SWLW #598: Developer Productivity for humans, Where to start with Strategy, and more.

Like always, sharing my best findings for the week. 

 

This Week's Favorite

Developer Productivity for Humans: Measuring Flow, Focus, and Friction for Developers
11 minutes read.

This paper by the Engineering Productivity Research team at Google is interesting. Perhaps above all, it shows how hard it is to actually measure the "right" metrics and come up with meaningful, clear answers to help the team win. My approach to productivity was around measuring happiness in a very narrow yet effective way (for me); if you're interested in the 14 short slides, google it up: "You're not really busy speakerdeck." We'll be on the right track if we pair our sense of control (over time and energy), baseline metrics (e.g. DORA), and business outcome (e.g. growth, margins, etc.)

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Culture

Designers Adding Animations to Every Single Possible Thing
1 minute read.

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

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How Novelty Effects and Dopamine Culture Rule the Tech Industry
5 minutes read.

Andrew Chen covers the implications of the "Dopamine Culture" we all experience around us (TikTok and the like) for product teams. This is a great take to consider a more balanced approach: "It turns out that while Dopamine Culture grows, many times all the short form content and experiences are just the commercial for the real thing. Perhaps after watching one short form video you might watch hours and hours of video from a creator you like. Or after you read a funny tweet from someone, you decide to subscribe to their Substack or 1-click buy their book on Amazon. Yes it’s a dopamine hit to be able to get the book onto your Kindle quickly, but it’s also an entree into a multi-hour reading experience."

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Where to Start With Strategy? Focus on Betterment
7 minutes read.

This is a wonderful post to start defining and aligning your "Strategy" effectively. It can also help you gain momentum and motivate others to leverage this tool: "The status quo couldn’t care less what the company claims is its ‘new strategy.’ It will strive to keep doing what it is currently doing. Instead of creating a strategy as if you don’t have one, think betterment. Is the ultimate goal a great strategy? For sure. As I argue, strategy is an integrated set of choices that compels desired customer action. But the best way to start is with a pareto chart. What are the biggest gaps between what you wish was happening and what is happening? [...] In addition, by focusing on one gap at a time, betterment makes the strategy problem more tractable, and tractability is often a challenge in strategy. Executive teams can get overwhelmed by the task of creating from scratch a perfect overall strategy. That often feels too daunting and too abstract. Betterment is a more concrete task that makes it easier for executive teams to stay engaged and power through."

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Strategy That Works: Rethinking the Strategic Process
5 minutes read.

This post complements the one on "Where to Start with Strategy?" Jurriaan Kamer provides the "Adaptive Strategy" framework to guide concrete internal discussions and formalize an effective strategy and plan to measure, learn, and iterate as you go.

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Peopleware

Managing High Performers
6 minutes read.

"Weak managers let high performing reports do whatever they want. Even the best performers need structure and guidance - a coach. [...] So if you’ve got a high performer - manage them! Make sure they drive the big wins. Identify places for improvement. Most high performers go unmanaged either because their managers are intimidated or just don’t know how. [...] Many career ladders try to solve this by having titles gradate with spans of control - they’re responsible for more people and stuff, so clearly they’re doing more, right? Not really. Some people are responsible for 40 people that would do amazing without them. Some people are responsible for 10 people who would fall apart without them. Spans of control are not entirely sufficient to judge performance. You need to articulate differentiated expectations for high performers, not just about what their area of ownership will produce, but what they will actually do. Expect a lot and let your high performers know it." -- How would you put it to work in your team? My insight here is sometimes you need to show them how great looks like - if you don’t know yourself to demonstrate, pair them with someone who can and do it quickly (to show them how improvement/transformation looks like). If we set expectations correctly, show them how to get there when they’re stuck, and help them imagine their next few years - it can yield amazing results.

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Jim Collins Coached Jeff Bezos and Amazon. He Estimates That Only 3% of the World Has Figured Out Their “Ikagai” or “Hedgehog”. Here’s What They Are and How You Find Yours (Thread)
5 minutes read.

Jim Collins's Hedgehog method is an excellent way to help our teammates think about their careers: (1) What are you deeply passionate about? (2) What you are encoded for? (3) What drives your economic engine? It often takes many years (decades?) to answer these questions well. You can try asking others who work with you enough how they see it. It will cover the 2nd and 3rd bullet and give you some perspective on where you other leverage that others notice and willing to pay for.

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"Make Your Life Decisions Predominately Based on Your Infinite Games" (Video)
4 minutes read.

Thinking through the lens of Infinite Games can help you crystalize your mission as an individual and as a company. For me, it's "helping to build better software companies." SWLW helps me achieve some of it by exposing great leaders to great content they can use to create internal advancements. I have a few more efforts with the same mission, such as Downleft, ManagerREADME, and LeadingSnowflakes. How do you see it for your life and career path? How can your company leverage this thinking?

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And finally, inspiring tweets...

@petergyang: Jerry Seinfeld was recently asked why he still works so hard after Seinfeld. I love his answer: "Because the only thing in life that's really worth having is good skill and pursuing mastery." Find something that you're intrinsically motivated to put in the reps for.

@tobi: For software engineering, my sense is that the phrase “premature optimization is the root of all evil” has massively backfired. Its from a book on data structures and mainly tried to dissuade people from prematurely write things in assembler. But the point was to free you up to think harder about the data structures to use, not leave things comically inefficient. This context is always skipped when it’s uttered. Not all fast software is world-class, but all world-class software is fast. Performance is _the_ killer feature.
 


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.