Tech Manager Weekly by CTO Craft - Issue #155
Hi there, welcome to the week!
We hope you're staying safe as the threat of infection grows - check out our Events page for details of some online roundtables and talks, including one focused on Remote and Distributed Teams later this week. Tickets are still available, and they're free!
If we haven't spoken yet about Mentoring Circles, and you're interested to learn more, drop a reply to this email - we're gathering candidates from everywhere around the world, and would love to have you join us to benefit from joining trusted, supportive group calls with other CTOs just like you.
Till next week - stay safe!
Andy Skipper
Reads of the Week
A CTO's Playbook for Building Great Technology Products | CTO Craft
Vlad Galu, an experienced, product-focused deep tech CTO based in London, shares his personal playbook for building successful technology products
From Zero to CTO: Pat Kua is in the spotlight | CTO Craft
CTO and Tech Lead mentor Pat Kua tells CTO Craft about his experiences as a new technology leader, the skills he had to develop, what works for him now and where he's headed over the next five years
Connecting the world's best CTOs - join CTO Craft's Community of Engineering Leaders
Accelerate your learning by joining our network of CTOs and engineering leaders, and join conversations with our mentors and coaches on Slack and in Monthly Mentoring Circles. Gain validation, join exchanges and put your questions to some of the world's best technology leaders
Culture & People
Working From Home
For many readers it might seem surprising to you to see me publish on working from home when I’m such a vocal fan of the magic of co-located teams.
Guide to Managing Remote Teams for Managers : Second Edition.pdf
Even though I’ve been a CEO of a remote company for more than five years, I’d never explicitly thought about the difference between what a remote leader re-quires vs. what a co-located leader requires. But when posed the question, I realized there are certain things I deliberately focus on as a remote leader. And, I’ve noticed other leaders of remote teams focusing on similar things, too.
A Crash Course in Remote Management
Remote work is a prominent topic lately, as people around the world are doing their best to live their lives and keep themselves and their families safe and prepared during the COVID-19 outbreak. The impact of this outbreak is felt across societies and cultures as well as in the workplace.
Working remotely once the novelty has worn off
There have been many posts about the positives of remote working, but not too many about the negatives. Cronofy has been distributed from the beginning and I’ve gone through various levels of working remotely as part of that, and seen others do the same.
Engineering Culture: The Secret Behind Monzo’s Developer Magnet
Engineering culture is tricky to build up the right way. It’s intangible, so you can’t just go through a checklist. It’s also a lot of work to build or change, so you can’t have it down by next week from zero. But engineering culture is extremely valuable.
Leadership & Self-management
Using Models to Stay Calm in Charged Situations
When polarizing topics are discussed in meetings, passions can run high and cloud our judgment. Learn how mental models can help you see clearly from this real-life scenario. Mental models can sometimes come off as an abstract concept.
15 Skills Senior Leaders Must Master to Be Great Managers of Managers
Sound like something you’d say? Many of the senior leaders I’ve spoken to find that they face a whole new set of challenges when they become a manager of managers.
7 leadership lessons over 2.5 years
No one had ever asked me this question before — let alone on my own podcast show — until recently. Who asked me this? None other than Jason Fried, CEO, and co-founder of Basecamp. I’d invited Jason back on The Heartbeat, our podcast on leadership, for our 50th episode.
Maximize your team. How I created an Engineering Roadmap
Engineering results are sometimes hard to quantify. A roadmap changes everything. Software engineering is hard and complicated. It’s even harder to convey the value to your company leaders.
Developing Leaders: What To Do When Your Team Grows Too Big
Whether this is a conversation you have in your head, or one that’s happened to you in talking to your boss, you know the hard truth: as your team grows, it becomes geometrically more complex to manage your team.
Agile, Engineering & Product
The death of Agile?
I read an article on the death of Agile. It’s not the first article I’ve seen claiming that Agile is dead, and I’m sure it won’t be the last.
Development Team Anti-Patterns
After covering the Scrum Master and the Product Owner, this article addresses Development Team anti-patterns, covering all Scrum Events as well as the Product Backlog artifact. Learn more about what to look out for if you want to support your fellow teammates.
Lessons from a DevOps Failure
“Five years ago I joined a company that was having problems,” said Patrick Debois, kicking off his talk at QConLondon earlier this month. Debois is now director of DevOps relations for security vendor Snyk.
There's no good reason not to migrate to the cloud
Odhrán McConnell, CTO at 101 Ways, explains some of the misconceptions about cloud migration - and why they should be discounted. 101 Ways is speaking and exhibiting at the upcoming Digital City Expo next week. Find out more about the Expo and Digital City Festival week here.
It’s time to kill the daily stand-up meeting
The meeting is only 8 minutes in and no one has uttered those words outright…. but they don’t need to. Each of your team members’ faces is blank. Mouths are moving, shaping the words, “what I worked on” and “what my blockers are,” but no one is truly listening.
What Else?
Governance that Goes with the Flow
In slide #9 of this deck about using cycle time analytics in forecasting, Troy Magennis shows that when four people plan to meet for dinner, there is only one chance in 16 that all four will arrive on time.
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.typeform.com/to/XXRNqV
Would you be open to supporting Tech Manager Weekly by becoming a paid subscriber, for only £10 per month? We’d appreciate it massively, and you’d be the first to receive exclusive content and benefits. Click here
Please do remember to share this link if you know of anyone who’d like to receive TMW:
http://www.techmanagerweekly.com
Have an amazing week!
Andy