Software Lead Weekly

I'll Go Ahead and Subtweet Two Conversations That I See Going by Right Now: A) How the Heck Did Shopify Get So Big This Decade and B) You Have to Work 80 Hours a Week to Be Successful. (Thread)
5 minutes read.

Tobi Lutke (Shopify's CEO) represents the better side of the ecosystem - looking at companies as a long term journey. If you're into podcasts, I highly recommend his Tobi's interview with Tim Ferriss. The framing of building a sustainable business, one that can be part of your life rather than replacing it, is something I think about a lot lately: "None of that is even about product, or market fit, or timing. Its all about people. Treating everyone with dignity and not falling into the fallacies and trappings of some orthodoxy. Don't do things the way people with agenda tell you to. Do what makes sense."

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Moving JIRAs to the Next Sprint
1 minutes read.

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

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Quality and Effort
3 minutes read.

Seth Godin reminds us that the organization is part of the system that builds systems: "We need to put care into our systems. We need to build checklists and peer review and resilience into the way we express our carefulness.[...] If it matters enough to be careful, it matters enough to build a system around it."

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Incident Response, Programs and You(r Startup).
11 minutes read.

Organizations require a different type of mindset at each growth phase. Will Larson covers the frameworks you can apply as the company grows, and what you should pay attention to. Bookmark it and get back to it at least every 6 months to see if you need to shift your practices to the next level to support the new scale (of customers & people).

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Startups & Miracles
3 minutes read.

Elad Gil covers a very basic idea that completely changed how I think about building products (and companies). Which miracles need to happen for your company to succeed? Is there just one? What would others in your company say (is there alignment on these miracles)? Can you simplify the offering (or go to market plan) to reduce the risk?

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Seven Years Ago I Led a Team to Create the First Google Santa Tracker. I Was Not Supposed to Be in That Role. But It Changed My Life. (Thread)
4 minutes read.

We all need to push the limits a bit more, being more ambitious with what we say is possible. This wonderful story about the Google (Maps) Santa Tracker is a good example.

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When-Then Trap
4 minutes read.

As the year ends in a few days, ask yourself which type of "When-then traps" you want to avoid next year. I'm getting better at it as I get older, with a single trick I'm using - make the "then" part a bit smaller and more concrete. Instead of "have more fun time with my kids," I change it to "experience something that makes us all laugh once a day." It can be reading a funny book, playing games or talking about our days and tell each other something unusual that happened.

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@ranger_cha: Please don't start a software security program with blocking gates in the deployment process. Start with training developers on security. Even if you start with small, voluntary training. These devs can become your security champions and help you get where you want to go.

@shl: Disagreement is not disrespect.