/Leadership

Linking Modular Architecture To Development Teams

- Matthew Foster tl;dr: “This article charts the journey of an enterprise who set out to shift their architecture to a more modular one in order to ease their growing pains. They found that modularity is a multifaceted solution that extends beyond architecture, into business lines of communication, team topologies and effective developer experience. By paying close attention to these factors, the enterprise was able to achieve significant uplifts in the delivery performance of their mobile applications.”

featured in #424

Tindall On Software Delays

tl;dr: “Bill Tindall was instrumental to the Apollo missions and considered by many at Nasa and MIT to be an excellent leader. He authored over a thousand widely circulated memos, called Tindallgrams. I stumbled over one of these, which highlights the three perspectives needed for good engineering and management: (1) Trust the people doing the work. (2) See the problem for yourself and accept reality. (2) Attend to the big picture. (4) Work with interactions and trade-offs.”

featured in #424

How Google Measures And Manages Tech Debt

- Abi Noda tl;dr: The first part describes the categories of tech debt and the second part explores how categories may be measured, providing insights on how to determine whether teams are struggling with technical debt and the types of tech debt they’re struggling with. The final part of this paper provides several tactics that may help reduce tech debt. 

featured in #423

The Surprising Power Of Documentation

- Vadim Kravcenko tl;dr: “Start small, but start today. Don't wait for a grand strategy or a perfect tool. Start by documenting your code, your decisions, and your learnings. Make it a part of your daily workflow, not an end-of-the-day chore. And as you move forward, imbibe this culture of documentation into your teams, your projects, and your organization. Create systems and processes that encourage and facilitate documentation.”

featured in #423

To Build A Top Performing Team, Ask For 85% Effort

- Greg McKeown tl;dr: An outdated way of thinking about peak performance is to think that “maximum effort = maximum results.” Research shows that it doesn’t  work in reality. Here’s what works: The 85% rule suggests that to reach maximum output, you need to refrain from giving maximum effort. Operating at 100% effort all of the time will result in burnout and  less-optimal results. While the precise number 85% may just be a rule of thumb, it’s a helpful one for managers who want to create high-performance teams without burning people out.

featured in #422

Tech Debt Metaphor Maximalism

- Avery Pennarun tl;dr: Tech debt is compared to financial debt in a blog post, highlighting the distinction between high-interest shortcuts and low-interest strategic decisions, while emphasizing the importance of managing debt within defined limits and evaluating its impact on the project's sustainability.

featured in #421

On Wielding Influence

- Charity Majors tl;dr: Charity answers two questions: (1) How to drive change when you have no power or influence? (2) How to drive change when you are a tech lead on a new team?

featured in #420

Promoted From Dev To Team Lead: 8 Things They Didn’t Tell Me

tl;dr: (1) Many of your skills don’t translate. (2) Keep your instincts. Change your behavior. (3) Communicate “why” more than “what” and “how.” (4) Culture is a real thing. And you’re responsible for it. And more.

featured in #420

Be Plainspoken

- Andrew Bosworth tl;dr: Andrew discusses the superpower of being plainspoken. “Our desire to maintain harmony can cause us to be indirect about uncomfortable truths. Our desire to influence can cause us to pre-emptively address every arcane objection. Our desire to impress can cause us to use more language than necessary. And the expectations we have internalized about corporate communication often cause us to write in a way we never would to our friends.”

featured in #419

The Next Larger Context

- Camille Fournier tl;dr: For senior engineers who are looking to step up: “When we are looking to do a larger project than the ones we’ve done before, we need to step out of the context that we normally operate in. When you look one context bigger, you will see immediate new opportunities that you can tackle in adjacent areas… That is where you will find your growth.” Camille highlights this advice with real world examples.

featured in #418