Software Lead Weekly
Issue #418, 27th November 2020
This Week's Favorite
The Future of Work Is Written
11 minutes read.
Juan Pablo Buriticá with a wonderful post that is more relevant than ever now with covid-19: "As engineers, I offer you this: We’ve learned how to measure the effectiveness of the communication networks we’ve built. We know and manage latency, throughput, packet loss, and retransmission of our communication infrastructure. So, what’s the latency of status updates? How can we improve it without people being constantly on their email or on Slack? Are we losing packets as we pass around meeting notes? Is there a better way to compress transcripts without losing the quality of the message?"
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
11 minutes read.
Juan Pablo Buriticá with a wonderful post that is more relevant than ever now with covid-19: "As engineers, I offer you this: We’ve learned how to measure the effectiveness of the communication networks we’ve built. We know and manage latency, throughput, packet loss, and retransmission of our communication infrastructure. So, what’s the latency of status updates? How can we improve it without people being constantly on their email or on Slack? Are we losing packets as we pass around meeting notes? Is there a better way to compress transcripts without losing the quality of the message?"
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
Culture
When You Inherit a Project Another Team Built in a “lockdown” and Look Under the Hood
1 minutes read.
My humble effort to help you start the weekend with a smile on your face, even in this difficult time.
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, even in this difficult time.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
An Engineering Team Where Everyone Is a Leader
10 minutes read.
Gergely Orosz wrote a blog post that all of your tech leaders should read and discuss - both the blog post and expectations google doc. Project management skills are crucial if you want to increase your impact. Writing high-quality code is not enough to lead bigger projects, with more people, in a way that builds trust within the organization.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
10 minutes read.
Gergely Orosz wrote a blog post that all of your tech leaders should read and discuss - both the blog post and expectations google doc. Project management skills are crucial if you want to increase your impact. Writing high-quality code is not enough to lead bigger projects, with more people, in a way that builds trust within the organization.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
How to Measure and Improve Success in Your Engineering Team
12 minutes read.
Eric Rabinovich with great insights and guidelines you can use to improve your team's effectiveness. The goals you pick, how you explain it, the incentives you set, how you celebrate - all are important to form a strong and sustainable team. Overcommunicate, again and again: "The first thing you need to do as a leader is to connect your team to the KPI and the goal once they’ve been set. Explain to your team members once, then twice (and even more if needed) why the KPI you selected is important for the company and the team, and why reaching the goal you set will actually be significant."
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
12 minutes read.
Eric Rabinovich with great insights and guidelines you can use to improve your team's effectiveness. The goals you pick, how you explain it, the incentives you set, how you celebrate - all are important to form a strong and sustainable team. Overcommunicate, again and again: "The first thing you need to do as a leader is to connect your team to the KPI and the goal once they’ve been set. Explain to your team members once, then twice (and even more if needed) why the KPI you selected is important for the company and the team, and why reaching the goal you set will actually be significant."
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
From Sales-Led to Product-Led and How It Changed Everything
8 minutes read.
Ashton Rankin covers an organizational change that happens when serving a new market (Enterprise customers -> SMBs). This is never an easy transition, and it will impact the type of talent you can (and should) hire and retain. It will change how you measure usage and set KPIs. It's almost like starting a new company. I enjoyed reading Ashton's thoughts on this transition.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
8 minutes read.
Ashton Rankin covers an organizational change that happens when serving a new market (Enterprise customers -> SMBs). This is never an easy transition, and it will impact the type of talent you can (and should) hire and retain. It will change how you measure usage and set KPIs. It's almost like starting a new company. I enjoyed reading Ashton's thoughts on this transition.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
Peopleware
A New Micro Essay on Cultivating Gratitude
3 minutes read.
Short and powerful observation when examining your life. This is so beautifully written: "The quality of your life is the average of what frame you use to think about desire. Do you let desire rise and dissipate, choosing instead to appreciate what you have, or do you let it linger to dwell on what you lack?"
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
3 minutes read.
Short and powerful observation when examining your life. This is so beautifully written: "The quality of your life is the average of what frame you use to think about desire. Do you let desire rise and dissipate, choosing instead to appreciate what you have, or do you let it linger to dwell on what you lack?"
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
Relax for the Same Result
3 minutes read.
"When I notice that I’m all stressed out about something or driving myself to exhaustion, I remember that bike ride and try dialing back my effort by 50 percent. It’s been amazing how often everything gets done just as well and just as fast, with what feels like half the effort." -- Listen to Derek Sivers.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
3 minutes read.
"When I notice that I’m all stressed out about something or driving myself to exhaustion, I remember that bike ride and try dialing back my effort by 50 percent. It’s been amazing how often everything gets done just as well and just as fast, with what feels like half the effort." -- Listen to Derek Sivers.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
More Than 8 Years After My Last Public Talk on Product Management, I Spoke About PM Career Management at Products That Count. What Follows Is a Long Tweetstorm With the Key Content. It Isn't for the Faint of Heart. (Thread)
5 minutes read.
Shreyas Doshi is one of my favorite leaders to follow. If you want to be a good Product Manager, or increase your leadership capacity, this thread has many gems to offer.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
5 minutes read.
Shreyas Doshi is one of my favorite leaders to follow. If you want to be a good Product Manager, or increase your leadership capacity, this thread has many gems to offer.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
Inspiring Tweets
@rakyll: You can spend your entire life on finding right solutions to the wrong problems. The devil is in finding the right problems to work on.
- 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.