/Management

Know Yourself

- Murat Demirbas tl;dr: “MongoDB has a nice leadership development program internally. They suggested that filling / sharing this questionnaire would be useful to get you acquainted with the people you work with daily." Questions include: (1) What are you amazing at? Where do you want to improve? (2) What makes you most excited about your work / role? (3) Describe an ideal workday. (4) What is your meeting participation style? (5) What is something that people incorrectly assume about you?

featured in #522

Managing A Bottleneck Team

- Jade Rubick tl;dr: “One of the harder situations you might find yourself in is managing a bottleneck team. What is a bottleneck team? When other teams can’t get their work done unless you do something for them, you’re a bottleneck team.” Jade discusses his approach to managing such teams. 

featured in #522

The Developer's Guide To Single Sign-On (SSO)

tl;dr: If you want more people using your product, the easiest place to start is making it easier to actually sign up. Adding SSO to your app will help you land those larger enterprise deals and remove the signup friction that keeps causing your visitors to drop off. For modern developers though, the world of XML, SOAP, and OASIS standards can be opaque. This guide explains what SSO is, why it’s important, and best practices for getting it up, running, and integrated with your app.

featured in #522

Conflict

- Mike Fisher tl;dr: Conflict within teams can be productive or destructive. Steve Jobs likened constructive disagreement to a rock tumbler that polishes ideas. Cognitive conflict, in moderation, facilitates learning and innovation. However, relationship, goal, and process conflicts often hinder team performance. Mike discusses each. 

featured in #521

Structuring Engineering Organizations

- Otto Hilska tl;dr: How you split your software organization into teams can make or break developer experience and productivity. Your organization structure should allow each team to make decisions about a clearly defined product area. After reading this blog post, you’ll know how to balance the four defining factors of a team: outcomes, features, people, and architecture.

featured in #521

Briefly: Anonymous Questions

- Kellan Elliot-McCrea tl;dr: Q&A serves to answer questions, engage the team, and maintain accountability. Kellan suggests using a 3rd party tool for anonymous submissions within a time window. Leaders should address good-faith questions, acknowledging unanswered ones. 

featured in #521

How To Build Engineering Strategy

- Mirek Stanek tl;dr: “In this article, I will explore tools and techniques to help you build a long-term engineering strategy. Some work best at the organizational level, where Product and Technology collaborate on their challenges. Some can also be successfully applied at the team level and can inspire the rest of the organization from the bottom up.”

featured in #520

Communication Structures

- Kevin Yien tl;dr: “Every company has, or develops, a hierarchical reporting structure over time. It's normal. A common mistake I see is allowing the communication structure to mirror the reporting structure.” Kevin explains why. 

featured in #520

How to Avoid Breached Passwords

tl;dr: Cyber attackers have many ways to infiltrate your systems. Proper password protocols could help, but ensuring users follow them is difficult. Breaches can lead to costly lawsuits and damage reputations. Compromised passwords can also be reused to access user accounts. This tech paper explores the issue, offers solutions, and provides strategies to protect users and organizations.

featured in #520

Unexpected Anti-Patterns For Engineering Leaders — Lessons From Stripe, Uber & Carta

- Will Larson tl;dr: “Anytime you apply a rule too universally, it turns into an anti-pattern.” The key to effective engineering leadership, Larson argues, lies in figuring out which scenarios are worth deliberately defying conventional logic, and when to simply follow the rules. “ Will discusses his tonics for the following anti-patterns: (1) Shying away from micromanagement. (2) Pushing back on flawed metrics. (3) Serving as the umbrella for your team.

featured in #519