Increment: the Documentation Issue

While there are a lot of materials about how to write code and how to deploy distributed systems, there's much less about how humans can work together more effectively to achieve their goals faster. This stuff is complicated and it matters.

On Secretly Terrible Engineers

They lurk, unnoticed in the great halls of engineering that are the office strips along Highway 101. “Programmers” not programmers, people who have cheated, stolen, and lied their way through engineering careers without anyone realizing they can’t code.

Anger and Sadness in the Workplace

I deliberately suppress the inclination to think a person is being abrasive when they get frustrated at work.

To Be a Disrupter, You Don’t Have to be an Asshole

In a poll of investors and bankers and other people familiar with the traits of disrupters, 23% agreed. They’re wrong, and I’m going to tell you why. But first, I want to know why so many people cling to this myth.

What it means to “Disagree and Commit” and how I do it.

If you have been following Amazon at all, you have probably heard what sounds like code language when we talk about how we get our work done. As I have mentioned before, our Leadership Principles work like a kind of short-hand for the types of qualities that make people effective here.

For CTO: When is the time to pay technical debt?

Developers often complain about technical debt and want to get some time to fix it. Be it a significant refactoring, or a rewrite. Usually, this time is a considerable investment. Your gut feeling tells you that this time is better spent somewhere else.

The Management Concept You Must Know to Lead Effectively

Task Relevant Maturity. Is there a less sexy, technical-sounding phrase for managers? Probably not.

Why the Best Decisions Are Never Perfect

Making decisions is like freedom. Everybody wants it, but they don’t know what to do once they get it. In most organizations, making decision equals having power. And that’s why people want to make the call. However, when they are tasked to make a decision, most people freeze and do nothing.

The Manager and the Change Agent

So here’s what’s happening. Traditional management views individuals as primarily self-serving, looking to get ahead, looking to make their personal mark, and concerned with their personal blockers.

Why Admitting Ignorance the Key to Success as a Product Manager

As I turned the pages of Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari, I came across a chapter where the author analyzes the reason behind the rise of European superpowers during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

More OhShitGit!

A couple of @ohshitgit comics: what to do if you commit to the wrong branch!

GDPR Mastery Guide For Product Managers

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a European regulation that aims to unify data protection for all. Businesses that are not compliant may get sanctioned up to 4% of the annual worldwide turnover or fined of up to € 20M (the higher of the two), per infringement.

Machine Learning for Kids

An educational tool for teaching kids about machine learning, by letting them train a computer to recognise text, pictures or numbers, and make things with it in Scratch.

The Nerds Were Right. Math Makes Life Beautiful.

Math has long been the language of science, engineering, and finance, but can math help you feel calm on a turbulent flight? Get a date? Make better decisions? Here are some heroic ways math shows up in our everyday life.