Knowledge shared by our community

How to Lead your Leaders

When expectations are not met, people can become frustrated and complacent, leading to a lack of collaboration and progress. To prevent this, it is important to be aware of the possibility to lead your leaders, recognize that everyone is on the same team, and communicate your needs to your superiors. It is also important to remove the hurdles that cause people to wait around and explain the why to both the team and leadership.

How to Inspire Mission Among Engineers

Leaders have the responsibility to inspire a mission-driven culture among their teams. This can be difficult when the problem is not tech-centered. To inspire a mission-driven culture, leaders should articulate the mission clearly and often, lead by example, understand the motivation of their engineers, share their own motivation and how it has evolved, not compromise the quality of tech, explain the why of the project, make sure engineers learn something from working on a project, and consider bringing engineers closer to customers. Ultimately, it is important to remember that we are privileged to work in tech and use it as a tool to make a positive social impact.

How to Close the Confidence Gap

This article discusses the confidence gap between women and men, which starts in childhood and is reinforced through academic and professional years. It provides actions to address the confidence gap, such as understanding the problem, educating others, creating a forum for people to share, being conscious while recruiting, coaching perfectionism, creating a safe environment to take risks, and encouraging a collaborative workplace. It also emphasizes that the confidence gap affects not only women, but also other cultures, and that addressing it can lead to more innovation, risk-taking, and less burnout and attrition.

Building Awareness Around Your Authentic Leadership Style

It is important for managers to take time to reflect on their authentic leadership style and prioritize this activity. This can be done by understanding why it is important, setting aside time for reflection, educating oneself on management systems and approaches, learning from other great leaders, practicing and listening to feedback, and keeping evolving. Authentic leadership is beneficial for both the leader and those around them, and it is an ongoing journey.

Challenges of Migrating Old Legacy Software

This article discusses the problem of managing old legacy software and the steps taken to move it to the cloud. The author suggests breaking down the goal into smaller tasks and making incremental changes. They also suggest advocating for resources with a clear plan and data to back it up. Finally, they suggest starting with a small team, getting data, and using it to make decisions and influence change.

Pursuing an Unpopular Project

A company had to go through a certification process that required changes to their software deployment, tracking of modifications, and documentation. The person responsible for the engineering organization implemented the changes while balancing the sales opportunity with the team's discontent. He limited the scope of the changes to a small team of people and reframed the key objective to emphasize the benefits of the changes. He learned that it is important to keep changes small and easy, and to vet the reality of the changes before any action is taken.

Building Teams While Maintaining Consistent Company Culture

This article discusses the challenges of growing a team while maintaining a common sense of culture within the organization. It outlines the actions taken to address cultural differences between the US-based offices and the Spanish-speaking office in Mexico, such as providing Spanish lessons, bringing people onsite for onboarding, and having regular coffees. It also highlights the importance of cultural differences and the need for active and continual effort to address them.

Creating Psychological Safety and Why It Matters

Psychological Safety is a key factor in creating a successful organization, and it is based on trust. At GuideSpark, the engineering environment was low on trust, so the challenge was to transform the organization. To do this, the company had to understand the importance of software development and embrace key pillars such as Iteration, Introspection, and Improvement. To build trust, an Architecture Review Board was created to bring Product and Engineering together in a place where they could openly talk about ideas without blame or fear. This exercise, along with other tactics, helped to build trust and create Psychological Safety, which is the foundation for success.

Owning Your Career

A person with Imposter Syndrome has learned to take ownership of their career and to believe in themselves. They have done this by learning to catch their self-doubt, to accept positive feedback, to see negative feedback as systemic, and to fake it until they make it. They have also sought out mentors, networking opportunities, and therapy to help them on their journey. They have learned that many people, especially women in male-dominated fields, are struggling with Imposter Syndrome and should be encouraged to introspect, speak up, take risks, and believe in themselves.

