SWLW #566: Nobody Cares, Micromanagement: The unpopular truth you need to hear, and more

Heya,

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

This Week's Favorite

Nobody Cares
4 minutes read.

"When his friend and mentor Raiders owner Al Davis called Parcells to check in, Parcells relayed his injury issues. Parcell’s: “Al, I am just not sure how we can win without so many of our best players. What should I do?” Davis replied: “Bill, nobody cares, just coach your team.”" -- The simplicity of Davis's answer reminds me why we should strive for greatness even if, or because of, life is "meaningless" (we'll all be forgotten). We strive for greatness because it makes life interesting. We leverage our skills because it's fun to feel valuable. We act even if we might fail because growth requires stories. Just show up and do your thing. Nobody cares about you. They all have their stories.

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Culture

Dev vs. Designer Meme Time! Share Your Best With Me, Why Don't Ya? I'll Start... (Thread)
1 minute read.

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

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Building an Onboarding Plan for Engineering Managers
6 minutes read.

Daniel Korn has excellent tips and a solid framework for building onboarding plans for new engineering managers. Considering the "Don’t worry abouts" list to enable smoother onboarding is a great insight worth adopting.

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Strategy Basics: Why Strategy Is Important and What Does It Mean?
6 minutes read.

Alex Ewerlof covers the basic terms and sets the stage to explore how you can use them when crafting your strategy - in your department or overall strategy for the company.

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Here's My Conversation With Mark Zuckerberg, His 3rd Time on the Podcast, but This Time We Talked in the Metaverse as Photorealistic Avatars (Video)
63 minutes read.

This interview will blow your mind. The technological advancement is incredible, opening up amazing possibilities for leveraging it to enhance our social life and the way we work.

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Peopleware

The Written Word
4 minutes read.

"Write the kind of stuff you like to read. Writing for yourself is fun, and it shows. Writing for others is work, and it shows. [...] People don’t remember books, blogs, or articles. They remember sentences. [...] Big words mask little thoughts. They’re an attempt to fool the reader into thinking you’re smart when you have nothing smart to say." -- I love Morgan Housel's writing so much.

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Micromanagement: The Unpopular Truth You Need to Hear
3 minutes read.

Ido Shamun is spot on here: "It's crucial to strike a balance. Micromanagement should be a temporary tool, not a permanent state of affairs. When you encounter resistance from your team members, it's a sign to step back and reassess your approach. Effective management is about adapting to the needs and preferences of your team. The true essence of effective leadership lies in adaptation. Each team member is unique, and successful management means experimenting with various approaches tailored to their individual needs."

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Exponential Value at Linear Cost
3 minutes read.

Understanding the math in this post is a great way to understand systems's availability and the risks you should consider when planning your architecture. This got me thinking of other areas where we can invest linearly yet potentially get exponential value, e.g. employee training, further investment in automated testing, etc. Do you have other areas that come to mind? Is that something you want to further invest in for next year (hence should influence your budget planning)?

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And finally, inspiring tweets...

@RomeenSheth: Software is Eating The World. But Interest Rates are Eating Software Valuations. (h/t @howardlindzon)

@asmartbear: "Tech debt" is when you intentionally shipped ahead of 100% done, and then need to go back and do it. When the platform is now 10x or 100x larger, so major things need rewriting, that's not "debt," that's "evolution due to growth."



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.