SWLW #485: The myth of Exponential Hypergrowth, Tools for making difficult decisions, 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 Elephant in the Room: The Myth of Exponential Hypergrowth
17 minutes read.

I highly recommend sharing this post with Jason Cohen with your teammates. The Elephant Curve explains why companies need to add more products to increase their growth as they mature. It covers marketing expenses and how to judge the phase of the campaign or the company (is it time to launch a new product or to a new market?). A powerful framing (Elephant) worth remembering.

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

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Culture

LGTM 👍
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.
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Your Startup’s Management Training Probably Sucks — Here’s How to Make It Better
12 minutes read.

You can use this article to assess the type of potential mistakes the organization is (usually by inertia) making when training managers. Every leader in your organization, whether technical or managers, should get proper training. There are very few investments you can make that will create a massive outcome for the company.

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


To Start a Community, Create a Surround System
6 minutes read.

Rosie Sherry's post is important as we build communities everywhere we go. It might be a forum in your company for leaders (say Principal Engineers Forum) that you want to set up, or a group of founders who meet every month to share dilemmas. This one is spot on: "Learning to spot and identify what matters and what brings community impact is key. It's not just about what your potential people say or do, it's also about combining that with the direction you believe your community needs to take, and the the knowledge you have acquired from your research."

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


How to Scale a Unicorn-Building Engineering Team (And Stay Sane)
7 minutes read.

Gad Salner shares how he and his team grew from a team of 1 to a group of 25 engineers in less than 18 months. If you're facing a similar type of growth, pick up practices you think will be helpful in your setup.

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

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Peopleware

Work Estimates Must Account for Friction
5 minutes read.

Listen to Karl Wiegers and follow his advice: "Project friction has a profound impact on estimation, so both individuals and teams must keep it in mind. I estimate how long individual tasks will take as though I will have no distractions or interruptions, just focused and productive time. Next, I convert that ideal effort estimate into calendar time based on my effective work-hour percentage. I also consider whether any of the other aforementioned sources of friction could affect my estimates. Then I try to arrange my work so that I can focus on a single task at a time until it’s complete or I hit a blocking point."

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


Tools for Making Difficult Decisions (Thread)
3 minutes read.

I like Amjad Masad's tools to consider when making difficult decisions. My favorites are "Infinite resources" and "First day thinking." What are you taking from it? Which ones you'll use and remember?

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The Superpowers of Hybrid Profiles
4 minutes read.

"So hopefully, I’ve illustrated what I consider the superpowers of HP. As an individual contributor with a skillset built around a single job, I think it’s interesting to evaluate at some point in your career how you want to widen your skills and knowledge." -- Florian Fesseler made me pause and think about "Hybrid Profiles" (HP) and how we can train people and leverage dual roles they can play to help the company scale.

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

And finally, inspiring tweets...

@shl: If they're dead, read them. If they're alive, meet them.

@oren_held: Gatekeeping is not only done by evil people. Gatekeeping can simply be the result of under sharing. When seniors don’t open up their knowledge, they make it hard for others to take part and grow. We all gatekeep at some level, because sharing at scale is hard.



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.