stop thinking about how you invest your work time because someone else gets the dividends." -- Sam Kyle writes exactly what I have in mind when I look at my life. I cannot split my mind without fooling myself, feeling bad that I'm not "good enough" at home or at work. I love this view as a way to keep me honest on where I work, what I do there and the value I bring every day to the people I serve.

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Culture


Hey, Are You Sleeping? (Developer Brain)
1 minutes read.

My humble effort to help you start the weekend with a smile on your face.

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Awesome Cold Showers: For When People Get Too Hyped Up About Things
5 minutes read.

This is such an awesome idea! "It's great when people get excited about things, but sometimes they get a little too excited." -- Wonderful execution and interesting read on multiple subjects. Share it with the team to start some interesting discussion while having a good laugh.

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Chaos Engineering: Why the World Needs More Resilient Systems (Video)
35 minutes read.

Tammy Butow talks about a topic that will become more and more important, with the rise of distributed systems (micro-services as a key driver). We shifted the complexity to a higher level, which means the tools, design patterns and practices will have to change. Like DevOps, Choas Engineering (or Resilient Engineering) will start with a role and soon enough we will need to distribute it - you build it, you ship it, you break it (on purpose), you own it.

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When Knowledge Is the Limiting Factor
2 minutes read.

Jessica Kerr covers an interesting observation on the ability of people to hold complex systems in their heads: "There’s a limit to the amount of knowledge a single person can cram into their head in a lifetime; Hidalgo calls this limit one personbyte." -- While I personally not a big fan of Mob Programming, figuring out ways to bound software complexity and improve human communication lines is something you always need to think about. The system is the organization, both the software and the humans who write it.

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Peopleware


Navigating Team Friction (Slides)
5 minutes read.

I think that slide 51 of Lara Hogan's tips on dealing with team friction is a powerful framework to apply. You can get from it the deepest motivation you'll need to address, saving yourself numerous ineffective debates and frustration.

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Getting Better by Being Wrong: My Conversation With Poker Pro Annie Duke (Audio)
118 minutes read.

This interview with Annie Duke was so amazing, I talked about it at work with 3 people in our 1:1, and bought a few copies of her book. I could go on and on here, but trust me when I say - listen to every minute of it. My commutes to work this week have been remarkable thanks to Annie.

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Decision Scheduling
2 minutes read.

Short yet helpful advice that is easy to dismiss or take for granted. What is your next challenge in your company? Which skill do you want to work on and improve? When are you going to think about it? In your next 1:1 or Performance Review? Is that your optimum? Do you keep any track of your mental energy at work (time & tasks)?

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Inspiring Tweets


@GSto: My writing exercise for this week: trying to cut phrases like "Just curious", and "Just wanted to say" from my correspondence. Waste's other's people's time and sounds unconfident

@codinghorror: Queue is pronounced "Q" followed by four letters that are silently waiting their turn.

- Oren

P.S. Can you share this email? I'd love for more people to experiment and improve their company's culture.

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