SWLW #547: Meetings *are* the work, Every constraint is an opportunity, and more.

Heya,

As always, below you can read my best findings for the week.
 

This Week's Favorite

​​Meetings *Are* the Work
10 minutes read.

"In a healthy workplace, the whole system promotes higher-quality knowledge production, above and beyond what any individual could achieve alone." -- Elizabeth Ayer with a masterpiece. I read this post multiple times, slowing down in a different paragraph and rereading it. Here is one of these paragraphs: "Knowledge-making is unruly. You can’t know up-front which things are tangents. Even one distracted participant can sour a batch. Forming new knowledge requires you to be open to whole people, not just the facet of their expected role. It can also be ephemeral; if you don’t work to keep them, good thoughts vanish again. As Samo Burja says, new knowledge is often produced in small, intellectually illegitimate spaces. If we want to get better at it, we need — individually and collectively — to be comfortable with necessary mess and improve over time with social reflective practice."

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Culture

Approving the Minutes From the Prior Board Meeting
1 minute read.

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

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From Good to Great: A Capability Framework for Building Exceptional Product Engineering Teams
11 minutes read.

Juan Pablo Buriticá with a post I recommend reading to understand how teams with high agency act. Share with your engineering teams and discuss where you want to focus your attention to push for improvements.

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Every Constraint Is an Opportunity
6 minutes read.

Gregor Hohpe provides a great reminder (and examples) of how organizational constraints can open up opportunities for you to create a bigger impact: "Although they [constraints] are bound to be frustrating, with a little creativity constraints can become an unlikely source of opportunity to start changing an organization."

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What Actually Drives Productivity
13 minutes read.

This post provides helpful insights into what to measure and where to pay attention when considering developers' productivity. Measuring the team's perception, echoing what was improved, and showing trends over time can go a long way. We also need to align on what we're trying to optimize and why it's essential for the business. Sometimes, friction is a desired state if one dimension becomes easier, but another one becomes exponentially harder, e.g., adding many services might feel effective, but a few months later, the maintenance overhead might hurt the team's productivity.

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Peopleware

"The Opposite of Courage in Our Society Is Not Cowardice, It's Conformity."
4 minutes read.

Andy shares his learnings from Rollo May: "he was also a strong advocate for the importance of creativity in human life. He believed that creativity was essential for personal growth and fulfillment, and that it could be a powerful tool for therapy and self-discovery. Again, I can say this is true for me. Creating and evolving Clues Dot Life has been the single most important aid in my ongoing transformation (at least for the period between 2021 to 2023). It's truly the first creative act I've ever dedicated myself to. And it's teaching me so much about myself." This project of "People & Stories" is remarkable, and I jumped between different people to see what Andy learned from them and to delve deeper (I recommend reading about Carol Dweck as well).

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What Is the Opposite of Tech Debt? What Do You Call the Things That Reduce Friction/Drag, Preserve Optionality/Extensibility, Etc.? (Thread)
3 minutes read.

"What is the opposite of Tech Debt?" is a good question as it shows how many ways people look at this term. This is why I think Tech Debt is often not (only) a technical problem, as it's hard to agree on what debt is. In other domains, like financial debt, the definition is straightforward (e.g., a mortgage on a house). We shouldn't strive for zero Tech Debt, so this term has a limiting mindset on how we build software.

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5 Things Founders, Investors and Recruiters Should Know About the CTO Role
7 minutes read.

Interesting observation on the role of the CTO: "Engineering managers, and even Heads of Engineering, are operational leaders. As a CTO, you might come up with stuff you want to improve that literally conflicts with their operational goals. This is perfectly normal, because as a CTO, you’re observing from an outside position, looking at what could be better. The friction caused by these conflicting positions is natural and should lead to healthy discussions. Now you also know why a CTO cannot also take operational management tasks: conflict of interest." -- Clearly, there are companies and wonderful CTO where they do act as operational leaders. This is written from a stand and a clear position - this is Marc’s role (CTO consultant) - and still, this is a compelling observation. Who’s in charge of judging and pushing the organization outside of its current “prison” of thoughts and aspirations?

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And finally, inspiring tweets...

@shreyas: Don’t be fooled by Best Practices. By the time something is labeled and advertised as a Best Practice, it is just average. Following these practices only suggests you won’t be left behind, not that you will lead the pack. Best Practices are actually Average Practices.

@thejustinwelsh: Designing an intentional life makes you one of the wealthiest people you can be.



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.