Software Lead Weekly
Issue #360, 18th October 2019
This Week's Favorite
Writing Is Thinking: Learning to Write With Confidence
11 minutes read.
In our industry, we're all writers - from emails, Design Reviews, summarizing a meeting's Action Items, crafting a story to get buy-in for a new initiative, announcing a new feature or tool we've released - all require some practice in writing. "... Writing is a skill that can be acquired through continuous effort, easily accessed by creating a process with less friction." -- Steph Smith will share a few tactics you can try. My biggest takeaway is to practice writing in one place, without any editing, and then edit the narrative in a different location. The act of writing at home late night and editing it early morning at the office helps me a lot in it. It takes off the pressure while I write at home, making it more of a "brain dump" that I can sleep on later on.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
11 minutes read.
In our industry, we're all writers - from emails, Design Reviews, summarizing a meeting's Action Items, crafting a story to get buy-in for a new initiative, announcing a new feature or tool we've released - all require some practice in writing. "... Writing is a skill that can be acquired through continuous effort, easily accessed by creating a process with less friction." -- Steph Smith will share a few tactics you can try. My biggest takeaway is to practice writing in one place, without any editing, and then edit the narrative in a different location. The act of writing at home late night and editing it early morning at the office helps me a lot in it. It takes off the pressure while I write at home, making it more of a "brain dump" that I can sleep on later on.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
Culture
Atlassian Should Trademark This Sound and Play It When Anyone Opens Jira
1 minutes read.
My humble effort to help you start the weekend with a smile on your face.
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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.
A Good Onboarding Experience for New Hires Requires Two Key Things
4 minutes read.
I like the advice by Cate Huston on "Start extra early" - this is something we can all try to improve, may it be by sending them interesting material to read or share fun videos/demos/images that the company made. Your onboarding starts from the hiring process to the offering you give, and the time between the contract is signed to the first day at work.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
4 minutes read.
I like the advice by Cate Huston on "Start extra early" - this is something we can all try to improve, may it be by sending them interesting material to read or share fun videos/demos/images that the company made. Your onboarding starts from the hiring process to the offering you give, and the time between the contract is signed to the first day at work.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
Designing Your Workspace
8 minutes read.
This setup is probably as good as it gets when it comes to designing your work environment. I know that it's a matter of taste, but the level of details Garrett Dimon is insane. One thing I can recommend, as I use it too, is the ErgoDox EZ that is expensive yet the best keyboard I had. Now, who can I pay to level up my work environment?
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
8 minutes read.
This setup is probably as good as it gets when it comes to designing your work environment. I know that it's a matter of taste, but the level of details Garrett Dimon is insane. One thing I can recommend, as I use it too, is the ErgoDox EZ that is expensive yet the best keyboard I had. Now, who can I pay to level up my work environment?
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
I'm Curious How Larger Remote Teams Are Keeping Everyone "In the Know" About New Hires? Do You Send Out Recurring "New Hires" Emails to the Team? Have a "New Hires" Slack Channel? (Thread)
4 minutes read.
Parker Agee started a good discussion with people sharing how it works in their company. Nick Persico's response got my attention: "We have the new hire fill out a “Guide to You” on our company wiki (everyone has one), where they share their quirks, how to best work with them, and it has photos of family, pets, hobbies, etc." -- this is a cool idea to try out!
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
4 minutes read.
Parker Agee started a good discussion with people sharing how it works in their company. Nick Persico's response got my attention: "We have the new hire fill out a “Guide to You” on our company wiki (everyone has one), where they share their quirks, how to best work with them, and it has photos of family, pets, hobbies, etc." -- this is a cool idea to try out!
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
Peopleware
Exec 101 - First 30 Days
5 minutes read.
Sriram Krishnan with excellent questions and practices you can use when joining a company in a leadership role. While it's written for execs, most of it applies to a new manager who joins the company. Creating a mental map of the organization and learning the language people use is where I'd start (orientation). Then, figure out your first challenge to tackle to earn credibility. I'd be careful here as you want to demonstrate your values and style, so don't pick a problem just because it's short or has immediate results.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
5 minutes read.
Sriram Krishnan with excellent questions and practices you can use when joining a company in a leadership role. While it's written for execs, most of it applies to a new manager who joins the company. Creating a mental map of the organization and learning the language people use is where I'd start (orientation). Then, figure out your first challenge to tackle to earn credibility. I'd be careful here as you want to demonstrate your values and style, so don't pick a problem just because it's short or has immediate results.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
A Product Manager’s Perspective on Technical Debt
4 minutes read.
Pranav Khanna with a post I think product managers and engineers in your company should read. One tip I can share that helped me - Tech Debt is a people problem and not a technical problem. Strange, I know. Align expectations before starting to develop a feature to see if it makes sense to increase Tech Debt (e.g. we're unsure if people will use it, so maybe we'll remove the feature) or not. If you think it is, ask the lead developer to track the Tech Debt added in a separate task Product Managers can see. Don't compromise on Tech Debt if the feature has a big user base with clear value, as it will be harder to address it later on.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
4 minutes read.
Pranav Khanna with a post I think product managers and engineers in your company should read. One tip I can share that helped me - Tech Debt is a people problem and not a technical problem. Strange, I know. Align expectations before starting to develop a feature to see if it makes sense to increase Tech Debt (e.g. we're unsure if people will use it, so maybe we'll remove the feature) or not. If you think it is, ask the lead developer to track the Tech Debt added in a separate task Product Managers can see. Don't compromise on Tech Debt if the feature has a big user base with clear value, as it will be harder to address it later on.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
How to Have Your First One on One Meeting With an Employee
18 minutes read.
You should bookmark this guide and visit it every few months to see if you can pick a few questions from it to experiment with. To set my mindset for it, I ask myself "How can I encourage them to try to push forward? To feel safe to fail? To inspire them to teach others and increase their impact?". Most often I don't have answers, but it helps me prepare mentally and be there to listen and offer my thoughts as their partner/mentor/supporter.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
18 minutes read.
You should bookmark this guide and visit it every few months to see if you can pick a few questions from it to experiment with. To set my mindset for it, I ask myself "How can I encourage them to try to push forward? To feel safe to fail? To inspire them to teach others and increase their impact?". Most often I don't have answers, but it helps me prepare mentally and be there to listen and offer my thoughts as their partner/mentor/supporter.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
Inspiring Tweets
@eladgil: Potentially false signs of traction: (1) CEO speaking at a lot of events (2) "Thought leader" piece in a media outlet (3) Growing headcount (4) Ongoing fundraising. Real signs of traction: (1) Fast customer growth (2) Low customer churn (3) High NPS (4) High margin (5) Organic adoption (6) Can raise prices
@niket: If there's one piece of advice I can give to any PM: Learn to write simply and succinctly. Your communication (primary function) will increase 100x.
- 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.