Knowledge shared by our community

Did Work From Home Hurt the Video Game Industry?

When the Covid-19 pandemic forced video game companies to work remotely, they had to quickly develop a new product to help their studios continue to deliver games on time. This product was built using a process of identifying needs and gaps, creating a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) to test, and then polishing and adding features. In the end, the product was successful in helping the studios deliver games on time and with adequate quality. The key takeaway is to always focus on the end users and test and understand them ahead of time.

Product That Brings Opportunities

This article discusses how a small fintech team identified their target audience and used a test and learn approach to develop direct customer experiences. They identified the audience as digital giants, fintech startups, and large enterprise firms, and used five indicators to score their ideas: impact, confidence, competition, acceptability, and strategic impact. The approach was successful as the APIs could be expanded, allowing them to identify early successes and build upon them.

What Makes a Good Product Culture?

This article discusses the importance of creating a product culture in an organization. It outlines the five competencies needed to create a strategy stack, and how to use OKRs to set goals and visions. It also explains the importance of hiring the right people and creating a culture of diversity and inclusion. Finally, it emphasizes the need for leaders to step in when needed to ensure that teams are moving forward.

The Dilemma of Building a New Product vs. Rebuilding Existing Ones

This article is about the experience of an associate director who was tasked with handling a product's website. He faced four challenges: a poorly built website, low team morale, lack of product strategy, and a long list of requirements from the business teams. He addressed these challenges by creating a prioritized list of issues to fix, talking to all stakeholders to understand their needs, creating a product strategy, deciding whether to build a product from scratch or rebuild an existing one, and speaking to the finance team in their own language. After six months of work, the website was successfully launched and engagement, traffic, and users increased by 5x. The author learned the importance of balancing short-term and long-term gains, having a product strategy in place, creating quick wins, involving all stakeholders, and speaking to stakeholders in their own language.

When Culture Does Not Translate Into Business Goals

When leading a cross-cultural team, it is important to observe, evaluate, and proceed at a constant pace in order to account for cultural differences. This is especially important when attempting to implement a corporate solution into a foreign market. By understanding the cultural differences and accommodating accordingly, it is possible to successfully deploy a solution. Additionally, it is important to foresee any potential conflict areas and invest in culture champions early on in order to build trust and collaboration.

Obstacles and Challenges Within a Career Plan

This article discusses the journey of an aspiring CIO and the steps taken to become a technology leader. It outlines the importance of observing, communicating, and executing, as well as being empathetic and understanding. It also emphasizes the need to look at the career growth of other executives, take roles with maximum visibility, and understand the financial, manufacturing, and people interaction elements of an organization.

How to Run a Successful War Room

War rooms are used to address time-critical events such as security incidents, regulatory changes, or bugs. Leaders of war rooms must remain sane, keep daily milestones, continue shipping code, and make tough decisions. To mitigate team fatigue, team members should be cycled through, communication should be open, and war rooms should be used judiciously.

What I learned Trying to Upskill a Tech Support Person to Engineering

This article discusses the experience of tailoring an onboarding process for a non-engineer. The process was unsuccessful due to the individual's lack of experience and technical skills. The article emphasizes the importance of setting clear milestones and assigning a mentor to new team members to ensure success.

How Initiative Can Gain You a Promotion?

This article provides advice on how to take initiative to get a promotion. It suggests changing your mindset, being explicit with your managers and leadership, and taking action to implement a promotion plan. It also emphasizes the importance of having a promotion plan and provides tips on how to get one. Finally, it shares an example of how mentorship can help someone get a promotion.

Scaling a Small Team with a Strong Foundation

Growing a small team into a large organization requires a strong foundation of initial hires, a shared direction, and the right leaders. As teams grow, technical challenges arise and the team must remain aligned on a single goal. Communication and teamwork become essential, and leaders must be highly motivated and driven while also being able to collaborate and work flexibly with others.

Tips and Tricks for Moving From IC to Management

This article discusses the transition from individual technical contributor (IC) to management, and the lessons learned along the way. The author emphasizes the importance of humility, honesty, and emotional intelligence in management, as well as the need to understand the perspectives of team members and how they can add value to the overall goal. The article also highlights the importance of one-on-one discussions and team meetings to provide a broader perspective and foster a learning culture within the team.

The Importance of Shared Priorities Between Managers and Direct Reports

In response to a team member's struggles with managing their workload and personal life during the COVID-19 pandemic, a manager applied the technique of setting a "cut line" for work priorities. This involved creating a list of tasks in priority order, drawing a line to indicate what would and wouldn't be done, and reviewing the list to ensure it was in the right order. This allowed the team member to focus on fewer tasks and gave them more time to figure out child care. The manager believes all employees should be empowered to make these types of lists with their managers to ensure honest conversations about tradeoffs when taking on new projects.

Resolving Conflicts Within a Team

A conflict arose between two engineers on a team over a coding style change. The team leader stepped in to mediate the dispute, and after a meeting with the team, the change was kept in the codebase. The change was innovative and important for the team's growth and development.

Understanding the Jump Between IC and Management

This article provides advice on when to take the leap from an IC engineer to a people manager. It outlines the different skills and qualities needed for each role, such as mentorship and coaching, prioritizing, delegation, technical leadership, making a large impact, clear communication, building trust, inspiring others, and having a growth mindset. It encourages readers to try the role and reassures them that they can always go back to being an IC if they don't enjoy it.

How an Agile Mindset Founded an Offset of Mentorship

This article discusses the concept of micro-mentorship, a form of mentorship that is tailored to the individual and is framed in an agile mindset. It is a way to provide mentorship without the need for a long-term commitment. The article also explains why micro-mentorship is preferable to content creation when it comes to mentoring relationships. It is more personal and provides more immediate value.

