Where More Effective Product Teams Spend More (and Less) Time
- John Cutler tl;dr: “When trying to understand where a team or company is at, one of the first things I do is talk to people about how they spend their time and energy. Words like empowered, feature factory, and outcome-oriented are squishy and can mean a million things. Behaviors don't lie. There are only so many hours in a week, and we have finite energy to do thoughtful work.” John shares where teams that are further along their product journey spend time.featured in #534
Story Points Are Pointless, Measure Queues
- Barry Jones tl;dr: “Measured Queues address short term and long term estimation issues, handle scope changes naturally and provide a much more valuable exercise to larger teams while removing uncertainty from the team's initial plans. Measured Queues also provide a leading indicator of problems 20 times faster than Velocity or Cycle Time related metrics.”featured in #534
Developing Domain Expertise: Get Your Hands Dirty
- Will Larson tl;dr: “Some particularly useful mechanism for senior leaders to develop domain expertise are:” (1) Reviewing product analytics on a recurring basis. (2) Shadow customer support. (3) Assign named executive sponsors for key customers. (4) Directly use or integrate with the product. (5) Make an executive offsite ritual around using the product. (6) Use executive initiatives as an opportunity to dig deep into particular areas of the business. (7) Use a textbook or course driven approach.featured in #533
The Developer's Guide To RBAC: Part I
tl;dr: As SaaS products scale, supporting authorization becomes critical, requiring solutions like fine-grained access control (FGA) to meet complex enterprise needs. This guide covers the fundamentals of role-based access control (RBAC) and its limitations, trade-offs to consider when transitioning to FGA, and implementation details from companies like Figma and Carta that built these systems in-housefeatured in #533
Story Points Are Pointless, Measure Queues
- Barry Jones tl;dr: “Measured Queues address short term and long term estimation issues, handle scope changes naturally and provide a much more valuable exercise to larger teams while removing uncertainty from the team's initial plans. Measured Queues also provide a leading indicator of problems 20 times faster than Velocity or Cycle Time related metrics.”featured in #533
The Magic Of Small Engineering Teams
- James Temperton tl;dr: “Startups ship more per person than big companies – everyone knows this. But how do you retain that advantage as you scale? Our answer is small teams – speedy, innovative, and autonomous one-pizza teams where individuals can still have an outsized impact. This week we're sharing how they work, why we chose this structure, and the tradeoffs we accept to enjoy the benefits of small teams.”featured in #533
Strategy For Directors: Tying It Together
- Anna Shipman tl;dr: “Strategy is often set by the person with the loudest voice. One of the aims of this course was to teach techniques and models to allow robust discussion, surface ideas and allow everyone to be heard.” Anna discusses steps to do this: (1) Strategic analysis: Make a diagnosis of your current situation, external and internal. (2) Strategic choice: make a decision about what you want to do. (3) Implement.featured in #532
What is Fingerprint Browsing And How Does It Work?
- Evelyn Chea tl;dr: Cookies are great, but they aren’t reliable. That's where browser fingerprinting comes in. Visitor identification captures details like browser type, operating system, and screen resolution using advanced techniques like canvas and WebGL fingerprinting to create a unique digital fingerprint for each visitor. It goes beyond traditional cookies, offering enhanced security, fraud detection, and personalized user experiences.featured in #532
Leadership For Results And Peace Of Mind
- Subbu Allamaraju tl;dr: “After years of testing various ideas and behaviors, I developed a leadership framework that has proven effective in achieving results, enjoying work, and maintaining peace of mind. While there’s no one-size-fits-all leadership recipe, I’m eager to share a few key behaviors that have helped me and could benefit you.”featured in #532
Leadership For Results And Peace Of Mind
- Subbu Allamaraju tl;dr: “After years of testing various ideas and behaviors, I developed a leadership framework that has proven effective in achieving results, enjoying work, and maintaining peace of mind. While there’s no one-size-fits-all leadership recipe, I’m eager to share a few key behaviors that have helped me and could benefit you.”featured in #531