Managing a Perfectionist: A Lesson Learned the Hard Way

A senior engineer with a reputation for being difficult to work with was assigned to a small team with a tight deadline. The team leader set clear expectations and tried to get the team on board, but the engineer's perfectionism caused delays and tension. The team leader eventually had to involve HR to manage the engineer out of the team. The experience taught the team leader to be more careful when taking on challenging opportunities, to talk to past managers, and to involve HR in the process.

In Need of Extra Hands: Hiring Independent Contractors and External Vendors

When needing to hire additional capacity or expertise, it is important to secure the hiring budget, identify contractors or vendors, vet their quality, and be prepared on the logistical, product, and engineering side. Contracting is a good opportunity to make the right hire and it is important to ensure that the regular team knows and understands what the contractors are building.

Three Goals To Consider When Building a Career Ladder

The CTO of a company with forty people in the R&D department introduced a formal career ladder to provide engineers with a vision for their future, justify salary increases, and provide a clear sense of understanding of their mission. The process strengthened employees' engagement with the company, and the key challenge was to encompass the diversity of roles and responsibilities with one title. Assessing core skills and competencies was included in monthly one-on-ones to help employees progress on their career path.

Guiding With Trust while being a (new) CTO

When the CTO of Synthesio joined in 2018, the employees were concerned about how his appointment would affect their daily operations. To build trust and rapport, he read The Manager’s Path and engaged with the employees to learn about their problems. He also used voting and consensus to ensure everyone was involved in the strategy-making process. Through this approach, he was able to instill a sense of ownership and motivate the employees.

Using Tiger Teams to Solve Problems and Create an Environment for Learning

Place Exchange Engineering experienced an increase in traffic that caused strain on one of their services critical to ad serving. To solve the problem, a tiger team was assembled to investigate the root cause and come up with short and long term solutions. The team communicated through Slack and had a weekly video conference. After the three week period, the team had identified metrics to be created/updated, quick wins, and long term proposals. The team also learned lessons about having the right people to solve the project, setting clear expectations, and creating an environment of learning.

Achieving Alignment and Efficiency Through a Technical Strategy

A fast-growing company was facing a lack of clarity and confusion about future decisions, leading to inefficiency. To solve this problem, a technical strategy was developed that detailed what should and shouldn't be done to be successful in the long run. This involved reaching out to different people to better understand the reasons behind slow decision-making, tailoring presentations to suit two different audiences, and establishing a process for teams and a "design and architecture" group to collaborate on designs. Lessons learned included the importance of securing buy-in before decision-making meetings, reviewing past decisions, customizing content for different audiences, and documenting decisions and guidelines.

Starting a Personal Mentoring Program at Work

This article discusses the experience of a Principal Engineer at Auth0 who was tasked with mentoring junior engineers from multiple teams. The engineer identified three types of conversations they had with mentees: concrete, day-to-day topics; specific, but more general topics; and general career council/advise. The engineer also discussed the importance of being prepared for every session, determining a mentoring time capacity in advance, and keeping an internal network up-to-date.

To Be a Great Leader, You Need To Find Time for Yourself

Leaders often feel short of time and need to find ways to secure time for themselves in order to boost their creativity and be pro-active. To do this, three key principles should be applied: finding time for yourself, blocking time to foster creativity, and classifying and prioritizing activities. These principles are interconnected and will help leaders unlock their creativity, find balance, and be energized to lead and create.

When a Jump Down to a Smaller Scope is a Jump up in Maturity and Wisdom

In 2016, the author was asked to join a much smaller team than the one they were leading before. Initially, they were apprehensive and struggled to reconcile the situation, but eventually they learned that success and professional growth are not always measured by the size of one's team or direct reports. Through communication with their manager and other stakeholders, the author learned to look beyond the surface and to measure their growth by the impact they were creating. They also learned that influence is more valuable than authority, and that it reaches far beyond those who report to them.

