SWLW #484: The mindset that kills product thinking, Software engineering principles, and more!

Heya,

My heart is with everyone in a difficult situation these days. I pray we will have better days coming.

As always, below you can read my best findings for the week. If you want to support my work or join SWLW community in Slack - scroll down to the bottom of the email to see how.
 

This Week's Favorite

​​The Mindset That Kills Product Thinking
12 minutes read.

"Product thinking moves your focus to outcomes and business impact." -- Jeff Patton wrote a post you should share with everyone in your team. Understanding this post will help you increase your impact on the organization.

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

Product [sponsored]

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Culture

Painting: “The Arrival of the AWS Bill.” Oil on Canvas.
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.


John Lewis IT Software Engineering Principles
5 minutes read.

The principles themselves and the self-assessment your teammates can do is a great approach to scale your organization. You can make it for every part of your organization and ask your teammates to use it (e.g. during Design Reviews) when leading significant efforts.

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


Organisational Scaling Question: an Org Does Ad-Hoc Knowledge Management With a Disorganised Internal Wiki. They Make a Habit of Asking Questions in Slack. As They Grow More, Newcomers Are Too Daunted to Ask Questions. The Wiki Gets Messier. What ACTUALLY Works to Fix This? (Thread)
4 minutes read.

Yoz Grahame starts a discussion we can all relate to - how to manage your organizational knowledge as the company matures. Discuss with your teammates which ideas are worth considering, such as hiring someone (librarian) to own it.

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


Product-Driven Versus Customer-Driven
17 minutes read.

Venkatesh Rao wrote an eye-opening essay. Customer-driven assumes customers exhibit stable behaviors, with problems they can communicate clearly. It's hard to build a sustainable business that will last decades taking that as an axiom.

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

Jobs [sponsored]

Engineering Manager @ HiMama (Toronto)
Join our Engineering leadership team and shape our product, team and culture, with a goal of empowering educators and supporting children’s learning & development

Director of Engineering - Payments @ Phorest (Remote to GMT+2 / Remote)
You will work with the CTO to build out and operate a payments stack that is processing billions of euros each year. You will be responsible for all things payments and change how the hair and beauty industry adopts fintech.

 

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

Peopleware

How Do the Most Experienced Engineers in an Organization Get "Stuck"?
4 minutes read.

Use Gergely Orosz's list when building an onboarding plan for senior engineers joining your team. I know it would have helped me before considering and planning their first 90 days with it.

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


What Is Developer Experience? A Roundup of Links and Goodness
6 minutes read.

James Governor covers why Developer Experience is becoming critical when scaling your organization ("Day 2") and how engineers expect to see it being promoted by upper management.

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


Almanac CEO Readme
7 minutes read.

It's fascinating to see how a CEO sets expectations with their team, what's important for them, and how they manage their time. You don't have to agree with the content or even with the README format (I know it's a heated topic), yet it might increase the chances of working better with them.

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

And finally, inspiring tweets...

@shreyas: Writing cultures have this neat side effect of overcoming some drawbacks of hierarchy and org boundaries. Anyone in the company can write an insightful proposal for how something should be improved, and it will get noticed if it’s compelling. Meetings can never scale like that.

@SahilBloom: Life Rule: Spend more time doing things you never regret. A few things I never regret: • Creative sprints • Talking to smart friends • Journaling for 5 min • Calling my parents • Going for a walk • Exercising • Sleeping 8 hours Make your list—then spend more time on it!



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.