Tech Manager Weekly by CTO Craft - Issue #159
Hey there!
There's a lot to look forward to next week - we have two CTO Craft Bytes sessions lined up, following a massively popular event on Friday last week. Here's what's in store:
CTO Craft Bytes - Job Hunting During the Crisis - April 28th at 12.30pm BST
CTO Craft Bytes - On Navigating Uncertainty - May 1st at 4pm BST
We'll be running a free Mentoring Circle session for members in North America later this week - this session is full, but if you'd like to chat about joining a Circle near you, reply to this email and we'll get something in the diary.
Hywel Carver of Skiller Whale is running some more of his excellent Tech Lead Dinner events, online:
Early-stage teams (still being a developer, as well as leading) on 21 April
One-tier teams (leading a team) on 28 April
Two-tier teams (leading the team leads who lead teams) on 5 May
Huge teams (too big to have a two-tier structure) on 12 May
Stay safe, and see you soon
Andy @ CTO Craft
CTO Craft Bytes - AWS Cost Optimisation
Last Friday we ran a Bytes session with Rob De Feo, Startup Advocate at AWS and Jon Topper, Founder at the Scale Factory, where we explored ways of reducing costs in AWS. The recording is here:
CTO Craft Bytes - AWS Cost Optimisation - Crowdcast
During this online session we will discuss ways of reducing your spend on Amazon Web Services and support you can get from AWS themselves. There will be an open question and answer section at the end of the chat.
The Scale Factory provide a review service for startups to ensure they're using the cloud efficiently:
The Scale Factory provide a Well
The Scale Factory provide aWell
Well-Architected - The Scale Factory
A Well-Architected review is a great way to understand whether you’re spending too much on your AWS bill. Book a review with The Scale Factory to gain access to $5,000 of credits available per workload to help fund improvements
On top of this, Rob told us about AWS Activate and the benefits it can bring to startups:
AWS Activate for Startups, Founders, & Entrepreneurs
AWS Activate is a free program specifically designed for startups and early stage entrepreneurs that offers the resources needed to get started on AWS.
Stay tuned for more CTO Craft Bytes events, as well as virtual round-tables - keep an eye on our Eventbrite page for details
Culture & People
Seniorless
It’s no secret that all companies are mostly looking to hire super-senior developers. Ones that can tackle a large range of tasks with full independence. However, finding those developers is hard, time consuming, and, eventually, might even do more harm than good for the team.
Software Teams and Teamwork Trends Report Q1 2020
Key Takeaways Remote work is suddenly the new normal due to the impact of COVID-19, and many teams are not fully ready for the change The spread of agile ideas into other areas of organizations continues—business agility is becoming much more than just a buzzword At the practices level, Wardley Ma
The New Science of Building Great Teams
If you were looking for teams to rig for success, a call center would be a good place to start. The skills required for call center work are easy to identify and hire for. The tasks involved are clear-cut and easy to monitor.
Engineering Team Meeting: Format & Topic Ideas
When I started managing the engineering department at my company, I wanted to have an interesting team meeting involving the entire team. My objective at the time was to set up a meeting that people would look forward to, going beyond simple team & company updates.
Leadership & Self-management
How to Make Your Teams Stronger in a Crisis
The way corporate teams work together has evolved in recent years, moving from top-down and expertise-driven to an approach built around cocreating and purpose.
How to Get Status Updates Out of Your 1 on 1s (and what to focus on instead)
Question: What’s the biggest mistake managers make in their 1 on 1s? Answer: Filling them up with status and project updates.
How to lead for good when times are bad
Amid uncertainty and disruption, one thing is for sure: good leadership has never been more essential. We asked London Business School faculty for their evidence-based tips on leading for good in troubled times. The world needs you to lead for good, more now than ever before.
Agile, Engineering & Product
Can We Measure Software Developer Productivity?
Short answer: I don’t know. Before you move on though, I’d like to say that “I don’t know” here means that I know from personal experience that trying to measure a software developer’s productivity rarely (or never) ends well.
Remote Agile Retrospectives — Age-of-Product.com
We started this series on remote agile with looking into practices and tools, followed by exploring virtual Liberating Structures, how to master Zoom as well as common remote agile anti-patterns.
How to Rock a Remote Team Retrospective
A decade back, remote retrospective used to happen via conference calls. But now trends are changing. Companies are becoming more and more remote-friendly. Also, because of technology, now the world is very well connected.
How to Make Things High-Quality
If there is one debate that is the endlessly circling “Star Wars versus Star Trek” of product development, it is what I refer to as “The Tradeoff Between Quality and Time” (TTBQT). Here’s how it typically goes: Alice: The way we’ve built X is pretty janky/slow/hacky.
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
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Have an amazing week!
Andy