Know When To Walk Away: Handling a Toxic Working Environment

This story is about a person who was working for a small startup and was looking to move into a technical leadership role. Despite having a successful career and positive feedback from supervisors, their management felt they weren't the right fit for the role. The person took their concerns seriously and worked hard to improve their communication skills, leadership style, and passion for their work. Despite their efforts, they were not promoted and eventually had to leave the company. They eventually found a job where their skills and strengths were appreciated, and regained their confidence. The story emphasizes the importance of being in an environment that values you for what you have to offer, and not having to prove your worth.

Adjusting Your Working Style to Agile Practices and Mindset

A non-linear thinker was tasked with writing a document management system in four weeks, using Agile/scrum methodologies. When a new priority came up, they had to ship what was done so far, even though it wasn't complete. After a difficult conversation with a chief architect, they learned to adapt their working style to the Agile model, and to be self-aware and humble when admitting mistakes. This lesson taught them to evaluate their personal working style, think through projects in advance, and be ready to ship something shippable when priorities change.

How to Lead your Leaders

When expectations are not met, people can become frustrated and complacent, leading to a lack of collaboration and progress. To prevent this, it is important to be aware of the possibility to lead your leaders, recognize that everyone is on the same team, and communicate your needs to your superiors. It is also important to remove the hurdles that cause people to wait around and explain the why to both the team and leadership.

How to Inspire Mission Among Engineers

Leaders have the responsibility to inspire a mission-driven culture among their teams. This can be difficult when the problem is not tech-centered. To inspire a mission-driven culture, leaders should articulate the mission clearly and often, lead by example, understand the motivation of their engineers, share their own motivation and how it has evolved, not compromise the quality of tech, explain the why of the project, make sure engineers learn something from working on a project, and consider bringing engineers closer to customers. Ultimately, it is important to remember that we are privileged to work in tech and use it as a tool to make a positive social impact.

How to Close the Confidence Gap

This article discusses the confidence gap between women and men, which starts in childhood and is reinforced through academic and professional years. It provides actions to address the confidence gap, such as understanding the problem, educating others, creating a forum for people to share, being conscious while recruiting, coaching perfectionism, creating a safe environment to take risks, and encouraging a collaborative workplace. It also emphasizes that the confidence gap affects not only women, but also other cultures, and that addressing it can lead to more innovation, risk-taking, and less burnout and attrition.

Building Awareness Around Your Authentic Leadership Style

It is important for managers to take time to reflect on their authentic leadership style and prioritize this activity. This can be done by understanding why it is important, setting aside time for reflection, educating oneself on management systems and approaches, learning from other great leaders, practicing and listening to feedback, and keeping evolving. Authentic leadership is beneficial for both the leader and those around them, and it is an ongoing journey.

Challenges of Migrating Old Legacy Software

This article discusses the problem of managing old legacy software and the steps taken to move it to the cloud. The author suggests breaking down the goal into smaller tasks and making incremental changes. They also suggest advocating for resources with a clear plan and data to back it up. Finally, they suggest starting with a small team, getting data, and using it to make decisions and influence change.

Pursuing an Unpopular Project

A company had to go through a certification process that required changes to their software deployment, tracking of modifications, and documentation. The person responsible for the engineering organization implemented the changes while balancing the sales opportunity with the team's discontent. He limited the scope of the changes to a small team of people and reframed the key objective to emphasize the benefits of the changes. He learned that it is important to keep changes small and easy, and to vet the reality of the changes before any action is taken.

Building Teams While Maintaining Consistent Company Culture

This article discusses the challenges of growing a team while maintaining a common sense of culture within the organization. It outlines the actions taken to address cultural differences between the US-based offices and the Spanish-speaking office in Mexico, such as providing Spanish lessons, bringing people onsite for onboarding, and having regular coffees. It also highlights the importance of cultural differences and the need for active and continual effort to address them.

Creating Psychological Safety and Why It Matters

Psychological Safety is a key factor in creating a successful organization, and it is based on trust. At GuideSpark, the engineering environment was low on trust, so the challenge was to transform the organization. To do this, the company had to understand the importance of software development and embrace key pillars such as Iteration, Introspection, and Improvement. To build trust, an Architecture Review Board was created to bring Product and Engineering together in a place where they could openly talk about ideas without blame or fear. This exercise, along with other tactics, helped to build trust and create Psychological Safety, which is the foundation for success.

