SWLW #489: The Cone Model for teams' support network, Master your questioning skills, and more

Heya,

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

​​Dunbar’s Number and How Speaking Is 2.8x Better Than Picking Fleas
7 minutes read.

Matt Webb's post will make you think about the number of participants you have in various forums in your life. It fits well with the "Two Pizza Rule" some companies like Amazon use to structure teams or consider meetings' audience size.

Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
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Culture

Startup Meme
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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The Cone Model for Teams' Support Network
4 minutes read.

"You should minimize your dependencies and maximize the network between your team members. Instead of letting all your team depend on you for their growth, you should create a connection between people, leveraging the different strengths and weaknesses." -- Shy Alter covers how you can use the "Cone Model" to formalize relationships between the teammates. This approach can also be used to pair teammates with members outside of the team, e.g. getting a Principal Engineer to mentor one of the Senior Engineers.

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On Getting Support
5 minutes read.

"Only recently did I understand a problem with relying ONLY on my manager for growth. While it was true that my managers always showed care for me and my growth. They were on my side, but they were also on the company’s side. The overlap between my growth agenda and the company agenda is never 100% full - not even now when I am a founder in a company. For me it makes perfect sense to rely on people outside the system to support your growth. Not only do they give me a better perspective, they also are more on my side than my manager could be." -- Learning continuously to get help, consult with others, and learn from their experience is a superpower. Oded Blayer shares his approach, one that you can copy and use yourself.

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Early Security for Startups
12 minutes read.

Devdatta Akhawe will help you create awareness and understand the language for Security at early-stage companies. These areas covered by Devdatta should be known by the business, product, and engineering to create a healthy mindset.

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Peopleware

The Anatomy of A Rotten Codebase
6 minutes read.

Shai Yallin is spot on with this one: "Running fast is important. But, as the cliché goes, it's not a sprint - it's a marathon. It's better to work at a sustainable 80% velocity than at 100% but burn out after 6 months. And surprisingly enough, if you follow the first tip and avoid unnecessary structure and dependencies early on, you'll find that you're actually more productive as time goes on."

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Master Your Questioning Skills
5 minutes read.

This post made me think a lot about the questions I've asked recently (not enough and probably not with high quality) and how I want to change it going forward: "A good question is like a good joke. It has an unexpected element and provides a perspective change. After I get through some questions and I eventually arrive to a good question, I have a visceral reaction similar to that of hearing a good joke."

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Best Practices for Writing Code Comments
8 minutes read.

Share Ellen Spertus's post with your teammates and discuss insights and examples of high-quality comments in your codebase.

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And finally, inspiring tweets...

@GiladPeleg: Your managerial investment priorities: Retention > Onboarding > Hiring This is in contrast to popular wisdom that hiring is the most important thing you should work on

@naval: You can’t imitate your way to greatness because you can only copy the effect, not the cause.



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.