SWLW #389: How to Build a Breakthrough, From Engineer to Designer and more

I hope that you and your family are doing well, and you are able to find a new rhythm in this hard situation. As always, below you can read my best findings for the week -
 

This Week's Favorite

​​How to Build a Breakthrough
8 minutes read.

Mike Maples with a helpful framework to help you come up with products and movements to shape the future. The power of inversion thinking can help you to promote your ideas, managing risks, and above all - build a narrative you want to chase after. It doesn't mean you'll be right, but it will work on a muscle worth developing.

Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.

Product [sponsored]

Investing in internal tools doesn't need to be difficult   
Retool cuts the time it takes to build internal tools from weeks to hours. Companies like Coinbase, Doordash and Brex use Retool to quickly build the apps their operators need and ease the maintenance burden on their engineers.

 Promote your product on SWLW and reach over 25,500 leaders 

Culture

Me at Standup
1 minute read.

My humble effort to help you start the weekend with a smile on your face, even in this difficult time.

Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.


How to Grow, Manage, and Work With Remote Teams
12 minutes read.

Zapier shared their guide for building a remote-only team. Many companies are working with multiple offices, or have people working remotely for various roles. I enjoyed skimming the content and looking for ideas to improve the way the company operates in this hybrid model. For example, I took a few tools from "Remote work tools" and "How to work faster in a remote team."

Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.


Risk Assessment and Prioritization for Startups
8 minutes read.

Leo Polovets with excellent slides you should read as a leader in your organization. Can you state the risks the company should address? Is that something you explain clearly to a teammate? If not, it's a worthy topic to discuss in your next 1:1 with your manager. Slide 30 on the "Watch out for the illusion of progress" is incredibly important.

Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.

Jobs [sponsored]

Head of Engineering @ WorkOS
WorkOS is a developer platform that makes apps enterprise-ready. (API for SSO/SAML/etc.) It's hiring for Head of Eng! This is a unique opportunity to join a fast-growing and fully distributed company.
 

 Looking to hire for your team? Promote your open positions on SWLW! 

Peopleware

20 Questions to Ask Instead of “How Are You Doing Right Now?”
5 minutes read.

Having 1:1s during COVID-19 has to be a bit different. Elizabeth Weingarten offers different questions you can use to go deeper and make sure your teammates are feeling okay.

Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.


Setting Goals (Thread)
4 minutes read.

"I think about a goal like a video game. Video games are built to ensure that the next level is just hard enough to motivate you to continue, but not so hard that you give up. You want to win, even if it’s tough, and victory always seems just within reach. But when it feels impossible, you quickly give up. So when setting a goal, just like in a video game, you want your goal to motivate your team." -- Lenny Rachitsky is one of my favorite people to follow on Twitter.

Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.


From Engineer to Designer
4 minutes read.

Amit Assaraf will inspire you to play and consider learning new skills. A few more tips I'm using to add to Amit's list: (1) Which companies are doing great work in that space? (2) Who in these companies should I follow (on Twitter) to learn from them and the resources they share?

Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.

And finally, inspiring tweets...

@eriktorenberg: Consider calling your first ~3-7 employees "founding team": (1) You might attract better people who have more buy-in (2) Make sure that they know they're not a co-founder. It's a glorified first employee (3) Challenge is those ppl get undue moral authority in org if they don't scale

@ShaneAParrish: Be impatient with progress but patient with people.



p.s. if you're interested in joining SWLW's Slack channel, simply reply to this email and let me know.

p.s.2 are you leading a team of engineers? Write your Manager Readme or get my book Leading Snowflakes: The New Engineering Manager Handbook.

You can support me and my work by becoming a SWLW Patron ❤️



Keep reading, keep learning.
-- Oren Ellenbogen.