Sign in Subscribe
7 min read

🧦 Too Much Process, Negotiation, RCA, Debugging Teams, Better Collaboration, Healthchecks, Illusory Green Builds: TMW #472

Hello London - it's CTO Craft Con week!
🦞
Thank you to Plandek for sponsoring this week's issue - AI driven analytics, intelligence and mitigations to optimise the end-to-end SDLC in the new era of AI-augmented engineering.

Hello, hello, hello, welcome to the week!

So, we're back in London for our flagship conference this week, as 400 leaders from all across Europe descend on Westminster for three days of workshops, keynotes, panels, roundtable discussions and shared experiences. This year we'll be starting on Monday with an afternoon of AI-focused workshops and labs, with expert facilitators helping attendees build skills around AI-enabled development, communicate AI better with boards, build better prompting skills and more.

If you're coming along, please do come and find me - I'd love to say hello!

That's it, let's look at some links....

Andy @ CTO Craft

PS. Don't forget to take part in our annual Compensation Survey - every data point helps:

CTO Craft: 2026 Compensation Survey
CTO Craft alongside Albany Partners are conducting a survey on Compensation norms across tech leadership.

CTO Craft Con - Dates for Your Diary

Also, check out our new Conversations Roadshow, where we'll be bringing leaders together for guided roundtable discussions on a wide range of engineering leadership topics. Coming to Stockholm, Berlin, London and NYC in 2026!

SPONSORED
CTA Image

Plandek has just released its 2026 Engineering Productivity Benchmarks, analysing anonymised delivery data from 2,000+ software engineering teams worldwide to understand what separates high- and low-performing engineering teams today.

  • AI helps struggling teams far more than elite ones. Lower-performing teams using AI reduced Lead Time to Value by nearly 50%, compared to 10–15% improvements for top teams – a 4× difference in impact.
  • Code review is emerging as a major bottleneck. Bottom-quartile teams take 35+ hours to merge pull requests, compared to under 21 hours for top performers.
  • Removing workflow bottlenecks matters more than adding AI. Teams that address planning and review delays deliver 2× more output per engineer.

Plandek will be attending and speaking at CTO Craft Con this week. You can find us at the AI Leadership Lab on Monday, and on the main stage at 9.50 on Tuesday.

We’d love to share our take on the benchmark results and more, so please drop by for a chat!

Download the Full Productivity Report

CTO Craft Mixers in March

See the whole Mixer calendar here - not in your city yet? Drop us a line!

Reads of the Week

When Process Starts Eating Your Day: The Hidden Engineering Leadership Tax of Scale
As companies scale, governance expands and strategic capacity shrinks. Learn how process overload erodes engineering leadership effectiveness—and how to restore balance.
The Engineering TaxAlvaro Lorente
How Empowered Is Your Team, Really? A Decision Stack Diagnostic
Empowerment isn’t binary. Use the Decision Stack to diagnose where your team really sits — and whether that’s the right level for your context.
the Decision StackMartin Eriksson

Leadership, Strategy & Business

How To Master Your Next Negotiation
This is a summary of “Never Split the Difference” by Christopher Voss
Level Up CodingSéverin Bruhat
The Root Cause Fallacy
In which framing it as a root cause means you’ve already lost
JoTJeff
The 6 Skills You Need to Become a Strategic Leader
And how you can develop them today
The Good BossGaurav Jain
Six Rules for Designing Company Goals
Six rules for turning goal-setting from a spreadsheet exercise into an operating system.
LessonsMolly Graham

Culture, People & Teams

How to debug a team that isn’t working: the Waterline Model
A guide to solving team problems (without always blaming the people)
Lenny's NewsletterMolly Graham
Avoiding a Culture of Emergencies
There is enormous variability in the frequency with which teams have emergencies.
Stay SaaSyStay SaaSy
Is your collaboration good or evil?
Signals, self-assessment, and three levers to reduce collaboration tax
High-Impact EngineeringRoman Nikolaev
The Complicators, The Drama Aggregators, and The Avoiders
It’s hard to tell what drives each human. This is why my usual last interview question is a very blunt, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” I ask everyon
Rands in ReposeName *

Technology, Operations & Delivery

Health checks are integral to website maintenance programmes
Insights for leaders, managers, and their teams at software and web-development agencies
MetaportDcentrica
RDEL #133: Does using AI to code come at the cost of learning?
Not all AI usage is equal: developers who asked conceptual questions scored 65-86% on skills tests, while those who only delegated code generation scored 24-39%.
Research-Driven Engineering LeadershipResearch-Driven Engineering Leadership
Stop blaming your AI. Your data is the real problem.
Your automation tools are not broken. Your inputs are.
FutureBriefYuri Vonchitzki
The Illusion of Green Builds: Why Agentic AI Breaks Traditional CI/CD
The “Friday Afternoon” Deployment Nightmare
Ashu KumarAshu Kumar

Stress, Wellbeing & Growth

Developer Burnout 2026: When 10x Productivity Becomes 10x Stress
We’re shipping faster than ever. So why does it feel like we’re falling apart?
MediumTuğhan Belbek
Nobody Gets Promoted for Simplicity
We reward complexity and ignore simplicity. In interviews, design reviews, and promotions. Here’s how to fix it.
Terrible Software
I started to use a notebook again to slow down when AI Agents keep seeking for my attention
Yes, the physical notebook.
Engineering StrategyAleix Morgadas

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!

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

Interested in sponsoring TMW or any of our events? Check out some stats here

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