Owning Your Career

A person with Imposter Syndrome has learned to take ownership of their career and to believe in themselves. They have done this by learning to catch their self-doubt, to accept positive feedback, to see negative feedback as systemic, and to fake it until they make it. They have also sought out mentors, networking opportunities, and therapy to help them on their journey. They have learned that many people, especially women in male-dominated fields, are struggling with Imposter Syndrome and should be encouraged to introspect, speak up, take risks, and believe in themselves.

Managing a Perfectionist: A Lesson Learned the Hard Way

A senior engineer with a reputation for being difficult to work with was assigned to a small team with a tight deadline. The team leader set clear expectations and tried to get the team on board, but the engineer's perfectionism caused delays and tension. The team leader eventually had to involve HR to manage the engineer out of the team. The experience taught the team leader to be more careful when taking on challenging opportunities, to talk to past managers, and to involve HR in the process.

In Need of Extra Hands: Hiring Independent Contractors and External Vendors

When needing to hire additional capacity or expertise, it is important to secure the hiring budget, identify contractors or vendors, vet their quality, and be prepared on the logistical, product, and engineering side. Contracting is a good opportunity to make the right hire and it is important to ensure that the regular team knows and understands what the contractors are building.

Three Goals To Consider When Building a Career Ladder

The CTO of a company with forty people in the R&D department introduced a formal career ladder to provide engineers with a vision for their future, justify salary increases, and provide a clear sense of understanding of their mission. The process strengthened employees' engagement with the company, and the key challenge was to encompass the diversity of roles and responsibilities with one title. Assessing core skills and competencies was included in monthly one-on-ones to help employees progress on their career path.

Guiding With Trust while being a (new) CTO

When the CTO of Synthesio joined in 2018, the employees were concerned about how his appointment would affect their daily operations. To build trust and rapport, he read The Manager’s Path and engaged with the employees to learn about their problems. He also used voting and consensus to ensure everyone was involved in the strategy-making process. Through this approach, he was able to instill a sense of ownership and motivate the employees.

Using Tiger Teams to Solve Problems and Create an Environment for Learning

Place Exchange Engineering experienced an increase in traffic that caused strain on one of their services critical to ad serving. To solve the problem, a tiger team was assembled to investigate the root cause and come up with short and long term solutions. The team communicated through Slack and had a weekly video conference. After the three week period, the team had identified metrics to be created/updated, quick wins, and long term proposals. The team also learned lessons about having the right people to solve the project, setting clear expectations, and creating an environment of learning.

Achieving Alignment and Efficiency Through a Technical Strategy

A fast-growing company was facing a lack of clarity and confusion about future decisions, leading to inefficiency. To solve this problem, a technical strategy was developed that detailed what should and shouldn't be done to be successful in the long run. This involved reaching out to different people to better understand the reasons behind slow decision-making, tailoring presentations to suit two different audiences, and establishing a process for teams and a "design and architecture" group to collaborate on designs. Lessons learned included the importance of securing buy-in before decision-making meetings, reviewing past decisions, customizing content for different audiences, and documenting decisions and guidelines.

Starting a Personal Mentoring Program at Work

This article discusses the experience of a Principal Engineer at Auth0 who was tasked with mentoring junior engineers from multiple teams. The engineer identified three types of conversations they had with mentees: concrete, day-to-day topics; specific, but more general topics; and general career council/advise. The engineer also discussed the importance of being prepared for every session, determining a mentoring time capacity in advance, and keeping an internal network up-to-date.

To Be a Great Leader, You Need To Find Time for Yourself

Leaders often feel short of time and need to find ways to secure time for themselves in order to boost their creativity and be pro-active. To do this, three key principles should be applied: finding time for yourself, blocking time to foster creativity, and classifying and prioritizing activities. These principles are interconnected and will help leaders unlock their creativity, find balance, and be energized to lead and create.