Shepherding a product from a Proof of Concept to Production

In May 2019, a team of four was tasked with creating a product with a tight deadline. After the product manager left, the team reached out to the core architecture team and began weekly cross-team meetings to iterate the design. The team realized they needed more resources and presented their findings to the leadership team. After gaining more resources, the team completed the code and component testing on schedule. The platform was well-received by customers, and the team learned the importance of involving all stakeholders, maximizing bandwidth, and creating a common communication channel.

Take the Time to Evaluate Your Career

After a reduction in force at his company, the author evaluated his career trajectory and determined that he could be more successful and enjoy his work more in an individual contributor role rather than a managerial one. He used a data-driven approach to plot tasks and responsibilities on an XY chart and found that many of the duties traditionally attributed to managers fell in the two left quadrants, while many of the duties normally completed by an IC were plotted on the right side of the graph. This realization required the author to suppress his ego and recognize what was best for both himself and the company.

Scaling Engineering @ Trustly

Trustly has seen significant growth in Europe and North America over the past year, with North America now representing close to half of total group revenue. In response, the Engineering team has doubled in size, expanding to 109 full-time employees across Brazil, Portugal, and the US. The team has evolved their road mapping and planning processes, and formalized the idea of a Technology Tribe to dedicate Engineering resources for Scalability, Reliability, Security, and Resiliency. The team looks forward to continued growth and evolution in 2022.

Working Moms and Problems They Face

This article discusses the struggles of a working mom and how to overcome them. It suggests having a coach to help establish a mindset, setting dedicated times for well-being, work, and family, and dealing with emotional agility. The lessons learned are to take care of yourself first, set clear goals, and be sure of what you are looking for.

Coaching Women Engineers: Professionally, and for Life

When mentoring women engineers, it is important to help them build confidence and articulate their goals clearly. It is also important to be inspiring and help them recognize their skills and resources. Mentors should be aware of the impact they have on others and strive to be the best example.

Did Work From Home Hurt the Video Game Industry?

When the Covid-19 pandemic forced video game companies to work remotely, they had to quickly develop a new product to help their studios continue to deliver games on time. This product was built using a process of identifying needs and gaps, creating a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) to test, and then polishing and adding features. In the end, the product was successful in helping the studios deliver games on time and with adequate quality. The key takeaway is to always focus on the end users and test and understand them ahead of time.

Product That Brings Opportunities

This article discusses how a small fintech team identified their target audience and used a test and learn approach to develop direct customer experiences. They identified the audience as digital giants, fintech startups, and large enterprise firms, and used five indicators to score their ideas: impact, confidence, competition, acceptability, and strategic impact. The approach was successful as the APIs could be expanded, allowing them to identify early successes and build upon them.

What Makes a Good Product Culture?

This article discusses the importance of creating a product culture in an organization. It outlines the five competencies needed to create a strategy stack, and how to use OKRs to set goals and visions. It also explains the importance of hiring the right people and creating a culture of diversity and inclusion. Finally, it emphasizes the need for leaders to step in when needed to ensure that teams are moving forward.

The Dilemma of Building a New Product vs. Rebuilding Existing Ones

This article is about the experience of an associate director who was tasked with handling a product's website. He faced four challenges: a poorly built website, low team morale, lack of product strategy, and a long list of requirements from the business teams. He addressed these challenges by creating a prioritized list of issues to fix, talking to all stakeholders to understand their needs, creating a product strategy, deciding whether to build a product from scratch or rebuild an existing one, and speaking to the finance team in their own language. After six months of work, the website was successfully launched and engagement, traffic, and users increased by 5x. The author learned the importance of balancing short-term and long-term gains, having a product strategy in place, creating quick wins, involving all stakeholders, and speaking to stakeholders in their own language.

When Culture Does Not Translate Into Business Goals

When leading a cross-cultural team, it is important to observe, evaluate, and proceed at a constant pace in order to account for cultural differences. This is especially important when attempting to implement a corporate solution into a foreign market. By understanding the cultural differences and accommodating accordingly, it is possible to successfully deploy a solution. Additionally, it is important to foresee any potential conflict areas and invest in culture champions early on in order to build trust and collaboration.

Obstacles and Challenges Within a Career Plan

This article discusses the journey of an aspiring CIO and the steps taken to become a technology leader. It outlines the importance of observing, communicating, and executing, as well as being empathetic and understanding. It also emphasizes the need to look at the career growth of other executives, take roles with maximum visibility, and understand the financial, manufacturing, and people interaction elements of an organization.

How to Run a Successful War Room

War rooms are used to address time-critical events such as security incidents, regulatory changes, or bugs. Leaders of war rooms must remain sane, keep daily milestones, continue shipping code, and make tough decisions. To mitigate team fatigue, team members should be cycled through, communication should be open, and war rooms should be used judiciously.

What I learned Trying to Upskill a Tech Support Person to Engineering

This article discusses the experience of tailoring an onboarding process for a non-engineer. The process was unsuccessful due to the individual's lack of experience and technical skills. The article emphasizes the importance of setting clear milestones and assigning a mentor to new team members to ensure success.

How Initiative Can Gain You a Promotion?

This article provides advice on how to take initiative to get a promotion. It suggests changing your mindset, being explicit with your managers and leadership, and taking action to implement a promotion plan. It also emphasizes the importance of having a promotion plan and provides tips on how to get one. Finally, it shares an example of how mentorship can help someone get a promotion.

Scaling a Small Team with a Strong Foundation

Growing a small team into a large organization requires a strong foundation of initial hires, a shared direction, and the right leaders. As teams grow, technical challenges arise and the team must remain aligned on a single goal. Communication and teamwork become essential, and leaders must be highly motivated and driven while also being able to collaborate and work flexibly with others.

