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👁 Thinking Slow, Progress Updates, Onboarding, Lava Lamp Security, On-call Without Burnout: TMW #375

📈
Thanks to Uplevel for sponsoring this issue of Tech Manager Weekly - increase product velocity and quality, without sacrificing team health.

Hi there, welcome to the week!

We're just a few weeks away from the start of CTO Craft Con: London, and Lee-Jon Ball (day one conference host) and I got our heads together to chat about what we're most looking forward to - see you there!

Don't forget: TMW readers can use the community discount code to enable the lowest possible ticket prices. Just enter the access code "Community-May-24" at the beginning of the checkout.

Adelina Chalmers is one of our most prolific CTO Craft Coaches, conference speakers and collaborators - she's put together a great how-to for CTOs to ensure they get the budget they need for engineering initiatives. TMW readers can buy the guide for ÂŁ5 instead of the usual ÂŁ50 using the code "CTOCRAFT" at the checkout.

How to get your board to say “yes” to engineering spend!
Available on sale just for the first 30 people purchasing!11 minutes video showing how to get the board to say “yes” to more budget for engineeringBefore and after real example from a CTO client I worked with in a company of 4,000 staffSee what the CTO’s message was when it was not approved by the board (continuously for 9 months!)See what the CTO’s message was when it was approved by the board in one meetingKnow how the CTO’s presentation changed to get board approval straight awaySee how CTO got $5M for a technical redesign.
Gumroad

That's it! On with the links - see you next week

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
CTO Craft Campus
Zero to CTO – Meade Kincke is in the Spotlight | CTO Craft
Meade is the Founder & CEO of Imperfektus, and has been a CTO for over 20 years. He discusses his tech background, building elite teams and scaling organisations.
CTO CraftSarah Haselwood

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 Mixer: GdaƄsk 2024
Join our community of CTOs and senior tech leaders for an informal meet-up in gdaƄsk
EventsRachel Thomas
CTO Craft Mixer: Dublin 2024
Join our community of CTOs and senior tech leaders for an informal meet-up in Dublin
EventsRachel Thomas

Mixers: We have a number of Mixer events coming up shortly in Gothenburg, Sofia, Bristol, Manchester, Bucharest, Munich and Berlin - read more here and book your place. Are you interested in launching a Mixer in your city? Drop us a line!

Reads of the Week

Think Slow
No Mercy / No Malice has been nominated for a Webby Award. Vote for us here, and I will surround you with white light.
MediumScott Galloway

From our Sponsors

[From Uplevel] How Accolade Meets Commitments Effectively with Engineering Intelligence

Learn how telehealth platform Accolade increased deep work time by 20% and deployments by 205% to serve 10 million customers worldwide.

Check it out

A huge thanks to all our sponsors and partners, who make Tech Manager Weekly and the CTO Craft community possible:

AWS, Albany Partners, Code Climate, Coherence, HeadChannel, Google Cloud, Jellyfish, Polly, Skiller Whale, Softwire, Sema, Unblocked, Uplevel, Vention, YLD, 101 Ways

Leadership, Strategy & Business

You’re not guaranteed a spot on the team
I’ve always hated the saying “we’re like family here” when it comes to work. Because it’s obviously not true, and it’s usually cynically invoked by management to entice an undue obligation of sacrifice. Implying that you should give it all to The Company -- constantly working weekends, always being available on vacations, and all the r

What we talk about when we talk about ‘root cause’
Instead of finding the ‘root cause’ to incidents and issues, @allspaw says it’s more accurate to try and break down what created the ‘perfect storm’:
GitHub
How to send progress updates - Slava Akhmechet
Slava Akhmechet
4 Reasons Why Managers Fail
Gartner research has found that managers today are accountable for 51% more responsibilities than they can effectively manage — and they’re starting to buckle under the pressure: 54% are suffering from work-induced stress and fatigue, and 44% are struggling to provide personalized support to their direct reports. Ultimately, one in five managers said they would prefer not being people managers given a choice. Further analysis found that 48% of managers are at risk of failure based on two criteria: 1) inconsistency in current performance and 2) lack of confidence in the manager’s ability to lead the team to future success. This article offers four predictors of manager failure and offers suggestions for organizations on how to address them.
Harvard Business ReviewSwagatam Basu,

Culture, People & Teams

Build Your Culture Like a Product — Lessons from Asana’s Head of People
Anna Binder, Asana’s Head of People and the company’s first HR hire, shares her step-by-step approach to intentionally building the company culture.
First Round ReviewFirst Round Staff
How to recognize the potential in engineers
My TOP 3 traits for recognizing potential are not what you may think!
Engineering LeadershipGregor Ojstersek
How to Recruit More Female Engineers
Building a diverse and inclusive engineering team is not only a moral imperative but also a strategic advantage for any organization. As a

Women in TechnologyMariane Bekker
Effective Employee Onboarding
The first few weeks at a new job can be a whirlwind. New faces, unfamiliar routines, and a mountain of information to absorb — it’s no

Mediumvairee

Technology, Operations & Delivery

Agile in the Age of AI
Explore the possibilities for AI in reshaping Agile practices, team dynamics, and the role of software engineers. Could smaller, AI-empowered teams be the future in the Age of AI?
Hups-LogoHenrik Kniberg
How A Wall of Lava Lamps Is Protecting The Internet
How this unique technology keeps hackers at bay
MediumGrant Piper
Adopting Agile by Increasing Psychological Safety in a Software Team
To test the agile way of thinking, a software team worked on their psychological safety with kick-off exercises, sharing coffee breaks, celebrating wins, a stand-up question, and 1-on-1 talks. This helped them to increase psychological safety in their software team.
InfoQBen Linders
On call: how not to burn
Our strategies for sustainable on-call rotations and why people and their sleep matter
YouScanYaroslav Tykhonchuk

Stress, Wellbeing & Growth

‘Easy-Going’ Doesn’t Mean ‘Don’t Care’
Uptight ‘achievers’ frequently mistake a quality for an unrelated, undesirable personality fault.
Management MattersWill Hackett-Jones
To Every Developer Close To Burnout, Read This
Are you feeling exhausted? Overwhelmed and unmotivated? With no willingness to code, work, or even

DEV CommunityDragos Nedelcu

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:

https://techmanagerweekly.com

Have an amazing week!

Andy

Published by:

Andy Skipper