When a Jump Down to a Smaller Scope is a Jump up in Maturity and Wisdom

In 2016, the author was asked to join a much smaller team than the one they were leading before. Initially, they were apprehensive and struggled to reconcile the situation, but eventually they learned that success and professional growth are not always measured by the size of one's team or direct reports. Through communication with their manager and other stakeholders, the author learned to look beyond the surface and to measure their growth by the impact they were creating. They also learned that influence is more valuable than authority, and that it reaches far beyond those who report to them.

Know When To Walk Away: Handling a Toxic Working Environment

This story is about a person who was working for a small startup and was looking to move into a technical leadership role. Despite having a successful career and positive feedback from supervisors, their management felt they weren't the right fit for the role. The person took their concerns seriously and worked hard to improve their communication skills, leadership style, and passion for their work. Despite their efforts, they were not promoted and eventually had to leave the company. They eventually found a job where their skills and strengths were appreciated, and regained their confidence. The story emphasizes the importance of being in an environment that values you for what you have to offer, and not having to prove your worth.

Adjusting Your Working Style to Agile Practices and Mindset

A non-linear thinker was tasked with writing a document management system in four weeks, using Agile/scrum methodologies. When a new priority came up, they had to ship what was done so far, even though it wasn't complete. After a difficult conversation with a chief architect, they learned to adapt their working style to the Agile model, and to be self-aware and humble when admitting mistakes. This lesson taught them to evaluate their personal working style, think through projects in advance, and be ready to ship something shippable when priorities change.

How to Lead your Leaders

When expectations are not met, people can become frustrated and complacent, leading to a lack of collaboration and progress. To prevent this, it is important to be aware of the possibility to lead your leaders, recognize that everyone is on the same team, and communicate your needs to your superiors. It is also important to remove the hurdles that cause people to wait around and explain the why to both the team and leadership.

How to Inspire Mission Among Engineers

Leaders have the responsibility to inspire a mission-driven culture among their teams. This can be difficult when the problem is not tech-centered. To inspire a mission-driven culture, leaders should articulate the mission clearly and often, lead by example, understand the motivation of their engineers, share their own motivation and how it has evolved, not compromise the quality of tech, explain the why of the project, make sure engineers learn something from working on a project, and consider bringing engineers closer to customers. Ultimately, it is important to remember that we are privileged to work in tech and use it as a tool to make a positive social impact.

How to Close the Confidence Gap

This article discusses the confidence gap between women and men, which starts in childhood and is reinforced through academic and professional years. It provides actions to address the confidence gap, such as understanding the problem, educating others, creating a forum for people to share, being conscious while recruiting, coaching perfectionism, creating a safe environment to take risks, and encouraging a collaborative workplace. It also emphasizes that the confidence gap affects not only women, but also other cultures, and that addressing it can lead to more innovation, risk-taking, and less burnout and attrition.

Building Awareness Around Your Authentic Leadership Style

It is important for managers to take time to reflect on their authentic leadership style and prioritize this activity. This can be done by understanding why it is important, setting aside time for reflection, educating oneself on management systems and approaches, learning from other great leaders, practicing and listening to feedback, and keeping evolving. Authentic leadership is beneficial for both the leader and those around them, and it is an ongoing journey.

Challenges of Migrating Old Legacy Software

This article discusses the problem of managing old legacy software and the steps taken to move it to the cloud. The author suggests breaking down the goal into smaller tasks and making incremental changes. They also suggest advocating for resources with a clear plan and data to back it up. Finally, they suggest starting with a small team, getting data, and using it to make decisions and influence change.

Pursuing an Unpopular Project

A company had to go through a certification process that required changes to their software deployment, tracking of modifications, and documentation. The person responsible for the engineering organization implemented the changes while balancing the sales opportunity with the team's discontent. He limited the scope of the changes to a small team of people and reframed the key objective to emphasize the benefits of the changes. He learned that it is important to keep changes small and easy, and to vet the reality of the changes before any action is taken.

