🍦 Going Back to Engineering, Rocks/Pebbles/Sand, SPACE, Telephone Game, Equity, Presenting to Execs: TMW #277 by CTO Craft
Hello there, welcome to the week!
We'll be pausing our weekly Bytes sessions over August, but keep your eyes peeled for some amazing panels and speakers after the summer, as well as some new event formats..
To all those taking a break - have fun, switch off and come back refreshed and ready to take on the world. You've earned it
Until next time
Andy @ CTO Craft
Reads of the Week
Is there a path back from CTO to engineer?
I received this question in the comments section of my piece on The Twin Anxieties of the Engineer/Manager Pendulum, and figured I might as well answer it. It definitely isn’t a question I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about or anything.
The practical application of "Rocks, Pebbles, Sand"
If you schedule little things first, you run out of time for the big things. If you schedule the big things first, then you can fill in with smaller things.
Measuring enterprise developer productivity
In a recent paper written by Nicole Forsgren and her colleagues, “The SPACE of developer productivity: There’s more to it than you think,” there is an irony that is hard to escape.
From our Sponsors
The Fundamentals of Engineering Metrics [eBook] - from Code Climate
Engineering leaders often rely on gut feel, anecdotal data, and imperfect measures to gauge how their team is doing. Learn how software engineering metrics can help you ensure development and business goals are on track in your organization
About our Sponsors
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Culture & People
Telephone Game!
This week I am going to share Telephone Game diagrams! Recognize any? If you enjoy this post, consider sharing it.
Equity in your tech job offer: everything you need to know
Reading offer letter legalese can feel like someone explaining the rules of a board game before you start playing. When it’s Saturday night and you’re sitting around the table with a group of friends, typically someone will say: “Just deal me the cards and we’ll figure it out as we go. The first hand can be practice.”
From Visibility to Representation – Rethinking DEI
When I talk about Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), I’m typically coming at it from an angle of systematic change. The purpose of DEI, as I see it, is to dismantle a rigged system and move to something more equitable.
How to upskill your engineering team
Tomas Vocetka thinks upskilling as a software engineer is the responsibility of both the individual and the employer.
Leadership & Self-management
How to present to executives.
Have you presented to company executives about a key engineering initiative, walking into the room excited and leaving defeated? Maybe you only made it to your second slide before unrelated questions derailed the discussion.
An in-depth guide to everything you should do in your first three months as a first-time manager of managers
If your teams are hiring, this should become one of your main priorities—after all, you need to make sure that your teams get the right talent in quickly. Get insight on how that’s going and make sure you receive regular updates:
Learning Diverse Question Formats to Get Better Insights
One thing I’ve been doing a lot this year is thinking about how to ask better questions. It’s not a skill I’ve deliberately tried to develop much in the past so I spend a lot of time thinking about every single question.
In the Midst of Uncertainty, Shoot for the Moon
What’s the biggest threat to your organization right now? A coming recession? The labor shortage? Geopolitical instability? Domestic political chaos? Supply chain disruptions? Inflation? Oil prices? The answer, of course, is all of the above, coalesced in the form of uncertainty.
6 Tips to Overcome Scaling Challenges Like Design Decisions, Tech Debt, and Developer Satisfaction
If an engineer is going to hit the same friction again and again due to tech debt - it is going to demoralize them. So as important as it is to launch new features, it is also important that your Investment Portfolio is healthy - which is where tackling tech debt comes in.
Agile, Engineering & Product
Write better docs with a product thinking mindset
I’ve frequently seen product thinking discussed in product management and user experience design contexts, but haven’t seen it applied to technical writing and documentation. And yet, by applying product thinking to documentation, we can write more useful, relevant, high quality documentation.
“A Working Request Process Should End in YES” (aka Incompatible Worldviews)
Enterprise Sales/Solutions teams see the world one customer at a time; Product/Development teams see cumulative market impact and aggregate technical demand. These are fundamentally in conflict...
Why long-term plans don't work and how to fix them
Yearly software development plans are my favourite genre of fiction. In the fabulous world of yearly plans, product developers assume they know exactly what product they must build and how long each task will take.
Scrum Teams are often Coached to Death, while the Problems are With Management
I feel for all the Scrum teams that do the best they can to make their Scrum work, only to be obstructed by management. I have seen so many teams who understand the concepts of Scrum, and who are super motivated. They often improve greatly in the first few months.
That’s it!
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Have an amazing week!
Andy