featured in #418
Creating A Culture Of Listening
- Kim Scott tl;dr: Kim contrasts (1) Quiet listening: listening with periods of silence to encourage others to talk with (1) Loud listening: saying things to prompt a reaction from others and have them challenge you. Whether through quiet or loud listening, leaders must create an environment where everyone's ideas are heard, debated, and tested. Embrace diverse perspectives, empower employees to contribute, and establish systems for generating ideas and addressing concerns.featured in #417
Cognitive Load Developer's Handbook
- Artem Zakirullin tl;dr: “We spend far more time reading and understanding code than writing it. Therefore, the amount of cognitive load we need to build in our brains in order to understand code is crucial.” This post looks at every decision, every trendy buzzword, and every fancy technology through the lens of cognitive load.”featured in #417
DevEx: What Actually Drives Productivity
- Abi Noda tl;dr: The 3 pillars are: (1) Reducing friction: minimizing obstacles, inefficiencies, and complexities in the development process. (2) Optimizing workflows: streamlining processes, automating repetitive tasks, and integrating tools and technologies. (3) Enabling a state of flow: creating an environment that fosters concentration, creativity, and intrinsic motivation.featured in #417
Kicking The Can Down The Road (On Hard Decisions)
- Ed Batista tl;dr: “How can you stop kicking the can down the road? A first step is simply being mindful of the factors above and asking whether any of them apply to you. And despite the wide range of possible scenarios, note a theme that runs through all of them: emotions. Fear of the costs. Excessive optimism. Guilt about the past. Overwhelm. Distrust.” The key is identifying your full range of feelings, labeling them accurately, determining which ones are preventing you from making a decision, and asking whether that response is truly justified.featured in #416
Alignment Gets Expensive. Don’t Skimp On It
- Jessica Kerr tl;dr: “Alignment gives us the context to make good decisions in our scope. It also lets us question decisions outside our scope, constructively, because we can notice when we learn something inconsistent with our expectations. That catches discrepancies early, and gets us back on track together.”featured in #416
10 Years Of Tech Debt Research
- Abi Noda tl;dr: Abi recommends to better communicate and manage tech debt by: (1) Moving away from using the phrase “technical debt.” (2) Defining what the problem really is. He explains why in this post.featured in #415
A New Way To Measure Developer Productivity – From The Creators Of DORA And SPACE
- Gergely Orosz tl;dr: The new framework is a “developer-centric approach to developer productivity” illustrating that DevEx is comprised of 3 pillars - flow state, feedback loops and cognitive load. Gergely interviews the team behind this framework presenting their approach and implementation.featured in #415
Maintaining Productivity As Engineering Teams Scale
- Vasan Subramanian tl;dr: Key takeaways: (1) Deal with technical debt: recognize it, spend time fixing it but justify it. (2) Avoid distractions. (3) Protect old hands: spend time with your senior engineers. They are more valuable than you think. (4) Recognize different skills: create a managerial path and a technical path for people, identify your senior folks as one or the other. (5) Communicate often.featured in #414
The Complicated Parts Of Leadership: Betting On People
- AbdulFattah Popoola tl;dr: “This experience left me wondering how many teams could be transformed with the proper investment in training and development. And also how many teams are struggling because they are too busy to invest in training.” The author provides the following tips when betting on people: (1) Have skin in the game. You must push past your discomfort and genuinely believe in the team’s abilities. (2) Stay curious and maintain curiosity, even when confronted with obstacles. (3) Verify and have accountability checkpoints.featured in #414