Building Teams While Maintaining Consistent Company Culture

This article discusses the challenges of growing a team while maintaining a common sense of culture within the organization. It outlines the actions taken to address cultural differences between the US-based offices and the Spanish-speaking office in Mexico, such as providing Spanish lessons, bringing people onsite for onboarding, and having regular coffees. It also highlights the importance of cultural differences and the need for active and continual effort to address them.

Creating Psychological Safety and Why It Matters

Psychological Safety is a key factor in creating a successful organization, and it is based on trust. At GuideSpark, the engineering environment was low on trust, so the challenge was to transform the organization. To do this, the company had to understand the importance of software development and embrace key pillars such as Iteration, Introspection, and Improvement. To build trust, an Architecture Review Board was created to bring Product and Engineering together in a place where they could openly talk about ideas without blame or fear. This exercise, along with other tactics, helped to build trust and create Psychological Safety, which is the foundation for success.

Owning Your Career

A person with Imposter Syndrome has learned to take ownership of their career and to believe in themselves. They have done this by learning to catch their self-doubt, to accept positive feedback, to see negative feedback as systemic, and to fake it until they make it. They have also sought out mentors, networking opportunities, and therapy to help them on their journey. They have learned that many people, especially women in male-dominated fields, are struggling with Imposter Syndrome and should be encouraged to introspect, speak up, take risks, and believe in themselves.

Managing a Perfectionist: A Lesson Learned the Hard Way

A senior engineer with a reputation for being difficult to work with was assigned to a small team with a tight deadline. The team leader set clear expectations and tried to get the team on board, but the engineer's perfectionism caused delays and tension. The team leader eventually had to involve HR to manage the engineer out of the team. The experience taught the team leader to be more careful when taking on challenging opportunities, to talk to past managers, and to involve HR in the process.

In Need of Extra Hands: Hiring Independent Contractors and External Vendors

When needing to hire additional capacity or expertise, it is important to secure the hiring budget, identify contractors or vendors, vet their quality, and be prepared on the logistical, product, and engineering side. Contracting is a good opportunity to make the right hire and it is important to ensure that the regular team knows and understands what the contractors are building.

Three Goals To Consider When Building a Career Ladder

The CTO of a company with forty people in the R&D department introduced a formal career ladder to provide engineers with a vision for their future, justify salary increases, and provide a clear sense of understanding of their mission. The process strengthened employees' engagement with the company, and the key challenge was to encompass the diversity of roles and responsibilities with one title. Assessing core skills and competencies was included in monthly one-on-ones to help employees progress on their career path.

Guiding With Trust while being a (new) CTO

When the CTO of Synthesio joined in 2018, the employees were concerned about how his appointment would affect their daily operations. To build trust and rapport, he read The Manager’s Path and engaged with the employees to learn about their problems. He also used voting and consensus to ensure everyone was involved in the strategy-making process. Through this approach, he was able to instill a sense of ownership and motivate the employees.

Using Tiger Teams to Solve Problems and Create an Environment for Learning

Place Exchange Engineering experienced an increase in traffic that caused strain on one of their services critical to ad serving. To solve the problem, a tiger team was assembled to investigate the root cause and come up with short and long term solutions. The team communicated through Slack and had a weekly video conference. After the three week period, the team had identified metrics to be created/updated, quick wins, and long term proposals. The team also learned lessons about having the right people to solve the project, setting clear expectations, and creating an environment of learning.

Achieving Alignment and Efficiency Through a Technical Strategy

A fast-growing company was facing a lack of clarity and confusion about future decisions, leading to inefficiency. To solve this problem, a technical strategy was developed that detailed what should and shouldn't be done to be successful in the long run. This involved reaching out to different people to better understand the reasons behind slow decision-making, tailoring presentations to suit two different audiences, and establishing a process for teams and a "design and architecture" group to collaborate on designs. Lessons learned included the importance of securing buy-in before decision-making meetings, reviewing past decisions, customizing content for different audiences, and documenting decisions and guidelines.