Tips and Tricks for Moving From IC to Management

This article discusses the transition from individual technical contributor (IC) to management, and the lessons learned along the way. The author emphasizes the importance of humility, honesty, and emotional intelligence in management, as well as the need to understand the perspectives of team members and how they can add value to the overall goal. The article also highlights the importance of one-on-one discussions and team meetings to provide a broader perspective and foster a learning culture within the team.

The Importance of Shared Priorities Between Managers and Direct Reports

In response to a team member's struggles with managing their workload and personal life during the COVID-19 pandemic, a manager applied the technique of setting a "cut line" for work priorities. This involved creating a list of tasks in priority order, drawing a line to indicate what would and wouldn't be done, and reviewing the list to ensure it was in the right order. This allowed the team member to focus on fewer tasks and gave them more time to figure out child care. The manager believes all employees should be empowered to make these types of lists with their managers to ensure honest conversations about tradeoffs when taking on new projects.

Resolving Conflicts Within a Team

A conflict arose between two engineers on a team over a coding style change. The team leader stepped in to mediate the dispute, and after a meeting with the team, the change was kept in the codebase. The change was innovative and important for the team's growth and development.

Understanding the Jump Between IC and Management

This article provides advice on when to take the leap from an IC engineer to a people manager. It outlines the different skills and qualities needed for each role, such as mentorship and coaching, prioritizing, delegation, technical leadership, making a large impact, clear communication, building trust, inspiring others, and having a growth mindset. It encourages readers to try the role and reassures them that they can always go back to being an IC if they don't enjoy it.

How an Agile Mindset Founded an Offset of Mentorship

This article discusses the concept of micro-mentorship, a form of mentorship that is tailored to the individual and is framed in an agile mindset. It is a way to provide mentorship without the need for a long-term commitment. The article also explains why micro-mentorship is preferable to content creation when it comes to mentoring relationships. It is more personal and provides more immediate value.

Shepherding a product from a Proof of Concept to Production

In May 2019, a team of four was tasked with creating a product with a tight deadline. After the product manager left, the team reached out to the core architecture team and began weekly cross-team meetings to iterate the design. The team realized they needed more resources and presented their findings to the leadership team. After gaining more resources, the team completed the code and component testing on schedule. The platform was well-received by customers, and the team learned the importance of involving all stakeholders, maximizing bandwidth, and creating a common communication channel.

Take the Time to Evaluate Your Career

After a reduction in force at his company, the author evaluated his career trajectory and determined that he could be more successful and enjoy his work more in an individual contributor role rather than a managerial one. He used a data-driven approach to plot tasks and responsibilities on an XY chart and found that many of the duties traditionally attributed to managers fell in the two left quadrants, while many of the duties normally completed by an IC were plotted on the right side of the graph. This realization required the author to suppress his ego and recognize what was best for both himself and the company.

Scaling Engineering @ Trustly

Trustly has seen significant growth in Europe and North America over the past year, with North America now representing close to half of total group revenue. In response, the Engineering team has doubled in size, expanding to 109 full-time employees across Brazil, Portugal, and the US. The team has evolved their road mapping and planning processes, and formalized the idea of a Technology Tribe to dedicate Engineering resources for Scalability, Reliability, Security, and Resiliency. The team looks forward to continued growth and evolution in 2022.

Working Moms and Problems They Face

This article discusses the struggles of a working mom and how to overcome them. It suggests having a coach to help establish a mindset, setting dedicated times for well-being, work, and family, and dealing with emotional agility. The lessons learned are to take care of yourself first, set clear goals, and be sure of what you are looking for.

Coaching Women Engineers: Professionally, and for Life

When mentoring women engineers, it is important to help them build confidence and articulate their goals clearly. It is also important to be inspiring and help them recognize their skills and resources. Mentors should be aware of the impact they have on others and strive to be the best example.

Did Work From Home Hurt the Video Game Industry?

When the Covid-19 pandemic forced video game companies to work remotely, they had to quickly develop a new product to help their studios continue to deliver games on time. This product was built using a process of identifying needs and gaps, creating a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) to test, and then polishing and adding features. In the end, the product was successful in helping the studios deliver games on time and with adequate quality. The key takeaway is to always focus on the end users and test and understand them ahead of time.

Product That Brings Opportunities

This article discusses how a small fintech team identified their target audience and used a test and learn approach to develop direct customer experiences. They identified the audience as digital giants, fintech startups, and large enterprise firms, and used five indicators to score their ideas: impact, confidence, competition, acceptability, and strategic impact. The approach was successful as the APIs could be expanded, allowing them to identify early successes and build upon them.

What Makes a Good Product Culture?

This article discusses the importance of creating a product culture in an organization. It outlines the five competencies needed to create a strategy stack, and how to use OKRs to set goals and visions. It also explains the importance of hiring the right people and creating a culture of diversity and inclusion. Finally, it emphasizes the need for leaders to step in when needed to ensure that teams are moving forward.

The Dilemma of Building a New Product vs. Rebuilding Existing Ones

This article is about the experience of an associate director who was tasked with handling a product's website. He faced four challenges: a poorly built website, low team morale, lack of product strategy, and a long list of requirements from the business teams. He addressed these challenges by creating a prioritized list of issues to fix, talking to all stakeholders to understand their needs, creating a product strategy, deciding whether to build a product from scratch or rebuild an existing one, and speaking to the finance team in their own language. After six months of work, the website was successfully launched and engagement, traffic, and users increased by 5x. The author learned the importance of balancing short-term and long-term gains, having a product strategy in place, creating quick wins, involving all stakeholders, and speaking to stakeholders in their own language.

