SWLW #576: How to ship fast, The importance of Career Laddering, and more.

As every Friday, I share my best findings for the week.

 

This Week's Favorite

How to Ship Fast
4 minutes read.

I love the principles Ben McRedmond shares here from his experience. These are his principles and things that work for him, so read it as such and take the time to think what would be the 5-8 principles you believe in based on your experience. Ben's "There is no quality vs. speed tradeoff" is a non-trivial principle I strongly agree with.

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Culture

Reinforcement Learning Explained
1 minute read.

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

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The Importance of Career Laddering
9 minutes read.

"Anything that provides clarity for your staff can be helpful." -- Sarah Drasner shares how to build a Career Ladder in your company. This helps set a growth plan that both sides are excited about - the company needs it to scale the organization, and the team needs it to understand how to increase their impact and build a long-term career.

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The 4 Types of Product-Market Fit (Thread)
3 minutes read.

The 4 types of PMF shared by Shreyas Doshi are helpful to looking at your business and understanding where you should focus next. The entire thread is interesting as there are many questions that Shreyas answers around this framing.

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A Guide to Speeding Up Your Product and Engineering Teams
7 minutes read.

What do you think holds back a team from sustainably producing high-quality deliverables? How do you ensure the team's velocity is in good shape? One of the biggest traps I've seen is having a mediocre team and a lot of pressure to deliver, so instead of letting go of slow performers, the team hires more of them (or none at all), which keeps the team struggling.

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Peopleware

What Does Success Look Like for You?
3 minutes read.

"I think it's useful to think about criteria for success—what criteria in a given career path define success, and do those criteria match up with what you personally care about?" -- Jacob O'Bryant's post made me think about what I see as success in my professional career. I don't have a clear answer just yet. Do you have a good answer? It may be worth talking with your teammates to see how others think about their careers and motivation.

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Your Output Depends on Your Input
4 minutes read.

Changing our inputs has a dramatic influence on our output. It's true for what we eat or what we read (aka "Information Diet"): "I know for a fact I could not do what I do if I was not zealous in managing high-quality inputs into my mind every day of my life. That’s why I spend maybe two hours a day writing. I’m a writer. I spend two hours a day writing, but I spend three to four hours a day reading and two to three hours a day listening to music. People think that that’s creating a problem in my schedule, but in fact, I say, “No, no, this is the reason why I’m able to do this. Because I have constant good-quality input.” That is the only reason why I can maintain the output."

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Advice to a New Speaker
4 minutes read.

"I am assuming you are happy with the content. I’m more interested in the structure and the arc. What do you want someone to do differently as a result of coming to your talk? Presenting is about changing people; giving them a new tool or perspective, or information they didn’t have before. So what is The Thing? Make sure you are crystal clear about your message, and the content will follow." Dan North is spot on. Build everything around the key insight you want people to take home.

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And finally, inspiring tweets...

@jasonlk: Only the best can really take constructive feedback. Everyone else just wants to be told they are doing well

@thejustinwelsh: The bigger the problem you solve, the bigger the paycheck you earn.



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.