The 30 Best Pieces Of Advice In 2023
tl;dr: "We present our collection of little tactics, resonant reminders and operating principles to guide you in the following roundup of the 30 best pieces of advice we heard in the past year. Take them with you as we’re thrust forward into all that 2024 has ahead:" (1) Hit refresh on your interview questions for manager candidates. (2) Set goals by trying to tell a story. (3) Opinions come at a cost — spend wisely. (4) Balance the core product with new bets by looking to the horizons. (5) Pinpoint where you’re delivering feedback as a manager.featured in #477
featured in #476
featured in #476
Look Back To Leap Ahead: 7 Questions For Your End of Year Reflection
tl;dr: A wide-ranging retro to set yourself up for success in the new year: (1) Evaluating projects to quit earlier. (2) Revamping regular meetings. (3) Using time wisely. (4) Alignment with manager’s goals. (5) Receiving and giving impactful feedback. (6) Changes in job role. (7) Readiness for career advancement.featured in #475
Why Should You (Or Anyone) Become An Engineering Manager?
- Charity Majors tl;dr: "The main reason I would encourage you to try engineering management is a reason that I’m not sure I’ve ever heard someone cite in advance, which is that it can make you better at life and relationships, in a huge and meaningful way. Work is always about two things: what you put out into the world, and who you become while doing it. I want to stop well short of proclaiming that “being a manager will make you a better person!” because skills are skills, and they can be used for good or ill. But it can." Charity discusses how management skills help with personal skills, such as self-awareness, understanding other people, hard conversations, and more.featured in #474
7 Challenges With Long-Term Projects And How To Manage Them
- Raviraj Achar tl;dr: Raviraj, a tech lead from Meta, outlines his approach to the following: (1) Prioritizing hard problems. (2) Dealing with hidden work. (3) Managing attrition. (4) Staging the value. (5) Adapting to changing constraints. (6) Maintaining confidence and perception. (7) Having a concrete timeline.featured in #474
How to Take Bigger, Bolder Product Bets — Lessons from Slack’s Chief Product Officer
- Noah Desai Weiss tl;dr: Noah emphasizes that not all product problems can be solved through data-driven experimentation alone, advocating for intuition and judgment in tackling complex challenges. He advises focusing on individual decision-making rather than being swayed by overall outcomes, a concept known as "resulting." Noah outlines a three-step process for quality decision-making: sharing context, building trust, and factoring in risk. He also introduces the 70:20:10 product roadmap rule for diversifying risk. 70% of efforts should focus on core products, 20% on emerging products, and 10% on experimental ideas. Finally, Noah highlights the importance of well-defined organizational values, like taking bigger, bolder bets and humility, to foster a culture conducive to impactful decision-making.featured in #473
How Much Do Companies Invest in Developer Productivity Teams?
- Abi Noda tl;dr: What percentage of headcount should be allocated toward centralized productivity teams? Abi found that companies under 1,000 engineers allocate 18.9% of their headcount toward centralized productivity teams, with a range of 8%-37%. The average allocation decreased to 17.8% when including companies with more than 1,000 engineers. Abi breaks this down further by company size and categories of productivity teams.featured in #473
Practical Ways To Increase Product Velocity
tl;dr: "This post contains my go-to steps for debugging slow product velocity, particularly in SaaS. While I believe that these tactics are generally applicable, they’re heavily informed by my personal background. I have an engineering background and a reasonable sense for when I’m getting bullshitted about how hard something is. I also have a degree of control over both what teams work on and how they work – without that, some techniques may not apply. So while your mileage may vary, I hope that it’s helpful to lay these tactics out in one place."featured in #472
The Tragedy Of The Common Leader
- James Stanier tl;dr: "The default outlook for middle management is to look up and down the org chart, but not sideways. Because you are so focused on your own team and your own manager, you often forget that you have a peer group at all! That is, until you need something from them. At this point, the underinvestment in your peer group becomes apparent: you have limited rapport and trust with them, and an ask to transfer some of your engineering capacity to them is met with hot flushes and heavy and furious typing." James prompts us to think about these peers, and how we can approach building relationships with them.featured in #472