🧰 Project Failure, Leadership Risk, Planning, Scaling Teams, Speed Traps, Monte Carlo, Lessons from Burnout: TMW #372

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Campus contains thousands of resources, videos and courses designed by CTOs who have built and scaled dozens of successful products and technology organisations, and the library will keep growing. There really is an answer to everything right there at your fingertips, as well as hundreds of other learners to share the experience with.

If you're interested in learning more about how Campus can help you build your skills and confidence as a CTO, and set you up for a successful career leading teams of builders, take a look at campus.ctocraft.com. You won't regret it!

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Andy @ CTO Craft

Campus by CTO Craft: The Go-to Resource for Senior Technology Leaders

Created for CTOs, by CTOs: A transformative learning community for senior technology leaders in startups and scale-ups

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Zero to CTO – Matthew Smith is in the Spotlight | CTO Craft

Head of DevOps & Cloud Consulting, Matthew Smith discusses how he connects with the wider business, how he manages stress and the smartphone!

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CTO Craft Events

CTO Craft Con: London | 8-9 May 2024

CTO Craft Con will bring together over 500 Chief Technology Officers and other senior technology leaders from the most exciting start-ups, scale-ups, unicorns, and big tech companies to elevate their engineering culture in London, May 2024

CTO Craft Con London 2024

CTO Craft Bytes: Exploring the Future of Platform Development: A Glimpse into 2030 with GenAI

Join us for an insightful Bytes session where we delve into the future of platform development in the year 2030, focusing on the transformative role of code as a commodity enhanced by GenAI capabilities. This session features Glyn Roberts of Vention, a seasoned expert with two decades of experience in web development, spanning roles from developer to CTO. Glyn will guide us through his vision of how platform development will evolve by 2030 and the far-reaching implications of an AI-centric approach in this field.

EventsRachel Thomas

CTO Craft Mixer: Gothenburg 2024

Join our community of CTOs and senior tech leaders for an informal meet-up in Gothenburg

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Reads of the Week

Why software projects fail

Some of you know that I work in the agency business — how that translates to my technical experience is that I used to work on many highly different

Vadim KravcenkoVadim Kravcenko

Stop Overcomplicating It: The Simple Guidebook to Upping Your Management Game

Russ Laraway wades through all of the competing opinions, complex frameworks and advice out there on how to be a better manager, creating a simple, data-backed leadership toolkit.

First Round ReviewFirst Round Staff

A step-change in your leadership growth: Mentoring Circles for Tech Leaders

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Leadership, Strategy & Business

Leadership requires taking some risk.

At a recent offsite with Carta’s Navigators, we landed on an interesting topic: leadership roles sometimes mean that making progress on a professional initiative requires taking some personal risk. This lesson was hammered into me a decade ago during my time at Uber, where I kicked off the Uber SRE group and architectured Uber’s self-service service provisioning strategy that defined Uber’s approach to software development (which spawned a thousand thought pieces, not all complimentary).

Irrational Exuberance

22 Signs That Point to an Engineering Leadership Career

A list of opinions, values, behaviors, and personal preferences that can hint at great Engineering Manager potential.

Péter SzászPéter Szász

The 3 Horizons for strategic planning

The future is the predict is the future you create

Alex Ghiculescu's NewsletterAlex Ghiculescu

Leading tech people or staying a software engineer: What to choose? Panel Discussion

In this virtual panel, we explore what made people decide to become a leader and how they did it. And we’ll find out if we really have to leave tech forever or if there’s a way back into engineering.

InfoQBen Linders

Culture, People & Teams

Engineering Culture, Trust, and Accountability

I figured I would open with a topic I know and understand well: technical Leadership, building a healthy engineering culture, and the…

Better ProgrammingEmily Dresner

The “Macros” for healthy engineering teams - part 1: Carbs

This series explores the parallels between nutritional macronutrients (carbohydrates, proteins, and fats) and critical elements that drive engineering teams’ health. Just as our bodies require a balanced diet of macros to function optimally, engineering teams need specific ingredients to function well. For health related to an engineering team, we refer to a team that can execute well, collaborate, tackle tech debt appropriately, and continuously learn and improve.

The Healthy Engineering LeaderSebastiano Armeli

Scaling Through Chaos | Index Ventures

The founder’s guide to building and leading teams from 0 to 1,000

Index Ventures

Speed Traps in Organizations - NOBL Academy

Leaders naturally want to move fast—but watch out for these common speedbumps

NOBL AcademyName

Technology, Operations & Delivery

Monte Carlo Simulation for backlog prognosis - with one function in Google Sheets

Ever since I first read When will it be done by Daniel Vacanti I have been fascinated with how much prognosis work that can be created using very little data. I have written extensively about these “kanban metrics” in other blog posts, should you want a deeper understanding. Dan and the Actionable Team have created a brilliant tool called Actionable which has many more capabilities than I will show here. This is a straw-man version, BUT I learned a lot of the mechanics behind the scenes in creating this and I hope you will too.

marcusoft.net - sharing is learningMarcus Hammarberg

Breaking Down Tasks - Jacob Kaplan-Moss

Something missing from this series on estimation, until now, has been a discussion of how to “break down” a project into a well-defined task list. I’d not previously written about this because, to me, it’s largely intuitive. But it isn’t for everyone, so this post fills the gap, and explains in detail how I break down projects into a task list.

Jacob Kaplan-Moss

Agile Estimating: 7 Tips for Accurate Estimates

How do you get the best estimate of story size when estimating? I explore seven ways to make estimates easier and more accurate. Find out more inside.

Mountain Goat SoftwareMike Cohn

An irrational(?) fear of low-code solutions - Allan Kelly

Are low-code solutions throwing out solid software engineering practices with the code? There is much to learn from the original no-code solutions: ERP systems

Allan Kelly - Growing Effective digital enterprises with agile and OKRsallan kelly

Stress, Wellbeing & Growth

5 Essential Secrets to Conquering Workplace Stress

Overwhelmed by work stress and unsure how to tackle it? You’re not alone. This common challenge can lead to anxiety and panic attacks, with…

MediumJacob Morgan

Turning Pro: The Difference Between Amateurs and Professionals

Learn how to go pro and unlock the next level by uncovering the hidden differences in mindset between amateurs and professionals.

Farnam StreetFarnam Street

The Powerful Lessons from Burnout It’s Easy to Miss

How a burned out employee transformed how I manage others, and how I manage myself

Management MattersTobias Charles

Beyond Narcissism: How Leaders Can Avoid the Hubris Trap

Overcoming the hubris syndrome requires a dose of reality, humility and humour.

INSEAD KnowledgeManfred F. R. Kets de Vries

That’s it!

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Have an amazing week!

Andy