/Management

Testing Strategy: Avoid The Waterfall Strategy Trap With Iterative Refinement

- Will Larson tl;dr: “If I could only popularize one idea about technical strategy, it would be that prematurely applying pressure to a strategy’s rollout prevents evaluating whether the strategy is effective. Pressure changes behavior in profound ways, and many of those changes are intended to make you believe your strategy is working while minimizing change to the status quo (if you’re an executive) or get your strategy repealed (if you’re not an executive). Neither is particular helpful.”

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Conducting A Time Audit

- Andy Sparks tl;dr: The founder of Visa “preached that great managers spent 50% of their time managing themselves, 25% managing up, 20% managing across, and 5% managing down. In comparison, most actual managers preoccupy themselves with a hell of a lot more downward management than 5% of their time.”

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What Does A Date Actually Mean?

- James Stanier tl;dr: “But this isn't an article about how bad we are at estimating, nor does it offer any solutions for you to getting better at estimating. In fact, I want to focus on why dates are pretty dangerous things to be throwing around in the first place, and what an alternative might look like that could save you a lot of pain.”

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Interviewing For Evidence

- Daniel Terhorst-North tl;dr: “There are 4 primary types of evidence I look for in an interview, which are, in order of general importance, experiential, hypothetical, opinion, and credential. (1) Experiential evidence: things the candidate has done. (2) Hypothetical evidence: what the candidate thinks they would do in a given situation. (3) Credential evidence: what the candidate is qualified to do. (4) Opinion evidence: what they think about things.” Dan gives example questions of each. 

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Simplifiers Go Far, Complexifiers Get Stuck

- Dave Kellogg tl;dr: “Strive to make things simple. Seek to understand them. Struggle to find apt metaphors for them. If you’re not burning real energy trying to simplify things for you audience, you are most like a complexifier. If so, the next time you’re about to explain to someone why something take so long, is so complicated, or requires 5 steps to be completed before the start, ask yourself — do I really believe this or I am making it complicated because I either don’t want or don’t know how to do it.”

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How To Deliver Bad News When It's Not Your Fault

- Wes Kao tl;dr: “As much as we don’t want to shoot the messenger, we often associate negative feelings with people who tell us bad news. Wes’ principles for delivering bad news are: (1) Avoid negative words, like "however” and “unfortunately.” (2) Avoid giving too many details. (3) Don't accidentally accept blame. (4) Get to your point quickly. (5) Remind the person of their own agency.

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8 Game-Changing Speech AI Apps You Need To Know

- Kelsey Foster tl;dr: More companies are building with Speech AI than ever before, thanks to enhanced accuracy, speed, and accessibility. Discover innovative tools transforming industries—from next-gen meeting note-takers to conversation intelligence solutions. These cutting-edge apps are redefining customer interactions—see what sets them apart.

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Stop Avoiding Conflict On Your Teams

- Doug Turnbull tl;dr: “Can you give some space for everyone to have voice in the conflict? Can you create a space where you set up ground rules for conflict i.e. attacking the problem, not people. Can you maximize also “caring personally” dimension that gives air to the quiet voices? Can you encourage the employees who often come to complain 1-1, but struggle to speak up in group meetings?”

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Measuring Developers' Jobs-To-Be-Done

- Abi Noda tl;dr: “To provide better insights, Google researchers identified the key goals developers are trying to achieve in their work and developed measurements for each goal. In this paper, they explain their process and share an example of how this new approach has benefited their teams.”

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How I Hire Programmers

- Aaron Swartz tl;dr: “But if I had to write down what it is that makes someone seem smart, I’d emphasize three things. First, do they know stuff? Ask them what they’ve been thinking about and probe them about it. Do they seem to understand it in detail? Second, are they curious? Do they reciprocate by asking questions about you? Are they genuinely interested or just being polite? Third, do they learn? At some point in the conversation, you’ll probably be explaining something to them. Do they actually understand it or do they just nod and smile?”

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