When Culture Does Not Translate Into Business Goals

When leading a cross-cultural team, it is important to observe, evaluate, and proceed at a constant pace in order to account for cultural differences. This is especially important when attempting to implement a corporate solution into a foreign market. By understanding the cultural differences and accommodating accordingly, it is possible to successfully deploy a solution. Additionally, it is important to foresee any potential conflict areas and invest in culture champions early on in order to build trust and collaboration.

Obstacles and Challenges Within a Career Plan

This article discusses the journey of an aspiring CIO and the steps taken to become a technology leader. It outlines the importance of observing, communicating, and executing, as well as being empathetic and understanding. It also emphasizes the need to look at the career growth of other executives, take roles with maximum visibility, and understand the financial, manufacturing, and people interaction elements of an organization.

How to Run a Successful War Room

War rooms are used to address time-critical events such as security incidents, regulatory changes, or bugs. Leaders of war rooms must remain sane, keep daily milestones, continue shipping code, and make tough decisions. To mitigate team fatigue, team members should be cycled through, communication should be open, and war rooms should be used judiciously.

What I learned Trying to Upskill a Tech Support Person to Engineering

This article discusses the experience of tailoring an onboarding process for a non-engineer. The process was unsuccessful due to the individual's lack of experience and technical skills. The article emphasizes the importance of setting clear milestones and assigning a mentor to new team members to ensure success.

How Initiative Can Gain You a Promotion?

This article provides advice on how to take initiative to get a promotion. It suggests changing your mindset, being explicit with your managers and leadership, and taking action to implement a promotion plan. It also emphasizes the importance of having a promotion plan and provides tips on how to get one. Finally, it shares an example of how mentorship can help someone get a promotion.

Scaling a Small Team with a Strong Foundation

Growing a small team into a large organization requires a strong foundation of initial hires, a shared direction, and the right leaders. As teams grow, technical challenges arise and the team must remain aligned on a single goal. Communication and teamwork become essential, and leaders must be highly motivated and driven while also being able to collaborate and work flexibly with others.

Tips and Tricks for Moving From IC to Management

This article discusses the transition from individual technical contributor (IC) to management, and the lessons learned along the way. The author emphasizes the importance of humility, honesty, and emotional intelligence in management, as well as the need to understand the perspectives of team members and how they can add value to the overall goal. The article also highlights the importance of one-on-one discussions and team meetings to provide a broader perspective and foster a learning culture within the team.

The Importance of Shared Priorities Between Managers and Direct Reports

In response to a team member's struggles with managing their workload and personal life during the COVID-19 pandemic, a manager applied the technique of setting a "cut line" for work priorities. This involved creating a list of tasks in priority order, drawing a line to indicate what would and wouldn't be done, and reviewing the list to ensure it was in the right order. This allowed the team member to focus on fewer tasks and gave them more time to figure out child care. The manager believes all employees should be empowered to make these types of lists with their managers to ensure honest conversations about tradeoffs when taking on new projects.

Resolving Conflicts Within a Team

A conflict arose between two engineers on a team over a coding style change. The team leader stepped in to mediate the dispute, and after a meeting with the team, the change was kept in the codebase. The change was innovative and important for the team's growth and development.

Understanding the Jump Between IC and Management

This article provides advice on when to take the leap from an IC engineer to a people manager. It outlines the different skills and qualities needed for each role, such as mentorship and coaching, prioritizing, delegation, technical leadership, making a large impact, clear communication, building trust, inspiring others, and having a growth mindset. It encourages readers to try the role and reassures them that they can always go back to being an IC if they don't enjoy it.

How an Agile Mindset Founded an Offset of Mentorship

This article discusses the concept of micro-mentorship, a form of mentorship that is tailored to the individual and is framed in an agile mindset. It is a way to provide mentorship without the need for a long-term commitment. The article also explains why micro-mentorship is preferable to content creation when it comes to mentoring relationships. It is more personal and provides more immediate value.

Shepherding a product from a Proof of Concept to Production

In May 2019, a team of four was tasked with creating a product with a tight deadline. After the product manager left, the team reached out to the core architecture team and began weekly cross-team meetings to iterate the design. The team realized they needed more resources and presented their findings to the leadership team. After gaining more resources, the team completed the code and component testing on schedule. The platform was well-received by customers, and the team learned the importance of involving all stakeholders, maximizing bandwidth, and creating a common communication channel.

Take the Time to Evaluate Your Career

After a reduction in force at his company, the author evaluated his career trajectory and determined that he could be more successful and enjoy his work more in an individual contributor role rather than a managerial one. He used a data-driven approach to plot tasks and responsibilities on an XY chart and found that many of the duties traditionally attributed to managers fell in the two left quadrants, while many of the duties normally completed by an IC were plotted on the right side of the graph. This realization required the author to suppress his ego and recognize what was best for both himself and the company.

Scaling Engineering @ Trustly

Trustly has seen significant growth in Europe and North America over the past year, with North America now representing close to half of total group revenue. In response, the Engineering team has doubled in size, expanding to 109 full-time employees across Brazil, Portugal, and the US. The team has evolved their road mapping and planning processes, and formalized the idea of a Technology Tribe to dedicate Engineering resources for Scalability, Reliability, Security, and Resiliency. The team looks forward to continued growth and evolution in 2022.

Working Moms and Problems They Face

This article discusses the struggles of a working mom and how to overcome them. It suggests having a coach to help establish a mindset, setting dedicated times for well-being, work, and family, and dealing with emotional agility. The lessons learned are to take care of yourself first, set clear goals, and be sure of what you are looking for.

Coaching Women Engineers: Professionally, and for Life

When mentoring women engineers, it is important to help them build confidence and articulate their goals clearly. It is also important to be inspiring and help them recognize their skills and resources. Mentors should be aware of the impact they have on others and strive to be the best example.

