🔬 Building Wisdom, Women CTOs, Mobile Apps, Developer Satisfaction, Challenging Conversations: TMW #255 by CTO Craft
Hello again!
What a horrific week for all of us in Europe, and especially our friends, relatives, colleagues and their families in Ukraine. Without delving too deeply into geopolitical commentary, I give everyone fighting for their independence and safety my wholehearted support. We'll be keeping our eyes open for ways to help everyone in the country wherever we can, and also paying attention to those in neighbouring countries to assist in their aid efforts.
If you're wondering how you can support Ukrainians in this terrifying time, have a look at some of these links:
- British Red Cross is supporting people across Ukraine. Donate here.
- UNICEF Ukraine is repairing schools damaged by the bombings and providing an emergency response to children affected by the conflict. Donate here.
- The Ukrainian Red Cross does loads of humanitarian work, from aiding refugees to training doctors. Donate here.
- CARE International is responding to the crisis by providing Ukrainians in need with food, hygiene kits, psychosocial support services, access to water, and access to cash. Donate here.
Not an exhaustive list. Other than donating money to relief efforts, you can help by staying informed from sources like the Kyiv Independent, New Voice of Ukraine, Stand with Ukraine and Svidomi.
On with the content
Andy @ CTO Craft
Why Success is Not a Repeatable Formula and Building Wisdom in your Engineering Organisation
Founder of Skiller Whale, Hywel Carver discusses why following in other companies' footsteps doesn't always get the outcome you want
CTO Craft Bytes
CTO Craft Bytes - The Future of Mobile Applications, Fri 4 Mar 2022 at 12:30 GMT
Do you need a mobile app? What will differentiate it from the others? How do you make sure your application, like many others, won’t fail?
Reads of the Week
130+ women CTOs in Europe: the complete list
Get unlimited access to all of Sifted’s free coverage and analysis. You'll also be able to choose your preferred newsletter and report subscriptions. Sound good? Let's get started.
What you give up when moving into engineering management
Moving into a management role may be a rewarding step in your career, but you should know about the things you're leaving behind.
About our Partners
A huge, huge thanks to our partners for supporting CTO Craft in 2022 - you’re all amazing!
AWS, CircleCI, Code Climate, Karat, O’Reilly, Indiespring, Skiller Whale, The Software House, iTechArt, LinearB, Lohika, PGS Software, Albany Partners, 101 Ways, Steamhaus, Swarmia
🥝 🥝 If you’re interested in reaching thousands of senior technology leaders and decision makers, drop a reply to this email to see our Partnership Opportunities! 🥝 🥝
Culture & People
Developer satisfaction surveys
Despite my interest, it hadn’t really clicked for me that this was a topic people don’t seem to write about too much. I thought I’d share out some of what my current engineering org at Farewill has been doing over the last year, in the hope that it may spark some thoughts for others.
Happy people do better work
Sigal Barside was a brilliant social scientist. She was one of the people who taught us that loneliness at work reduces our productivity - and that good moods (or bad moods) at work are contagious. She passed away last week at just 56.
The impact of less scalable work.
As I get deeper into my career, I’ve spent more time trying to answer the question, “Where can I personally have the most impact?” I used to anchor that question within my current job, but I’ve come to think about it more widely.
Hiring is harder than ever: Here’s how Sifted readers are handling it
“It’s almost impossible to hire talent as an early stage startup and compete with high salaries,” said one respondent to our recent survey on recruiting in the current climate.
Leadership & Self-management
When Challenging Conversations Go Unspoken—A Leader’s Nightmares
Be very afraid of the conversations on the tough topics of performance, improvement, and innovation that aren’t taking place on your team or in your organization. The Missing Conversations are the stuff of a leader’s nightmares—or at least they should be.
How to Lead in Times of Discontinuity and Distress
Ed.’s Note: The NOBL team was deeply saddened by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. If we have any readers in the region or who are otherwise impacted, we hope you and your families are staying safe.
OKRs are not “Set it and forget it!”
Growing up in the US during the golden age of infomercials there was no escaping Ron Popeil, purveyor of fine cooking appliances and his golden catch phrase, “Just set it and forget it!” Mr. Popeil and one of his ingenious cooking devices.
Practice Strategic Absence
What happens when you are not around? How well do church services function? How does your area of ministry operate without you? What goes wrong? What goes right?
On Integrity
For years, many of us lived without anything significant to challenge our espoused values. However, the past several years have provided many opportunities to act according to our espoused values, to live with integrity.
Agile, Engineering & Product
💻📖 hacker-laws
There are lots of laws which people discuss when talking about development. This repository is a reference and overview of some of the most common ones. Please share and submit PRs!
Engineering Org Structures
As an engineering leader, I’ve found many products and engineering teams at startups struggle with being agile. The shortcuts the startup took early on getting to the point where they could grow had benefits, but also costs.
Why Bad Code Exists
We’ve all had the experience of opening up a source file where everything just makes sense. Nothing is surprising or confusing, and we can easily make changes.
That’s it!
If you’d like to be considered for the free CTO Craft Community, fill in your details here, and we’ll be in touch!
https://ctocraft.com/community
Please do remember to share this link if you know of anyone who’d like to receive TMW:
Have an amazing week!
Andy