/Leadership

What Conditions Make Developers Thrive Most?

- Lizzie Matusov tl;dr: (1) Agency: Developers have the ability to voice disagreements and influence how their work is measured, which empowers them to take ownership of their contributions. (2) Motivation and Self-Efficacy: A developer’s motivation to work on code they are passionate about, confidence in their problem-solving abilities, and the sense of making tangible progress. (3) Learning Culture: A thriving environment encourages continuous learning and sharing of knowledge among team members, fostering growth and innovation. (4) Support and Belonging: The feeling of being supported by their team and accepted for who they are.

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Stars And Guardians

- Andrew Bosworth tl;dr: “There are lots of teams tasked with risk reduction: legal, security, and finance just to name a few. These teams generally err on the side of moving more slowly or saying no entirely. Other teams like sales, engineering, and design are generally in roles that involve risk creation. They tend to be inclined to say yes to new ideas in the pursuit of new forms of value.” This organizational phenomenon is called Stars and Guardians, and Andrew discusses how to lead with both. 

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How To Start A New Role

- Mike Fisher tl;dr: Mike shares his 90-day plan for starting a new role as an executive. “These types of plans are not set in stone. You probably know very little about the company, the people, the operations, the issues, etc. despite numerous rounds of interviews. You will learn more in the first week of full time work than you will in all your interviews. You need to be nimble on your feet and prepared to deviate from your plan when necessary. If you were hired because of a crisis and you can’t wait a month or two to make a critical decision, obviously make the decision. Don’t wait just because your plan says so.”

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Testing Strategy: Avoid The Waterfall Strategy Trap With Iterative Refinement

- Will Larson tl;dr: “If I could only popularize one idea about technical strategy, it would be that prematurely applying pressure to a strategy’s rollout prevents evaluating whether the strategy is effective. Pressure changes behavior in profound ways, and many of those changes are intended to make you believe your strategy is working while minimizing change to the status quo (if you’re an executive) or get your strategy repealed (if you’re not an executive). Neither is particular helpful.”

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Conducting A Time Audit

- Andy Sparks tl;dr: The founder of Visa “preached that great managers spent 50% of their time managing themselves, 25% managing up, 20% managing across, and 5% managing down. In comparison, most actual managers preoccupy themselves with a hell of a lot more downward management than 5% of their time.”

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What Does A Date Actually Mean?

- James Stanier tl;dr: “But this isn't an article about how bad we are at estimating, nor does it offer any solutions for you to getting better at estimating. In fact, I want to focus on why dates are pretty dangerous things to be throwing around in the first place, and what an alternative might look like that could save you a lot of pain.”

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Interviewing For Evidence

- Daniel Terhorst-North tl;dr: “There are 4 primary types of evidence I look for in an interview, which are, in order of general importance, experiential, hypothetical, opinion, and credential. (1) Experiential evidence: things the candidate has done. (2) Hypothetical evidence: what the candidate thinks they would do in a given situation. (3) Credential evidence: what the candidate is qualified to do. (4) Opinion evidence: what they think about things.” Dan gives example questions of each. 

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Simplifiers Go Far, Complexifiers Get Stuck

- Dave Kellogg tl;dr: “Strive to make things simple. Seek to understand them. Struggle to find apt metaphors for them. If you’re not burning real energy trying to simplify things for you audience, you are most like a complexifier. If so, the next time you’re about to explain to someone why something take so long, is so complicated, or requires 5 steps to be completed before the start, ask yourself — do I really believe this or I am making it complicated because I either don’t want or don’t know how to do it.”

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How To Deliver Bad News When It's Not Your Fault

- Wes Kao tl;dr: “As much as we don’t want to shoot the messenger, we often associate negative feelings with people who tell us bad news. Wes’ principles for delivering bad news are: (1) Avoid negative words, like "however” and “unfortunately.” (2) Avoid giving too many details. (3) Don't accidentally accept blame. (4) Get to your point quickly. (5) Remind the person of their own agency.

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Stop Avoiding Conflict On Your Teams

- Doug Turnbull tl;dr: “Can you give some space for everyone to have voice in the conflict? Can you create a space where you set up ground rules for conflict i.e. attacking the problem, not people. Can you maximize also “caring personally” dimension that gives air to the quiet voices? Can you encourage the employees who often come to complain 1-1, but struggle to speak up in group meetings?”

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