Software Lead Weekly

The Compass and the Map
2 minutes read.

Seth Godin with another short, inspiring and funny story that would get you to think a bit this weekend: "If you’ve got the wrong map, the right compass will get you home if you know how to use it. Where are you headed?" -- I took the time to think about how such compass would look like for me? Is it the same one (core values?) for my family and professional life? How would I know if it's indeed "the right compass"? Maybe I'm overthinking it... Or not :)

Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.

Enterprise Sales/Customer Success Team Helping Clients Launch POC 😂
1 minutes read.

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

Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.

Using 6 Page and 2 Page Documents to Make Organizational Decisions
16 minutes read.

Ian Nowland shares the format and takeaways from practicing 6 Pages Document in Amazon and Two Sigma. I prefer to have the written document available to read beforehand, and if needed for a wider audience - create additional powerpoint to summarize and align people. It can feel like a lot of work, but once you reach a certain size (20 engineers and above) you pay huge tax on misalignment and misunderstanding. From my experience, investing in such written communication will have a good ROI in the long run, both with existing team members and new ones who lack the context for the decisions made.

Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.

The Hardest Leadership Advice to Follow: “Work on the Business and Not in the Business”
4 minutes read.

Claire Lew with great advice I decided to follow myself, taking a couple of days off to think about my goals and systems I need to have in place. It felt that I needed a hard reset to gain control on many variables that so far I dealt with on a day to day basis. The biggest downside of being a manager is the long feedback loop, so my goal for the personal retreat I took was to set systems to help me with faster feedback loops.

Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.

Founders at Work Notes by McKay Wrigley
16 minutes read.

Mckay Wrigley's notes from Founders At Work (by Jessica Livingston) are fun and easy to consume, which is surprising due to its length (26 pages). Skim through it, and you'll find inspiring content to delve into. If it wasn't obvious, I highly recommend reading the book!

Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.

How Not to Disagree
3 minutes read.

"Under this oppositional framing each additional change hits the team hard. They start to see themselves as victims. They don't trust company plans or rely on those plans to be stable. They don't believe they can affect company direction. Success is now earned in spite of the company while failure comes because of it." -- Andrew Bosworth with an important post to read and follow if you're a leader (manager or tech lead). I highly recommend reading the book "Thinking in Bets" as it can teach you how to question your own quality of decisions. One more thing that is worth trying is to think "What if they're right? How would we know that quickly? How can I help show it sooner than planned?". By doing that, you can prove your team and yourself that maybe the chosen plan was better than you thought initially.

Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.

Managing Yourself: How to Calibrate Your Own Strengths and Weaknesses
11 minutes read.

Julie Zhuo shares a process that I think can help all of us better understand how we lead and where our biggest value to our surrounding. Being comfortable in our own skin is not only about where our strength and weaknesses are, but also knowing which type of problems we're good at, and what is the perceived value others find in us. A couple more helpful questions I can think of: "Which type of tasks would be much harder if [person X] wasn't around?" and "What do you think is the biggest contribution [person X] contributes to the team that very few are aware of?"

Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.

How to Write Like the Great Entrepreneurs
3 minutes read.

Writing helps you improve the way you think and talk, making it the shortest path for increasing your impact on your team. Nivi with tips I've made Anki notes from, including the persuasion checklists like CLASSR and SUCCES.

Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.

@BrianNorgard: You don't hire talented people to tell them what to do. You hire talented people to tell you what to do.

@david_perell: Goal for your 20s: Find your “10 Club” Your 10 Club is a group of 10 people you want to work with later in life. They should be kind, ambitious, and generous. Travel together, meet their families, and attend their weddings. Get to know them. Massively valuable.