Software Lead Weekly

How Monthly Performance Reviews Changed the Way I Lead Teams
6 minutes read.

Luc Levesque should win the most innovative leader award. If you haven't read his post on "How To Help New Employees Be Rockstars, A New Approach" then you should look it up. If you did, you'll probably understand why Luc continues to experiment and share his journey. Luc's insight is exactly the reason why more companies move toward Continuous Deployment - "What I learned is that the more you talk, the easier the conversions about performance are." - we need to practice our muscles more often if we truly want to scale the company's culture and processes. Performance Reviews, just like deployments, shouldn't be a headache. They should act as enablers.

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This Startup Pays You to Learn How to Code
5 minutes read.

Wow, Wistia's Code School is definitely something you should check out - "Wistia actively looks to hire non-technical people who want to learn how to code, pays them to work in customer support, and trains them on how to become a software developer... Instead of culminating in a personal project or a thesis, they work on real-world problems, going straight from learning language theory to fixing actual bugs in the system." - Figuring out how to help your teammates grow while also providing value to the company is setting the right path for long-term success. How would you apply these ideas in your company?

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Onboarding New Hires — A First Day Without Bumps
6 minutes read.

If you ever asked yourself what you can do to improve your onboarding process, have a look at Elizabeth Hall's ideas (and template!). Having a smooth entrance is important mostly to reduce the pressure of getting lost in the details or faces. My favorite part is "New employees didn’t know *why*", so if you're tight on time at least make sure to read it.

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Should Engineers Design?
5 minutes read.

"Overlap builds trust and shared responsibility" - Cap Watkins is spot on. I've worked with engineers who had great instincts about product design. They were reading books, using different websites just to explore the UX and were naturally curios about the process of building products. I didn't understand how important it is to encourage engineers to provide feedback and ideas until I saw the massive benefits it can lead to. Do you encourage your engineers to be part of the design process? Do you encourage your designers to allow that openness for feedback?

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Why Your Team Needs a Week of Hustle
5 minutes read.

Dealing with low morale in the team is one of the toughest challenges leaders are facing. The problem is how you can bring some positive energy and create enough momentum to get your team excited again. Justin Jackson provides a great idea to test - a week of hustle and shipping things. While I think this is only a tactic (you still need to solve the underlying problem), it can be a great boost for the team's mental energy.

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Everyday Leadership (Video)
6 minutes read.

The best advice I can give you is to sit down and invest 6 minutes to learn from Drew Dudley on how everyday leadership should be like. This is a great way to start the weekend.

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@kgale: I used to tell my team that winning feels like losing. Now that I'm back in startup mode, I'm repeating it to myself constantly.

@dorkitude: If you accomplish only one thing in your life, empower & encourage ONE person to be closer to their ideal self than they would otherwise be.

@Steve_Yegge: I don't think pointy-hairs fully understand how much Stack Overflow has revolutionized programming. It's the biggest accelerator since IDEs.