SWLW #424: How to stop endless discussions, Developer progression as a function of navigating complexity, and more.

Heya,

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

​​Developer Progression as a Function of Navigating Complexity
5 minutes read.

Siddharth Sarda shares a helpful structure to think about progression as a software engineer. It might be different in different domains, yet consider using complexity categories to track understanding & comfort when designing such systems.

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Culture

Do You Love Me? (Robots Can Dance!)
1 minute read.

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

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How to Stop Endless Discussions
4 minutes read.

"Writing helps to clear the mind. When we write on any topic, we separate our proposal from ourselves. It's still part of us. But since we plan to present it to the public and leave it there forever, we start being careful. And most of the time, we are not starting with blank white paper." -- I think that once you reach a group of more than 30-50 engineers, it's time to consider adopting frameworks such as RFC and NABC covered by Candost Dagdeviren.

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Measure to Manage/Control vs Measure to Learn (Image)
2 minutes read.

John Cutler with a short summary worth revisiting once a month. It's so easy to get lost in vanity metrics and process theater. "Always start with why" should be framed above this comparison table as it helps to figure out requirements, pains, and incentives structure.

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Maximizing Developer Effectiveness
11 minutes read.

Tim Cochran's post can help you understand where you have areas to focus on to improve your team's productivity. This one is golden: " I am not suggesting that engineers should not take breaks and clear their head occasionally! But they should do that intentionally, not enforced by the environment."

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Peopleware

Recommended Engineering Management Books
5 minutes read.

Caitie McCaffrey with books worth adding to your reading list and share with your peers. I can recommend all the books on the list except for "Dare to Lead" which I didn't read yet. Added to my next batch of books.

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Cracking the Engineering Manager Interview
8 minutes read.

Srivatsan Sridharan's post couldn't come at a better timing. I'm interviewing many engineering managers these days, and it's a challenge to figure out the right questions for us. It's interesting to see how people think about their role, how they continue to learn, what they think they can teach that is unique, and how much they know how to move the needle for the team and the company. Worth also checking the 2nd part of the post.

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My Favorite Management Hack of 2020
4 minutes read.

Jason Kolb shares one thing that might be worth considering to share context between teams and groups. People want to get the context of what's going on around them and feel more connected. They are still allergic to meetings and wasting time. Finding a good balance is important to scale the team while keeping them together.

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And finally, inspiring tweets...

@shreyas: I am now increasingly convinced that once a company's product portfolio gets very broad (say >5-7 products), it makes little sense to force the company's standard product process on every team. There should be 2-3 process variants, based on the stage of the product & its goals.

@BStulberg: Remember that PROGRESS IS NON-LINEAR. The notion of getting just a percent or two better every day sounds great, but it's often unrealistic, especially if you are already skilled to begin with. Keep pounding the stone. Some days nothing happens, some days it cracks a bit more.



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 and my work by becoming a SWLW Patron. Thank you ❤️




Keep reading, keep learning.
-- Oren Ellenbogen.