tl;dr:“I’ve started to notice recurring communication challenges between executives and the folks they work with. The most frequent issue I see is when a literal communicator insists on engaging in the details with a less literal executive. I call the remedy, “extracting the kernel.” Focus on the insight or perspective within the question.
tl;dr:The topics that Will explores are: (1) Avoiding the unicorn search. (2) How interviewing executives goes wrong. (3) Structuring your evaluation process. (4) Focusing on four areas to evaluate engineering executives.
tl;dr:Will discusses: (1) Approaching planning as an infinite process rather than a finite one. (2) Discussing the default planning process at most companies. (3) Decomposing planning into three discrete components: financial plan, functional portfolio allocation, and roadmap. (4) Setting the company’s annual financial plan. (5) Defining Engineering’s functional portfolio allocation. And more.
tl;dr:Will focusses on reading and acting upon survey data from the perspective of an engineering leader. In this post he works through: (1) Reading survey results. (2) Taking action on survey data. (3) Whether to modify survey questions. (4) When to start and how frequently to run.
tl;dr:Will discusses: (1) Fundamental components of onboarding, including examples. (2) Role of executive sponsor, orchestrator, manager and buddy in a typical process. (3) Curriculum to consider including in your onboarding. (4) Why onboarding programs fail. (5) Whether to integrate with wider company onboarding. (6) When to prioritize onboarding.
tl;dr:Will outlines several tactic for engineers to do this. “Your network is a collection of relationships, and relationships always work best when they’re built before you need them. Set a small goal, like meeting one new person each month, and slowly build your network up over time. Don’t make it your top priority, but don’t forget it either.”
tl;dr:Will discusses: (1) An example of an engineering strategy. (2) Richard Rumelt’s definition of strategy: diagnosis, guiding policies, and coherent actions. (3) How and when to write your engineering strategy. (4) Dealing with undocumented strategies in other functions. (5) Structuring your guiding policies around resource allocation, fundamental rules, how decision are made. (6) Maintaining the right altitude in your strategy by ensuring guiding principles are applicable, enforced, and create leverage. (7) The most common kinds of coherent actions in engineering strategies. (8) Whether strategy should be executive-lead.
tl;dr:Will discusses the following questions and the values he's found most effective: "What kinds of problems do values solve? Should engineering orgs have values at all? When does it make sense to establish values out? What makes values useful? How are engineering values distinct from a technology strategy? How should you roll out values?"
tl;dr:"I’d like to recommend 6 core meetings that I recommend every organization start with, and that I’ve found can go a surprisingly long way. These six are split across three operational meetings, two developmental meetings and finally a monthly engineering Q&A to learn what the organization is really thinking about." Will discusses each in depth.
tl;dr:"There is no one solution to engineering measurement, rather there are many modes of engineering measurement, each of which is appropriate for a given scenario. Becoming an effective engineering executive is adding more approaches to your toolkit and remaining flexible about which to deploy for any given request." Will provides a template to work off of.