SWLW #433: Progress, Stagnation, and Flying Cars, Defrag Your Calendar Worksheet 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

​​Progress, Stagnation, and Flying Cars
9 minutes read.

"Unlike a century ago, today for everyone who is working on advancing technological progress, there is someone else who fervently believes that they are saving the planet by stopping them." -- an eye-opener post by Jason Crawford that I really enjoyed reading. It makes you think about your core assumptions and how far they can be from reality. It's remarkable how everything we do (or don't) is so highly correlated to the incentives (or lack of) we put around it.

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

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Culture

PMs: Thanks for Your Thoughts, We'll Add It to the Backlog
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.


Building Products
6 minutes read.

Read Julie Zhuo's framework every time you consider building a product to solve others' problems. It can also serve you well for tools or products within the company, where your teammates are the users.

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


The Great Eventually Consistent Mandatory Funtime [Team] Offsite (Thread)
4 minutes read.

In the company I work for, all employees enjoy Appreciation Day - it's a one-day off every two weeks, to enjoy it in any way you want. Having extra time with the family (or taking a few hours for myself) to rest and recharge is an incredible feeling. Something that we need more than ever during covid-19. Ronnie Chen shares how they enabled such an approach in her company, with strict rules to make sure people spend this time having fun. They took it a step further and asked people to share their "adventures".

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


Monoliths vs Microservices Is Missing the Point — Start With Team Cognitive Load (Video)
32 minutes read.

Figuring out how to build software that fits the team's head is a powerful framing. The topologies covered in this talk (worth reading the book for in-depth overview and analysis) would help you develop a language for the structure you have today, and potential structure you'd like to shift in the future.

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

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Peopleware

Why Kids Hate Writing
4 minutes read.

Michael He with a post I want my kids to understand now, while they're still young. Learning that writing and reading should be fun looks trivial, but it's far from it. Being okay with ditching a book in the middle (or jumping between chapters). Thinking of writing like a garden (capturing your progress) rather than a perfect list of essays. I had to unlearn many of the things I picked up at school to be where I am today. Learning should be fun.

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


Defrag Your Calendar Worksheet
4 minutes read.

Lara Hogan shares a great exercise to help you take control of your calendar. Give it a try, and share it with relevant people at work.

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


This Is the Single Most Important Page on the Web (If You’re a Human): Cognitive Biases Shape Us Beautifully and Tragically
3 minutes read.

I agree with Hunter Walk on this one. Knowing these biases won't make it resilient to them, but it will increase your awareness. With that, you might be able to take a step back and see how you can counter that bias by changing the questions you use or maybe letting others analyze the situation.

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

And finally, inspiring tweets...

@blakeir: I try to remind myself that it’s really easy to be default skeptical. It is way easier to articulate why something won’t work vs. why it will.

@paulg: Something I explained to my 12 yo: When you're a little kid, your parents create your environment. Then there's a second stage where your peers do. Then for ambitious people there's a third stage where you create your own environment by choosing your own peers.



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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.