SWLW #521: Thoughts on elevating product quality, Leader as Shock Absorber, and more.

Heya,

As always, below you can read my best findings for the week. If you want to support my work or join our SWLW community in Slack - scroll down to the bottom of the email to see how.
 

This Week's Favorite

​​Craft: Thoughts on Elevating Product Quality
18 minutes read.

"People hire services not just based on what they can do but how it makes them feel. Quality has a direct relationship to that. Quality products can take your users from 'I'm merely using this thing to accomplish a task' to 'this is something I love using and I'm telling everyone I know about it.'" -- If you go over Paul Stamatiou's blog and see the quality of content he produces, you'll get why his writing on craftsmanship is so good. His work is a huge inspiration for me as a content creator and curator.

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Culture

When You Lied on Your Resume and Got the Job
1 minute read.

My humble effort to help you start the weekend with a smile on your face.

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Hard Reset: How Not to Drive Your Company Off A Cliff
9 minutes read.

I recommend everyone working in tech to read Sarah Guo's post, as it will give context into how your company should operate in this environment and why it's essential to act fast.

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Changing Times (Or, Why Is Every Layoff 10-15%?)
11 minutes read.

Reading Elad Gil's market analysis can give you the context to understand why and how certain companies operate in today's economy and what it might imply for your company: "The key thing to remember is that if your valuation is very far ahead in this new market environment, and your business slows due to recession or spending cuts, it may be hard to raise money in the near term. [...] Things are likely to get worse before they get better. Make every dollar count."

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Inhumanity of Root Cause Analysis
6 minutes read.

This is so good: "[...] all complex software systems are also sociotechnical systems. They are made up of hardware, code, and humans who maintain it, communicating with each other in inscrutable ways about their incomplete mental models. Sociotechnical systems are not linear. They are not predictable. They are not deterministic. [...] The selection of one thing as a root cause versus another isn’t something that exists out there in reality. It’s something that one particular human projects into their narrative of what happened. It’s a story." -- Casey Rosenthal's post is a good reminder of the pitfalls to consider in RCA, and offers a better language and practices to enable a learning experience. Complex systems fail in complex ways.

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Peopleware

Leader as Shock Absorber
4 minutes read.

"A shock absorber cushions the blow -- it doesn't prevent the flow of force." -- Shock Absorber is an excellent metaphor for the leader's responsibility to keep the organization effective. Ed Batista with an excellent post that managers and technical leaders can learn from and practice in today's uncertainty and pressure.

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I Recently Came Across Data on Who We Spend Our Time With Over the Course of Our Lives. The Insights Are Simultaneously Inspiring and Depressing. Here Are 6 Graphs Everyone Needs to See (Thread)
5 minutes read.

Sahil Bloom's thread inspired me to schedule more time with people I love and think of fun activities to experience together. When it comes to working with others - don't compromise on the quality of the people you want to be surrounded with.

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How I Remember Everything I Read (Video)
16 minutes read.

I love Ali Abdaal's thinking and process to improve how he understands and remembers the content he consumes. Writing your takeaways in your own words (rather than copy&paste quotes) and having a template to help you focus on capturing your learning is helpful. We can leverage "Spaced Repetition" for key ideas we want to be able to recall more easily in the future. To truly understand the material - try to teach it to others and find people with similar passion you can exchange thoughts about and have a healthy debate.

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And finally, inspiring tweets...

@thejustinwelsh: People fail to build a meaningful business because they are impatient. There are zero get-rich-quick schemes that work. If someone is selling you that and you're buying? You're the fool. Building something great takes a long time, so please approach it with that mindset.

@ashevat: So hard to build, so easy to destroy.



p.s. if you're interested in joining SWLW's Slack channel, simply reply to this email and let me know. If you're leading a team, consider writing your Manager README (it's free) or getting my e-book and interviews Leading Snowflakes: The New Engineering Manager's Handbook. You can also support me by becoming a SWLW Patron. Thank you ❤️




Keep reading, keep learning.
-- Oren Ellenbogen.