Nov 16, 2020

Tech Manager Weekly by CTO Craft - Issue #189

By Andy @ CTO Craft • Issue #189 • View online

Hello again!

There are only two weeks left until CTO Craft Con: The People One! Over 200 senior technology leaders have signed up so far from global corporations to start-ups including Uber, The Economist, Twitch, Just Eat, Cazoo, MyTutor, Sainsbury’s, Wealthsimple, VMware, StitchFix, GetYourGuide and many others. New speakers add to the line up this week include Anna Shipman of the Financial Times and Nadia Alramli of Hubspot - it’s going to be amazing!

Next up in our Spotlight Q & A series is Softwire Director, Zoe Cunningham. A self described creative geek, she’s also an actor and an award-winning technology expert with 20 years in the industry. Get more insight into Zoe’s best advice for goal-setting on our blog and be sure to catch her at CTO Craft Con

Until next time!

Andy @ CTO Craft

Spotlight Q&A with Softwire's Zoe Cunningham | CTO Craft

Softwire’s Director, Zoe Cunningham talks about the lessons learned in 2020, what’s keeping her busy and all things remote for CTO Craft,

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From our Partners

A huge, huge thanks to our partners for supporting CTO Craft Con 2020 - you’re all amazing!

Amazon Web Services, The Scale Factory, YLD, LinearB, Albany Partners and Skiller Whale

🥝 🥝 If you’re interested in seeing our Partnership Opportunities, drop a reply to this email! 🥝 🥝

Culture & People

End Of Year Review Tips For Employees and Managers

We’ve almost arrived at the end of the year, which means you’re probably starting to prepare end of year performance reviews as you think about your business objectives for the year ahead.

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Team autonomy: balancing the Top-Down versus Bottom-Up dance

Most modern product companies are trying to work with empowered interdisciplinary product teams. One of the prerequisites and most essential transformations to achieve this work model is to be outcome-based instead of output-based.

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Organising Large Miro Boards For Remote Workshops

Back in the summer I shared some of the techniques I’d been using to reimagine my in-person architecture workshops as remote digital offerings with Miro. I’ve learned a few more tricks since then which I think are worth sharing.

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7 Steps to Creating a Virtual Employee Onboarding Program

In response to the coronavirus, LinkedIn acted quickly in adopting a virtual onboarding program in place of an in-person one. Here’s how LinkedIn made this transition, plus steps to help your company create its own online onboarding process for new employees who are working remotely

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Leadership & Self-management

The dirty little secrets of decision making

As individuals, we’re continually evaluating options and taking decisions. As product managers, we have the additional responsibility to balance the often competing needs of users, the business and wider ethical considerations.

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Why Some Leaders Become Workaholics

My dad grew up the son of an entrepreneur and mom grew up on a farm — hard work was just part of their lives. In his work life my dad was a design engineer for GM who built prototypes like some of the early electric cars.

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How Purposeful Kindness Can Make You A Better Leader

Listen, there’s a sea of serious information available at your fingertips—advice that can make you better at your job, achieve your goals, and earn respect. The two of us are consistently buried in this type of information.

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A person's character is the foundation of great leaders

Consider all the leaders you have encountered in government, schools, jobs and organizations. How many of them have you thought of as excellent or even above average? Recently, I have been pondering why there are so few contemporary leaders I admire and perceive as great.

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Leadership Starts With Trust

In my last post, I touched upon how leaders can build their influence by focusing on their being rather than chasing the goal of becoming influential. Real influence is a by-product of being, not just doing.

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Agile, Engineering & Product

‘How to Avoid the Build Trap’ By Melissa Perri - 11 Key Learnings

The book “How to avoid the build trap” by Melissa Perri is often mentioned in many product talks, podcasts and articles. I had to pick up the book and read it for myself to see what it was all about.

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The Architect’s Path (Part 1)

As I described in a recent post, when getting ready to publish The Software Architect Elevator, my editor and I entertained naming it The Architect’s Path. We decided to stick with the elevator metaphor because it really struck a chord with readers.

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Value vs Time: an Agile Contract Model

An agile contract model can help us to focus on the value delivered to the customer. It allows for rewarding teams and people, and can drive continuous improvement towards common goals. Andrea Zomer spoke about how Zupit applies an agile contract model at Agile Business Day 2020.

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8 Agile Estimation Techniques to Try With your Team

The ability to plan ahead is what sets humans apart from all other species. But it turns out we’re not all that good at it.

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