SWLW #587: Perverse Incentives and DORA Metrics, Permanent Prototypes, and more

Like always, sharing my best findings for the week. Also, today (23rd Feb) I'm turning 40 so if you want to party with me, reach out via twitter/X (@orenellenbogen) and share someone I should follow and why. If you add a funny gif to it, I'll consider it as a fun bonus. 

 

This Week's Favorite

My New Favorite Team Ritual: A Weekly Meeting Called "Fight Club" Where You Meet With Your Leadership Team With the Intention of Having a Conflict.
2 minutes read.

This is a pure genius act by Megan Cook (Head of Product at Jira), making friction and conflicts more "acceptable" without the framing of politics, power dynamics, and a toxic environment.

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Culture

PM Explaining Requirements to the Dev Team Like
1 minute read.

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

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Perverse Incentives and DORA Metrics
5 minutes read.

Track things that move the business faster consistently and predictably: "It’s far more efficient to accept failures as an outcome of moving fast and put resources towards figuring out how to deal with them quickly. Tracking Change Failure Rate is a distraction. [...] Every business wants to move fast as it's the only way to win. Accordingly, the only metric that matters is Lead Time. If you want to understand this metric, ask the business if it feels Engineering is moving fast enough. [...] Anything in between [yes and no] is the sweet spot for increasing overall engineering transparency and working to ensure that your company can reliably move fast."

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AI Is Like Water: Tech Differentiation Is Heading to Zero
8 minutes read.

Morgan Beller wrote an excellent post. What would be the differentiator of the 1000s of GenAI companies we see now? This is why choosing the right market and having a solid idea for go-to-market strategy (differentiation, perceived value, distribution) should be a core part of your product.

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Permanent Prototypes
6 minutes read.

Shai Yallin is preaching for something I've seen and learned to appreciate in the past 15 years. End-to-end testing is the best thing you can start with (even if it's 1-2 tests of your main flows) and invest in over time (core value): "I say that we should, nay, we must. And that the best gift we can give ourselves is the time to write an end-to-end (E2E) test."

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Peopleware

How to Successfully Manage Technical Domains Outside Your Expertise
4 minutes read.

Excellent tips by Miri Curiel on learning a new domain quickly by leveraging the people around you while you pick up context yourself.

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What True Thing Do You Believe That Few People Agree With You On? (Thread)
4 minutes read.

A simple question with so many interesting replies. Some of my favorites: "B2B software is the most fun," and "You should engage with the smartest, most compelling people who disagree with you to learn and evolve your thinking (Obviously wish more people did this)." What would you write?

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Homework for Life (Video)
18 minutes read.

Matthew Dicks asks you to track and write down one story every day. It reminded me of what I did to capture one managerial dilemma every day as a new manager (to learn faster from others and my mistakes). Awareness opens up a new lens to view the world and your craftsmanship.

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And finally, inspiring tweets...

@sch: management advice: sweat the big details, sweat the little details, and let ~everything else in between work itself out

@SahilBloom: Hot Take: It's reckless to tell young people that hard work is overrated. "Work smart, not hard" may be good advice for someone who already made it, but it's bad otherwise. Hard work doesn't guarantee success, but I've never seen someone build the life they want without it.



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.