Did Work From Home Hurt the Video Game Industry?

When the Covid-19 pandemic forced video game companies to work remotely, they had to quickly develop a new product to help their studios continue to deliver games on time. This product was built using a process of identifying needs and gaps, creating a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) to test, and then polishing and adding features. In the end, the product was successful in helping the studios deliver games on time and with adequate quality. The key takeaway is to always focus on the end users and test and understand them ahead of time.

Product That Brings Opportunities

This article discusses how a small fintech team identified their target audience and used a test and learn approach to develop direct customer experiences. They identified the audience as digital giants, fintech startups, and large enterprise firms, and used five indicators to score their ideas: impact, confidence, competition, acceptability, and strategic impact. The approach was successful as the APIs could be expanded, allowing them to identify early successes and build upon them.

What Makes a Good Product Culture?

This article discusses the importance of creating a product culture in an organization. It outlines the five competencies needed to create a strategy stack, and how to use OKRs to set goals and visions. It also explains the importance of hiring the right people and creating a culture of diversity and inclusion. Finally, it emphasizes the need for leaders to step in when needed to ensure that teams are moving forward.

The Dilemma of Building a New Product vs. Rebuilding Existing Ones

This article is about the experience of an associate director who was tasked with handling a product's website. He faced four challenges: a poorly built website, low team morale, lack of product strategy, and a long list of requirements from the business teams. He addressed these challenges by creating a prioritized list of issues to fix, talking to all stakeholders to understand their needs, creating a product strategy, deciding whether to build a product from scratch or rebuild an existing one, and speaking to the finance team in their own language. After six months of work, the website was successfully launched and engagement, traffic, and users increased by 5x. The author learned the importance of balancing short-term and long-term gains, having a product strategy in place, creating quick wins, involving all stakeholders, and speaking to stakeholders in their own language.

When Culture Does Not Translate Into Business Goals

When leading a cross-cultural team, it is important to observe, evaluate, and proceed at a constant pace in order to account for cultural differences. This is especially important when attempting to implement a corporate solution into a foreign market. By understanding the cultural differences and accommodating accordingly, it is possible to successfully deploy a solution. Additionally, it is important to foresee any potential conflict areas and invest in culture champions early on in order to build trust and collaboration.

Obstacles and Challenges Within a Career Plan

This article discusses the journey of an aspiring CIO and the steps taken to become a technology leader. It outlines the importance of observing, communicating, and executing, as well as being empathetic and understanding. It also emphasizes the need to look at the career growth of other executives, take roles with maximum visibility, and understand the financial, manufacturing, and people interaction elements of an organization.

How to Run a Successful War Room

War rooms are used to address time-critical events such as security incidents, regulatory changes, or bugs. Leaders of war rooms must remain sane, keep daily milestones, continue shipping code, and make tough decisions. To mitigate team fatigue, team members should be cycled through, communication should be open, and war rooms should be used judiciously.

What I learned Trying to Upskill a Tech Support Person to Engineering

This article discusses the experience of tailoring an onboarding process for a non-engineer. The process was unsuccessful due to the individual's lack of experience and technical skills. The article emphasizes the importance of setting clear milestones and assigning a mentor to new team members to ensure success.

How Initiative Can Gain You a Promotion?

This article provides advice on how to take initiative to get a promotion. It suggests changing your mindset, being explicit with your managers and leadership, and taking action to implement a promotion plan. It also emphasizes the importance of having a promotion plan and provides tips on how to get one. Finally, it shares an example of how mentorship can help someone get a promotion.

Scaling a Small Team with a Strong Foundation

Growing a small team into a large organization requires a strong foundation of initial hires, a shared direction, and the right leaders. As teams grow, technical challenges arise and the team must remain aligned on a single goal. Communication and teamwork become essential, and leaders must be highly motivated and driven while also being able to collaborate and work flexibly with others.

Tips and Tricks for Moving From IC to Management

This article discusses the transition from individual technical contributor (IC) to management, and the lessons learned along the way. The author emphasizes the importance of humility, honesty, and emotional intelligence in management, as well as the need to understand the perspectives of team members and how they can add value to the overall goal. The article also highlights the importance of one-on-one discussions and team meetings to provide a broader perspective and foster a learning culture within the team.

The Importance of Shared Priorities Between Managers and Direct Reports

In response to a team member's struggles with managing their workload and personal life during the COVID-19 pandemic, a manager applied the technique of setting a "cut line" for work priorities. This involved creating a list of tasks in priority order, drawing a line to indicate what would and wouldn't be done, and reviewing the list to ensure it was in the right order. This allowed the team member to focus on fewer tasks and gave them more time to figure out child care. The manager believes all employees should be empowered to make these types of lists with their managers to ensure honest conversations about tradeoffs when taking on new projects.

Resolving Conflicts Within a Team

A conflict arose between two engineers on a team over a coding style change. The team leader stepped in to mediate the dispute, and after a meeting with the team, the change was kept in the codebase. The change was innovative and important for the team's growth and development.

Understanding the Jump Between IC and Management

This article provides advice on when to take the leap from an IC engineer to a people manager. It outlines the different skills and qualities needed for each role, such as mentorship and coaching, prioritizing, delegation, technical leadership, making a large impact, clear communication, building trust, inspiring others, and having a growth mindset. It encourages readers to try the role and reassures them that they can always go back to being an IC if they don't enjoy it.

How an Agile Mindset Founded an Offset of Mentorship

This article discusses the concept of micro-mentorship, a form of mentorship that is tailored to the individual and is framed in an agile mindset. It is a way to provide mentorship without the need for a long-term commitment. The article also explains why micro-mentorship is preferable to content creation when it comes to mentoring relationships. It is more personal and provides more immediate value.

