SWLW #528: Managing your career without a manager, Shopify implemented a calendar purge, and more.

Heya,

Happy holidays and happy new year everyone! As always, below you can read my best findings for the week.
 

This Week's Favorite

​​Managing Your Career Without a Manager
6 minutes read.

Saswati Saha Mitra wrote one of the best posts on owning your career's trajectory. Her advice and areas of focus are so good you can copy it and adjust to your energy level and goals for the year. Don't let your growth be a function of the company's (and managers') support. You can leverage them to grow faster but never rely on them as the only way to challenge yourself.

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Culture

It's Friday!
1 minute read.

My humble effort to help you start the weekend with a smile on your face. It makes me laugh every time I see it.

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Shopify Implemented a Calendar Purge
4 minutes read.

Seeing a company as big as Shopify (thousands of employees) doing a "calendar purge" and defining new rules for meetings is incredible. Meetings are not bad, and there are plenty of tips on how to get them right, but starting fresh is a great way to rethink their quality and value, so you can recreate only those you need.

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Measuring an Engineering Organization
12 minutes read.

Will Larson shares his view on what (and why) to measure engineering organizations. These are some insights from my experience: You will always feel you can do more. High visibility SLAs are critical to measure and report on, but should get "boring" (we always meet them). If you're not there yet, that's okay. Show progress until you can keep it. Good SLAs are forever. Interesting KPIs should be temporary, and "mature" if they're really good (many KPIs are not) into SLA that you keep forever. Share SLAs as they usually cover the business needs, and then aim for what makes the company unique (not "basic needs" which SLA covers) and what you're doing about it. It should feel somewhat unintuitive, like a good secret that makes a lot of sense when you have context and can explain why it's your secret power (or "unfair advantage"). DORA/SPACE and others are excellent, but they always cover the basics. If you have good numbers there, people will probably not be quick to leave, but you cannot keep an excellent talent for many years by telling them, "it won't suck to be here." Track things that people should be excited about, and then deliver a story to upper management (or board) on why this is what will make you win. "Using optimization metrics to judge performance" and "Deciding measures alone rather than in community." are the biggest anti-patterns I've repeatedly seen. Talk about it with your CEO but offer something else to measure aligned with their needs.

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How Roadmaps Accidentally Make Teams Powerless
7 minutes read.

I think connecting "being agile" to "planning is a waste" is not helpful. Having a plan doesn't mean you're not seeking to learn and iterate. If you think about your Roadmap as a set of bets you want to make and learn from them, it's easier to keep the right mindset.

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Peopleware

Finding Fulfillment
9 minutes read.

"I believe that to leap from Pink’s original question — What motivates people? — to my question — What is fulfilling? — at least one vital component is missing: Joy." -- Jason Cohen with a healthy framework to remind you to seek joy in your role. Be careful of Recency Bias, as it can often lead you to the wrong conclusions. It's okay to be tired. Life is not linear. You're not a machine. See if you can introduce more joy. Often we feel that people (e.g. our manager) will tell us "no," and we don't even ask.

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Huberman Lab: Day to Day Habits That Can Help You Stay Motivated and Disciplined (Video)
10 minutes read.

I love listening to Andrew Huberman's podcast (look it up if you're into podcasts), and this video is an excellent intro to his materials, combining science with productivity hacks. "The effort is the good part! [...] It's lying to yourself in the context of truth." Think about it next time you give yourself a nice perk at the end of some hard work or how you reward your kids. Can you make planning more enjoyable? What about a complex design process? A workout? Reading a book?

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Meta-Work: Why You’re Always Busy With Nothing to Show For
4 minutes read.

I like the term meta-work. Usually, a lack of clear and interesting (and fun!) goals makes me focus on meta-work. Talking with others helps me (peer pressure is a wonderful thing) to organize my thoughts and make sure that I focus on the right things with clear actions.

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And finally, inspiring tweets...

@adcock_brett: Chaos is the default of life — you have to organize yourself if you want a better result.

@girdley: “Stop playing house.” This is the idea that people love to do the things that *look* like entrepreneurship but aren’t. Trademarks, patents, LLCs, billing systems, offices, etc. Forget all that. Sell some stuff first.



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.