/Management

How To Praise

- Péter Szász tl;dr: “Construct your positive feedback the same way as you would a negative one. Ensure the situation where the action you want to comment on was well understood; focus on the actions of the person you’re giving a feedback to; and show the impact these behaviors had on you and others. This approach will help your team members recognize and build on their strengths.” Peter shares his framework for doing so. 

featured in #600

What Is Device Fingerprinting And How Does It Work?

- Zack Proser tl;dr: “Every time a device connects to your server, it broadcasts a wealth of information through its browser. Some of these signals are obvious, while others are subtle technical artifacts of how browsers and hardware work together.” Zack breaks down what servers can see and how to mitigate bad actors. 

featured in #600

Applied "Software Engineering at Google"

- Addy Osmani tl;dr: “Google's software engineering practices have evolved to manage our large scale. However, the underlying principles driving these practices are valuable and transferable to organizations of any size. This isn't about blindly copying Google, but about understanding the why behind their methods and adapting the what to your context.”

featured in #600

Rigorous Thinking: No Lazy Thinking

- Wes Kao tl;dr: “Rigorous thinking is asking critical questions about tactics, and having a systematic way of making decisions. It isn’t a single mental model. It’s an approach to problem solving that allows you to deconstruct ideas, gain clarity, and make decisions that are far more likely to be right.” Wes shares her playbook for leaders here. 

featured in #599

The 10 Biggest Leadership Blindspots Based On 10 Years of Research

- Claire Lew tl;dr: Claire shares blindspots, self-assessment questions and actions to remedy each. Blindspots are:(1) What our team doesn't know doesn't hurt them. (2) Everyone should share my sense of urgency. (3) As long as my team likes me, they trust me. (4) I don't play favorites with my team. (5) I treat everyone the way that I want to be treated. And more. 

featured in #598

How Not To Disagree

- Andrew Bosworth tl;dr: “Imagine a simple scenario. Your manager is proposing changes to your roadmap. Those changes would negate months of work by your team. You lead the team and don’t agree with the new direction. Following a robust discussion your manager makes the change over your objections. How do you proceed?”

featured in #598

The QA Wolf Advantage: Vertical Integration For Superior QA

- Jon Perl tl;dr: Traditional outsourced QA relies on inefficient, costly tech stacks that fall short of QA engineers' needs. QA Wolf took a smarter approach. They built proprietary technology that aligns with customers’ needs, enabling their QA engineers to deliver 80%+ automated test coverage for their clients in just 4 months. In this free webinar, CEO Jon Perl reveals how QA Wolf is redefining QA automation.

featured in #598

Setting Policy For Strategy

- Will Larson tl;dr: Will explores setting policy as a critical step in engineering strategy, following exploration, diagnosis, and refinement. It defines policy as turning diagnosis into actionable decisions, covering coding practices, hiring mandates, and architectural choices. The chapter outlines structured steps for policy creation, types of policies, and criteria for effective policies. It also discusses handling uncertainty, recognizing constraints, and addressing missing strategies. 

featured in #598

The 5 Most Difficult Employees (And How To Actually Handle Them)

- Claire Lew tl;dr: Claire shares the five most challenging employee archetypes she’s encountered, and the specific strategies that can help you lead them successfully: (1) The Entitled Veteran. (2) The Passive Resister. (3) The Brilliant Aggressor. (4) The Perpetual Victim. (5) The Performance Rollercoaster. 

featured in #598

Delegating Complex Tasks

tl;dr: Most leaders can delegate simple things - e.g. teams, metrics - pretty well. Most leaders struggle with delegating complex skills or responsibilities. Herein we’ll discuss two proven methods for delegating complex tasks that you can use right away - exponential training and suboptimal standardization.

featured in #597