SWLW #429: The secret of high performing product teams, Shifting leadership focus in the post Covid-19 era, 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

​​Scaling Product Delivery: The "Dirty" Secret of High Performing Product Teams
13 minutes read.

One of my favorite posts on frameworks and mindset for making big bets (e.g. launching new products): "When creating and managing the system, the common tendency is try and remove complexity entirely. But this is impossible. There will always be a level of uncertainty involved in executing innovative and uncertain strategic ideas."

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

Product [sponsored]

Effective Feature Management by O'Reilly
Learn how you can use feature flags to reduce risk, iterate faster, and gain more control in your dev cycles with this book written by LaunchDarkly CTO/Co-founder, John Kodamul.

 Promote your product on SWLW and reach over 26,650 leaders 

Culture

Developers Commenting Their Code
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.


Shifting Leadership Focus in the Post Covid-19 Era From Kpi’s to Cpi’s
4 minutes read.

Olivier Onghena-’t Hooft calls leaders to stop the inertia. This situation is much bigger than working from home. People are tired, anxious, and overwhelmed. Make sure to remind them they are not alone: "I therefore advise all leaders who care for their people and who are conscious of getting the things done in the ‘right’ way, to build their team and/or organizational culture around CPI’s: Caring for People Indicators. Caring for people is what really matters in this new way of digital working. These indicators measure how much leaders care about their people as people and not simply as ‘human assets’ doing a target-filled transactional job, now no longer in the office but at home."

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


Are We Really Engineers?
12 minutes read.

"Software is dynamic, constantly changing, unpredictable. If we try to apply engineering practice to software then software would be 10 times as expensive and stuck in 1970." -- Hillel Wayne will get you thinking about our industry. Inversion thinking (starting at the end) and premortems (analyzing failures before they happen) are two concepts we can adopt and practice more often when building software.

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


How We Introduced Levels to Our Engineering Organisation Without Losing People or Hurting Our Productivity
5 minutes read.

"[I]ntroducing levels can be a harmful process, risky to the team’s moral and hence productivity, and to the retention of the team members" -- You can use the process Dafna Rosenblum shares when introducing Career Ladder in your org, while collecting feedback and making the adjustments to fit your team.

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

Jobs [sponsored]

Ruby on Rails Tech Lead @ Nebulab (Remote)
Join our distributed team and build high-volume eCommerce applications in a workplace made by developers for developers.
 

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

Peopleware

Build Tools Around Workflows, Not Workflows Around Tools
12 minutes read.

Linus Lee is such an inspiration. I love how he looks at the world and how he imagines things should work: "My biggest benefit from writing my own tool set is that I can build the tools that exactly conform to my workflows, rather than constructing my workflows around the tools available to me. This means the tools can truly be an extension of the way my brain thinks and organizes information about the world around me. My tools aren’t perfect yet, but as they grow and evolve, they’ll only become better reflections of my personal mental models."

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


When Interviewing a Senior Product Manager Candidate, What's Your Favorite Question to Ask? And What Do You Look for in a Good Answer? (Thread)
4 minutes read.

Lenny Rachitsky started a thread you can steal some great questions from, but more importantly - figure out how great answers look like and how terrible answers look like.

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


What I’ve Learned in 45 Years in the Software Industry
4 minutes read.

So many great gems by Joel Goldberg. I loved this one about The Curse of Knowledge: "When you know something it is almost impossible to imagine what it is like not to know that thing. This is the curse of knowledge, and it is the root of countless misunderstandings and inefficiencies. Smart people who are comfortable with complexity can be especially prone to it! [..] Fight the curse of knowledge. Work to understand your audience. Try to imagine what it would be like to learn what you are communicating for the first time."

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

And finally, inspiring tweets...

@traf: The only productivity hack you need is enjoying what you do.

@mkobach: The secret to success isn’t mentors, it’s peers. Surround yourself with people on your same level who are doing great things.



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.