Shepherding a product from a Proof of Concept to Production

In May 2019, a team of four was tasked with creating a product with a tight deadline. After the product manager left, the team reached out to the core architecture team and began weekly cross-team meetings to iterate the design. The team realized they needed more resources and presented their findings to the leadership team. After gaining more resources, the team completed the code and component testing on schedule. The platform was well-received by customers, and the team learned the importance of involving all stakeholders, maximizing bandwidth, and creating a common communication channel.

Take the Time to Evaluate Your Career

After a reduction in force at his company, the author evaluated his career trajectory and determined that he could be more successful and enjoy his work more in an individual contributor role rather than a managerial one. He used a data-driven approach to plot tasks and responsibilities on an XY chart and found that many of the duties traditionally attributed to managers fell in the two left quadrants, while many of the duties normally completed by an IC were plotted on the right side of the graph. This realization required the author to suppress his ego and recognize what was best for both himself and the company.

Scaling Engineering @ Trustly

Trustly has seen significant growth in Europe and North America over the past year, with North America now representing close to half of total group revenue. In response, the Engineering team has doubled in size, expanding to 109 full-time employees across Brazil, Portugal, and the US. The team has evolved their road mapping and planning processes, and formalized the idea of a Technology Tribe to dedicate Engineering resources for Scalability, Reliability, Security, and Resiliency. The team looks forward to continued growth and evolution in 2022.

Working Moms and Problems They Face

This article discusses the struggles of a working mom and how to overcome them. It suggests having a coach to help establish a mindset, setting dedicated times for well-being, work, and family, and dealing with emotional agility. The lessons learned are to take care of yourself first, set clear goals, and be sure of what you are looking for.

Coaching Women Engineers: Professionally, and for Life

When mentoring women engineers, it is important to help them build confidence and articulate their goals clearly. It is also important to be inspiring and help them recognize their skills and resources. Mentors should be aware of the impact they have on others and strive to be the best example.

Did Work From Home Hurt the Video Game Industry?

When the Covid-19 pandemic forced video game companies to work remotely, they had to quickly develop a new product to help their studios continue to deliver games on time. This product was built using a process of identifying needs and gaps, creating a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) to test, and then polishing and adding features. In the end, the product was successful in helping the studios deliver games on time and with adequate quality. The key takeaway is to always focus on the end users and test and understand them ahead of time.

Product That Brings Opportunities

This article discusses how a small fintech team identified their target audience and used a test and learn approach to develop direct customer experiences. They identified the audience as digital giants, fintech startups, and large enterprise firms, and used five indicators to score their ideas: impact, confidence, competition, acceptability, and strategic impact. The approach was successful as the APIs could be expanded, allowing them to identify early successes and build upon them.

What Makes a Good Product Culture?

This article discusses the importance of creating a product culture in an organization. It outlines the five competencies needed to create a strategy stack, and how to use OKRs to set goals and visions. It also explains the importance of hiring the right people and creating a culture of diversity and inclusion. Finally, it emphasizes the need for leaders to step in when needed to ensure that teams are moving forward.

The Dilemma of Building a New Product vs. Rebuilding Existing Ones

This article is about the experience of an associate director who was tasked with handling a product's website. He faced four challenges: a poorly built website, low team morale, lack of product strategy, and a long list of requirements from the business teams. He addressed these challenges by creating a prioritized list of issues to fix, talking to all stakeholders to understand their needs, creating a product strategy, deciding whether to build a product from scratch or rebuild an existing one, and speaking to the finance team in their own language. After six months of work, the website was successfully launched and engagement, traffic, and users increased by 5x. The author learned the importance of balancing short-term and long-term gains, having a product strategy in place, creating quick wins, involving all stakeholders, and speaking to stakeholders in their own language.

When Culture Does Not Translate Into Business Goals

When leading a cross-cultural team, it is important to observe, evaluate, and proceed at a constant pace in order to account for cultural differences. This is especially important when attempting to implement a corporate solution into a foreign market. By understanding the cultural differences and accommodating accordingly, it is possible to successfully deploy a solution. Additionally, it is important to foresee any potential conflict areas and invest in culture champions early on in order to build trust and collaboration.

Obstacles and Challenges Within a Career Plan

This article discusses the journey of an aspiring CIO and the steps taken to become a technology leader. It outlines the importance of observing, communicating, and executing, as well as being empathetic and understanding. It also emphasizes the need to look at the career growth of other executives, take roles with maximum visibility, and understand the financial, manufacturing, and people interaction elements of an organization.

How to Run a Successful War Room

War rooms are used to address time-critical events such as security incidents, regulatory changes, or bugs. Leaders of war rooms must remain sane, keep daily milestones, continue shipping code, and make tough decisions. To mitigate team fatigue, team members should be cycled through, communication should be open, and war rooms should be used judiciously.

What I learned Trying to Upskill a Tech Support Person to Engineering

This article discusses the experience of tailoring an onboarding process for a non-engineer. The process was unsuccessful due to the individual's lack of experience and technical skills. The article emphasizes the importance of setting clear milestones and assigning a mentor to new team members to ensure success.

How Initiative Can Gain You a Promotion?

This article provides advice on how to take initiative to get a promotion. It suggests changing your mindset, being explicit with your managers and leadership, and taking action to implement a promotion plan. It also emphasizes the importance of having a promotion plan and provides tips on how to get one. Finally, it shares an example of how mentorship can help someone get a promotion.

Scaling a Small Team with a Strong Foundation

Growing a small team into a large organization requires a strong foundation of initial hires, a shared direction, and the right leaders. As teams grow, technical challenges arise and the team must remain aligned on a single goal. Communication and teamwork become essential, and leaders must be highly motivated and driven while also being able to collaborate and work flexibly with others.

