tl;dr:Will covers: (1) Why strategy documents need to be clear and definitive, especially when strategy development has been messy
How to iterate on strategy when there are demands for unrealistic timelines. (2) Using strategy as non-executives, where others might override your strategy. (3) Handling dynamic, quickly changing environments where diagnosis can change frequently. (4) Working with indecisive stakeholders who don’t provide clarity on approach. (5) Surviving other people’s bad strategy work.
tl;dr:Will covers: (1) An introduction to the practice of strategy refinement. (2) Why strategy refinement is the highest impact step of strategy creation. (3) How mixed incentives often cause refinement to be skipped, even thought skipping leads to worse organizational outcomes. (4) Building your personal toolkit for refining strategy by picking from various refinement techniques like strategy testing, systems modeling, and Wardley mapping. (5) Brief introductions to each of those refinement techniques to provide enough context to pick which ones might be useful for the strategy you’re working on. (6) Survey of anti-patterns that skip refinement or manufacture consent to create the illusion of refinement without providing the benefits.
tl;dr:“All interesting problems operate across a number of context layers. For a concrete example, let’s think about a problem I’ve run into twice: what are the layers of context for evaluating a team that wants to introduce a new programming language like Erlang or Elixir to your company’s technology stack?" Will shares some layers of context and how to see across them.
tl;dr:Wardley Mapping is a strategic planning tool that helps visualize how business components evolve over time, from novel ideas to industry standards. Will shares resources that guide might be useful for leaders.
tl;dr:In this 20 minute video presentation, Will discusses the under-defined and ambiguous role of Principal Engineers. He defines them as engineers who solve ambiguous, company-wide problems that would otherwise block engineering executives.
tl;dr:“The solution here is obvious, always make sure you agree on the problem and general solution, and provide evidence the team is working well. These can be an appendix of a document or appendix slides, and should take little to no time to prepare as the first two are core decisions for your team, and the later is a set of metrics or plans that you should already be maintaining as part of operating your team.”
tl;dr:“Modeling makes it possible iterate your thinking much faster than running a live process or technology experiment with your team. I sometimes hear concerns that modeling slows things down, but this is just an issue of familiarity. The more you practice, modeling can be faster than asking for advice from industry peers.”
tl;dr:A model examining how different policies affect engineering organization seniority mix. Without intervention, orgs become top-heavy with senior engineers, increasing costs. Three key policies work together: backfilling departures at lower levels, stopping senior-level external hiring, and capping the maximum number of senior positions.
tl;dr:Will reflect on his shift from a 'company, team, self' framework to an eventual ‘quid pro quo' approach during his management tenure at Uber. His ‘quid pro quo' approach is: (1) Generally, prioritize company and team priorities over your own. (2) If you are getting de-energized, artificially prioritize some energizing work. Increase the quantity until equilibrium is restored. (3) If the long-term balance between energy and proper priorities can’t be balanced for more than a year, stop everything else and work on solving this issue e.g. change your role or quit. Will emphasizes the importance of remaining flexible and curious.
tl;dr:Will reflect on his shift from a 'company, team, self' framework to an eventual ‘quid pro quo' approach during his management tenure at Uber. His ‘quid pro quo' approach is: (1) Generally, prioritize company and team priorities over your own. (2) If you are getting de-energized, artificially prioritize some energizing work. Increase the quantity until equilibrium is restored. (3) If the long-term balance between energy and proper priorities can’t be balanced for more than a year, stop everything else and work on solving this issue e.g. change your role or quit. Will emphasizes the importance of remaining flexible and curious.