SWLW #626: AI makes Tech Debt more expensive, The problem with most L&D strategies, and more.

Like always, sharing my best findings for the week.  

 

This Week's Favorite

The Brill-Fosbury Nexus
4 minutes read.

Having the courage to try a new approach to a painful problem is rare. How do you make it easier to experiment with "strange" practices at work? Or as Noam Wakrat puts it: "The ability to adopt external solutions is vital for organizations aspiring to grow and innovate. Large companies often acquire innovative startups to integrate (or sometimes eliminate) new solutions within their existing frameworks. The challenge arises when the entity that acquires the innovation is not the one responsible for its implementation. This phase involves psychological hurdles — overcoming existing paradigms and allowing external innovations to take root. In simpler terms, it involves a lot of egos."

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Culture

How to Run Effective Meetings
1 minute read.

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

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AI Makes Tech Debt More Expensive
3 minutes read.

Evan Doyle has an interesting take that might shift how software teams work in the next few years. It may change as the technology improves, but LLM-based tools will likely help us explore and experiment while writing production code at scale will require the type of expertise and context that would be hard to automate.

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Navigating Orgs & Dealing With People Like a Pro (Video)
81 minutes read.

Shreyas Doshi curated 19 videos to help you deal with challenges at work. Each video is short and to the point, so you can skim between the different topics and watch whatever feels most relevant for you today. Some of my favorites: "Reasons are BS," "How to Drive Alignment with Stakeholders," and "How to Build Great Cross-Functional Relationships—in the first 30 days (and beyond)."

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The Problem With Most L&D Strategies
5 minutes read.

"Sustainable high-performance only happens when the burning problems of our team are being actively addressed and solved. L&D is merely a path and helpful lever for solving those burning problems. " -- Claire Lew is spot on. L&D should focus on the immediate pains that prevent the business from moving forward. If you want to let people explore new challenges, think about setting up an experience for them to explore it (e.g., get them to join a different team to participate in a project).

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Peopleware

Feeling "Stuck" During the Process of Transformation: Thoughts on Why We Get Stuck and How to Get Unstuck
4 minutes read.

"Personal transformation and unfolding into one's authentic expression happen similarly. They don’t happen through intellectual master planning—they are inhibited by intellectualization. If you're feeling stuck, turn inward and connect with the feeling of the next step. Then, please take it. That's all you can do in the search for aligned, authentic living. That’s how you get unstuck." -- Beautifully put. Andy Johns shares how to get unstuck, one step at a time.

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Hiring Super ICs (Video)
54 minutes read.

You need to develop great taste to produce great results: products, food, anything really. So exposing yourself and your teammates to how greatness looks like is a fantastic way to raise expectations, drive learning and desire for self-improvement, and inspire everyone to push harder. This is one of the takeaways I took from the talk by Eric Glyman from Ramp.

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Liberating Structures: Celebrity Interview
4 minutes read.

I love Liberating Structures (I got the book), so I highly recommend it if you have yet to hear about it. You can use the Celebrity Interview structure to run All-Hands sessions to get the team more involved and engaged.

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And finally, inspiring tweets...

@ant_murphy: Product Discovery should speed up delivery, not slow it down. Discovery when done collaboratively creates shared understanding, focus and empowers engineers to make decisions. In my experience this removes most of the back-and-forth in development.

@hnshah: There is too much noise. Everywhere. We need more opinionated curation.



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.