Tips and Tricks for Moving From IC to Management

This article discusses the transition from individual technical contributor (IC) to management, and the lessons learned along the way. The author emphasizes the importance of humility, honesty, and emotional intelligence in management, as well as the need to understand the perspectives of team members and how they can add value to the overall goal. The article also highlights the importance of one-on-one discussions and team meetings to provide a broader perspective and foster a learning culture within the team.

The Importance of Shared Priorities Between Managers and Direct Reports

In response to a team member's struggles with managing their workload and personal life during the COVID-19 pandemic, a manager applied the technique of setting a "cut line" for work priorities. This involved creating a list of tasks in priority order, drawing a line to indicate what would and wouldn't be done, and reviewing the list to ensure it was in the right order. This allowed the team member to focus on fewer tasks and gave them more time to figure out child care. The manager believes all employees should be empowered to make these types of lists with their managers to ensure honest conversations about tradeoffs when taking on new projects.

Resolving Conflicts Within a Team

A conflict arose between two engineers on a team over a coding style change. The team leader stepped in to mediate the dispute, and after a meeting with the team, the change was kept in the codebase. The change was innovative and important for the team's growth and development.

Understanding the Jump Between IC and Management

This article provides advice on when to take the leap from an IC engineer to a people manager. It outlines the different skills and qualities needed for each role, such as mentorship and coaching, prioritizing, delegation, technical leadership, making a large impact, clear communication, building trust, inspiring others, and having a growth mindset. It encourages readers to try the role and reassures them that they can always go back to being an IC if they don't enjoy it.

How an Agile Mindset Founded an Offset of Mentorship

This article discusses the concept of micro-mentorship, a form of mentorship that is tailored to the individual and is framed in an agile mindset. It is a way to provide mentorship without the need for a long-term commitment. The article also explains why micro-mentorship is preferable to content creation when it comes to mentoring relationships. It is more personal and provides more immediate value.

Shepherding a product from a Proof of Concept to Production

In May 2019, a team of four was tasked with creating a product with a tight deadline. After the product manager left, the team reached out to the core architecture team and began weekly cross-team meetings to iterate the design. The team realized they needed more resources and presented their findings to the leadership team. After gaining more resources, the team completed the code and component testing on schedule. The platform was well-received by customers, and the team learned the importance of involving all stakeholders, maximizing bandwidth, and creating a common communication channel.

Take the Time to Evaluate Your Career

After a reduction in force at his company, the author evaluated his career trajectory and determined that he could be more successful and enjoy his work more in an individual contributor role rather than a managerial one. He used a data-driven approach to plot tasks and responsibilities on an XY chart and found that many of the duties traditionally attributed to managers fell in the two left quadrants, while many of the duties normally completed by an IC were plotted on the right side of the graph. This realization required the author to suppress his ego and recognize what was best for both himself and the company.

Scaling Engineering @ Trustly

Trustly has seen significant growth in Europe and North America over the past year, with North America now representing close to half of total group revenue. In response, the Engineering team has doubled in size, expanding to 109 full-time employees across Brazil, Portugal, and the US. The team has evolved their road mapping and planning processes, and formalized the idea of a Technology Tribe to dedicate Engineering resources for Scalability, Reliability, Security, and Resiliency. The team looks forward to continued growth and evolution in 2022.

Working Moms and Problems They Face

This article discusses the struggles of a working mom and how to overcome them. It suggests having a coach to help establish a mindset, setting dedicated times for well-being, work, and family, and dealing with emotional agility. The lessons learned are to take care of yourself first, set clear goals, and be sure of what you are looking for.

Coaching Women Engineers: Professionally, and for Life

When mentoring women engineers, it is important to help them build confidence and articulate their goals clearly. It is also important to be inspiring and help them recognize their skills and resources. Mentors should be aware of the impact they have on others and strive to be the best example.

Did Work From Home Hurt the Video Game Industry?

When the Covid-19 pandemic forced video game companies to work remotely, they had to quickly develop a new product to help their studios continue to deliver games on time. This product was built using a process of identifying needs and gaps, creating a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) to test, and then polishing and adding features. In the end, the product was successful in helping the studios deliver games on time and with adequate quality. The key takeaway is to always focus on the end users and test and understand them ahead of time.

Product That Brings Opportunities

This article discusses how a small fintech team identified their target audience and used a test and learn approach to develop direct customer experiences. They identified the audience as digital giants, fintech startups, and large enterprise firms, and used five indicators to score their ideas: impact, confidence, competition, acceptability, and strategic impact. The approach was successful as the APIs could be expanded, allowing them to identify early successes and build upon them.

What Makes a Good Product Culture?

This article discusses the importance of creating a product culture in an organization. It outlines the five competencies needed to create a strategy stack, and how to use OKRs to set goals and visions. It also explains the importance of hiring the right people and creating a culture of diversity and inclusion. Finally, it emphasizes the need for leaders to step in when needed to ensure that teams are moving forward.

The Dilemma of Building a New Product vs. Rebuilding Existing Ones

This article is about the experience of an associate director who was tasked with handling a product's website. He faced four challenges: a poorly built website, low team morale, lack of product strategy, and a long list of requirements from the business teams. He addressed these challenges by creating a prioritized list of issues to fix, talking to all stakeholders to understand their needs, creating a product strategy, deciding whether to build a product from scratch or rebuild an existing one, and speaking to the finance team in their own language. After six months of work, the website was successfully launched and engagement, traffic, and users increased by 5x. The author learned the importance of balancing short-term and long-term gains, having a product strategy in place, creating quick wins, involving all stakeholders, and speaking to stakeholders in their own language.