Starting a Personal Mentoring Program at Work

This article discusses the experience of a Principal Engineer at Auth0 who was tasked with mentoring junior engineers from multiple teams. The engineer identified three types of conversations they had with mentees: concrete, day-to-day topics; specific, but more general topics; and general career council/advise. The engineer also discussed the importance of being prepared for every session, determining a mentoring time capacity in advance, and keeping an internal network up-to-date.

To Be a Great Leader, You Need To Find Time for Yourself

Leaders often feel short of time and need to find ways to secure time for themselves in order to boost their creativity and be pro-active. To do this, three key principles should be applied: finding time for yourself, blocking time to foster creativity, and classifying and prioritizing activities. These principles are interconnected and will help leaders unlock their creativity, find balance, and be energized to lead and create.

When a Jump Down to a Smaller Scope is a Jump up in Maturity and Wisdom

In 2016, the author was asked to join a much smaller team than the one they were leading before. Initially, they were apprehensive and struggled to reconcile the situation, but eventually they learned that success and professional growth are not always measured by the size of one's team or direct reports. Through communication with their manager and other stakeholders, the author learned to look beyond the surface and to measure their growth by the impact they were creating. They also learned that influence is more valuable than authority, and that it reaches far beyond those who report to them.

Know When To Walk Away: Handling a Toxic Working Environment

This story is about a person who was working for a small startup and was looking to move into a technical leadership role. Despite having a successful career and positive feedback from supervisors, their management felt they weren't the right fit for the role. The person took their concerns seriously and worked hard to improve their communication skills, leadership style, and passion for their work. Despite their efforts, they were not promoted and eventually had to leave the company. They eventually found a job where their skills and strengths were appreciated, and regained their confidence. The story emphasizes the importance of being in an environment that values you for what you have to offer, and not having to prove your worth.

Adjusting Your Working Style to Agile Practices and Mindset

A non-linear thinker was tasked with writing a document management system in four weeks, using Agile/scrum methodologies. When a new priority came up, they had to ship what was done so far, even though it wasn't complete. After a difficult conversation with a chief architect, they learned to adapt their working style to the Agile model, and to be self-aware and humble when admitting mistakes. This lesson taught them to evaluate their personal working style, think through projects in advance, and be ready to ship something shippable when priorities change.

How to Lead your Leaders

When expectations are not met, people can become frustrated and complacent, leading to a lack of collaboration and progress. To prevent this, it is important to be aware of the possibility to lead your leaders, recognize that everyone is on the same team, and communicate your needs to your superiors. It is also important to remove the hurdles that cause people to wait around and explain the why to both the team and leadership.

How to Inspire Mission Among Engineers

Leaders have the responsibility to inspire a mission-driven culture among their teams. This can be difficult when the problem is not tech-centered. To inspire a mission-driven culture, leaders should articulate the mission clearly and often, lead by example, understand the motivation of their engineers, share their own motivation and how it has evolved, not compromise the quality of tech, explain the why of the project, make sure engineers learn something from working on a project, and consider bringing engineers closer to customers. Ultimately, it is important to remember that we are privileged to work in tech and use it as a tool to make a positive social impact.

How to Close the Confidence Gap

This article discusses the confidence gap between women and men, which starts in childhood and is reinforced through academic and professional years. It provides actions to address the confidence gap, such as understanding the problem, educating others, creating a forum for people to share, being conscious while recruiting, coaching perfectionism, creating a safe environment to take risks, and encouraging a collaborative workplace. It also emphasizes that the confidence gap affects not only women, but also other cultures, and that addressing it can lead to more innovation, risk-taking, and less burnout and attrition.

Building Awareness Around Your Authentic Leadership Style

It is important for managers to take time to reflect on their authentic leadership style and prioritize this activity. This can be done by understanding why it is important, setting aside time for reflection, educating oneself on management systems and approaches, learning from other great leaders, practicing and listening to feedback, and keeping evolving. Authentic leadership is beneficial for both the leader and those around them, and it is an ongoing journey.

