/Leadership

Best Career Advice

- Mike Fisher tl;dr: "I try to speak with a former colleague or acquaintance at least once per week... The benefit of this for me is the social aspect of catching up with an old friend and sharing some memories and some laughs. It is also a big benefit to me to hear what is happening in their industry or field. In this way I learn about emerging trends, hot topics, areas of concern, and opportunities." Mike discusses how this has helped his career. 

featured in #413

Boost Your Team's Productivity With Postman Workspaces

tl;dr: API collaboration is essential for driving development efforts forward. Postman Workspaces help teams streamline the process, ensuring APIs are consistently available, highly performant, and meet consumer needs. Discover how to collaborate effectively at every stage of the API lifecycle in an API-first world.

featured in #413

Measuring Flow And Focus

- Abi Noda tl;dr: Based on a study with Google engineers, the best predictor of flow is “focus time:” performing a number of similar actions in a given window of time. Researchers also identified 3 practices for facilitating flow: (1) Schedule management. (2) Goal setting so engineers are working on tasks that feel fulfilling. (3) Giving time to “get into flow.”

featured in #412

Interviewing Engineering Executives

- Will Larson 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.

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Benefits Of API Collaboration In An API-First World

tl;dr: Collaboration is the key to successful API development. Whether it's working with internal teams or external partners, effective collaboration can help teams work faster, smarter, and with fewer errors. In this article, we explore the best practices for API collaboration and offer tips for working more effectively across the entire API lifecycle.

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Contrafreeloading

- Mike Fisher tl;dr: “Most people want to work for their rewards. Promotions received after striving for it for years are the ones people are most proud of.” Mike illustrates how humans don’t want free rewards. He believes the three grand essentials of happiness - “something to do, someone to love, and something to hope for" is a valuable framework to manage your own or someone else’s career.

featured in #411

Meaningful Collaboration Across The API Lifecycle

- Kin Lane tl;dr: Collaboration is at the heart of successful software development, but working together on APIs brings challenges. In this article, Kin Lane, Chief Evangelist at Postman dives into the critical components of meaningful API collaboration across the API lifecycle and provides insights and strategies for success.

featured in #411

Avoiding The Rewrite Trap

- Camille Fournier tl;dr: “Year after year, engineers convince themselves and their leadership that a rewrite will solve all their problems. And then they or their leadership get fired, because most rewrites fail to deliver anything at all. Avoid the trap: don’t go into this exercise unless it is the only way forward, and if you absolutely must, plan accordingly.”

featured in #410

Theory Of Mind

- Andrew Bosworth tl;dr: “Theory of mind is a concept I first learned in a class on psychology. It describes our capacity to understand the mental states of others.” Andrew explains why this concept is the reason why its so important for leaders to communicate the context around their decisions.

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The Case Against Measuring Cycle Time

- Abi Noda tl;dr: “There are cases in which individual teams may find cycle time useful. However, using cycle time as a top-level performance measure that is pushed onto all teams is counterproductive. To actually improve performance, leaders should focus on measuring the friction experienced by developers and removing the bottlenecks that slow them down.”

featured in #409