When Culture Does Not Translate Into Business Goals

When leading a cross-cultural team, it is important to observe, evaluate, and proceed at a constant pace in order to account for cultural differences. This is especially important when attempting to implement a corporate solution into a foreign market. By understanding the cultural differences and accommodating accordingly, it is possible to successfully deploy a solution. Additionally, it is important to foresee any potential conflict areas and invest in culture champions early on in order to build trust and collaboration.

Obstacles and Challenges Within a Career Plan

This article discusses the journey of an aspiring CIO and the steps taken to become a technology leader. It outlines the importance of observing, communicating, and executing, as well as being empathetic and understanding. It also emphasizes the need to look at the career growth of other executives, take roles with maximum visibility, and understand the financial, manufacturing, and people interaction elements of an organization.

How to Run a Successful War Room

War rooms are used to address time-critical events such as security incidents, regulatory changes, or bugs. Leaders of war rooms must remain sane, keep daily milestones, continue shipping code, and make tough decisions. To mitigate team fatigue, team members should be cycled through, communication should be open, and war rooms should be used judiciously.

What I learned Trying to Upskill a Tech Support Person to Engineering

This article discusses the experience of tailoring an onboarding process for a non-engineer. The process was unsuccessful due to the individual's lack of experience and technical skills. The article emphasizes the importance of setting clear milestones and assigning a mentor to new team members to ensure success.

How Initiative Can Gain You a Promotion?

This article provides advice on how to take initiative to get a promotion. It suggests changing your mindset, being explicit with your managers and leadership, and taking action to implement a promotion plan. It also emphasizes the importance of having a promotion plan and provides tips on how to get one. Finally, it shares an example of how mentorship can help someone get a promotion.

Scaling a Small Team with a Strong Foundation

Growing a small team into a large organization requires a strong foundation of initial hires, a shared direction, and the right leaders. As teams grow, technical challenges arise and the team must remain aligned on a single goal. Communication and teamwork become essential, and leaders must be highly motivated and driven while also being able to collaborate and work flexibly with others.

Tips and Tricks for Moving From IC to Management

This article discusses the transition from individual technical contributor (IC) to management, and the lessons learned along the way. The author emphasizes the importance of humility, honesty, and emotional intelligence in management, as well as the need to understand the perspectives of team members and how they can add value to the overall goal. The article also highlights the importance of one-on-one discussions and team meetings to provide a broader perspective and foster a learning culture within the team.

The Importance of Shared Priorities Between Managers and Direct Reports

In response to a team member's struggles with managing their workload and personal life during the COVID-19 pandemic, a manager applied the technique of setting a "cut line" for work priorities. This involved creating a list of tasks in priority order, drawing a line to indicate what would and wouldn't be done, and reviewing the list to ensure it was in the right order. This allowed the team member to focus on fewer tasks and gave them more time to figure out child care. The manager believes all employees should be empowered to make these types of lists with their managers to ensure honest conversations about tradeoffs when taking on new projects.

Resolving Conflicts Within a Team

A conflict arose between two engineers on a team over a coding style change. The team leader stepped in to mediate the dispute, and after a meeting with the team, the change was kept in the codebase. The change was innovative and important for the team's growth and development.

Understanding the Jump Between IC and Management

This article provides advice on when to take the leap from an IC engineer to a people manager. It outlines the different skills and qualities needed for each role, such as mentorship and coaching, prioritizing, delegation, technical leadership, making a large impact, clear communication, building trust, inspiring others, and having a growth mindset. It encourages readers to try the role and reassures them that they can always go back to being an IC if they don't enjoy it.

How an Agile Mindset Founded an Offset of Mentorship

This article discusses the concept of micro-mentorship, a form of mentorship that is tailored to the individual and is framed in an agile mindset. It is a way to provide mentorship without the need for a long-term commitment. The article also explains why micro-mentorship is preferable to content creation when it comes to mentoring relationships. It is more personal and provides more immediate value.

Shepherding a product from a Proof of Concept to Production

In May 2019, a team of four was tasked with creating a product with a tight deadline. After the product manager left, the team reached out to the core architecture team and began weekly cross-team meetings to iterate the design. The team realized they needed more resources and presented their findings to the leadership team. After gaining more resources, the team completed the code and component testing on schedule. The platform was well-received by customers, and the team learned the importance of involving all stakeholders, maximizing bandwidth, and creating a common communication channel.

Take the Time to Evaluate Your Career

After a reduction in force at his company, the author evaluated his career trajectory and determined that he could be more successful and enjoy his work more in an individual contributor role rather than a managerial one. He used a data-driven approach to plot tasks and responsibilities on an XY chart and found that many of the duties traditionally attributed to managers fell in the two left quadrants, while many of the duties normally completed by an IC were plotted on the right side of the graph. This realization required the author to suppress his ego and recognize what was best for both himself and the company.

Scaling Engineering @ Trustly

Trustly has seen significant growth in Europe and North America over the past year, with North America now representing close to half of total group revenue. In response, the Engineering team has doubled in size, expanding to 109 full-time employees across Brazil, Portugal, and the US. The team has evolved their road mapping and planning processes, and formalized the idea of a Technology Tribe to dedicate Engineering resources for Scalability, Reliability, Security, and Resiliency. The team looks forward to continued growth and evolution in 2022.

Working Moms and Problems They Face

This article discusses the struggles of a working mom and how to overcome them. It suggests having a coach to help establish a mindset, setting dedicated times for well-being, work, and family, and dealing with emotional agility. The lessons learned are to take care of yourself first, set clear goals, and be sure of what you are looking for.

Coaching Women Engineers: Professionally, and for Life

When mentoring women engineers, it is important to help them build confidence and articulate their goals clearly. It is also important to be inspiring and help them recognize their skills and resources. Mentors should be aware of the impact they have on others and strive to be the best example.