Challenges of Migrating Old Legacy Software

This article discusses the problem of managing old legacy software and the steps taken to move it to the cloud. The author suggests breaking down the goal into smaller tasks and making incremental changes. They also suggest advocating for resources with a clear plan and data to back it up. Finally, they suggest starting with a small team, getting data, and using it to make decisions and influence change.

Pursuing an Unpopular Project

A company had to go through a certification process that required changes to their software deployment, tracking of modifications, and documentation. The person responsible for the engineering organization implemented the changes while balancing the sales opportunity with the team's discontent. He limited the scope of the changes to a small team of people and reframed the key objective to emphasize the benefits of the changes. He learned that it is important to keep changes small and easy, and to vet the reality of the changes before any action is taken.

Building Teams While Maintaining Consistent Company Culture

This article discusses the challenges of growing a team while maintaining a common sense of culture within the organization. It outlines the actions taken to address cultural differences between the US-based offices and the Spanish-speaking office in Mexico, such as providing Spanish lessons, bringing people onsite for onboarding, and having regular coffees. It also highlights the importance of cultural differences and the need for active and continual effort to address them.

Creating Psychological Safety and Why It Matters

Psychological Safety is a key factor in creating a successful organization, and it is based on trust. At GuideSpark, the engineering environment was low on trust, so the challenge was to transform the organization. To do this, the company had to understand the importance of software development and embrace key pillars such as Iteration, Introspection, and Improvement. To build trust, an Architecture Review Board was created to bring Product and Engineering together in a place where they could openly talk about ideas without blame or fear. This exercise, along with other tactics, helped to build trust and create Psychological Safety, which is the foundation for success.

Owning Your Career

A person with Imposter Syndrome has learned to take ownership of their career and to believe in themselves. They have done this by learning to catch their self-doubt, to accept positive feedback, to see negative feedback as systemic, and to fake it until they make it. They have also sought out mentors, networking opportunities, and therapy to help them on their journey. They have learned that many people, especially women in male-dominated fields, are struggling with Imposter Syndrome and should be encouraged to introspect, speak up, take risks, and believe in themselves.

Managing a Perfectionist: A Lesson Learned the Hard Way

A senior engineer with a reputation for being difficult to work with was assigned to a small team with a tight deadline. The team leader set clear expectations and tried to get the team on board, but the engineer's perfectionism caused delays and tension. The team leader eventually had to involve HR to manage the engineer out of the team. The experience taught the team leader to be more careful when taking on challenging opportunities, to talk to past managers, and to involve HR in the process.

In Need of Extra Hands: Hiring Independent Contractors and External Vendors

When needing to hire additional capacity or expertise, it is important to secure the hiring budget, identify contractors or vendors, vet their quality, and be prepared on the logistical, product, and engineering side. Contracting is a good opportunity to make the right hire and it is important to ensure that the regular team knows and understands what the contractors are building.

Three Goals To Consider When Building a Career Ladder

The CTO of a company with forty people in the R&D department introduced a formal career ladder to provide engineers with a vision for their future, justify salary increases, and provide a clear sense of understanding of their mission. The process strengthened employees' engagement with the company, and the key challenge was to encompass the diversity of roles and responsibilities with one title. Assessing core skills and competencies was included in monthly one-on-ones to help employees progress on their career path.

Guiding With Trust while being a (new) CTO

When the CTO of Synthesio joined in 2018, the employees were concerned about how his appointment would affect their daily operations. To build trust and rapport, he read The Manager’s Path and engaged with the employees to learn about their problems. He also used voting and consensus to ensure everyone was involved in the strategy-making process. Through this approach, he was able to instill a sense of ownership and motivate the employees.

Using Tiger Teams to Solve Problems and Create an Environment for Learning

Place Exchange Engineering experienced an increase in traffic that caused strain on one of their services critical to ad serving. To solve the problem, a tiger team was assembled to investigate the root cause and come up with short and long term solutions. The team communicated through Slack and had a weekly video conference. After the three week period, the team had identified metrics to be created/updated, quick wins, and long term proposals. The team also learned lessons about having the right people to solve the project, setting clear expectations, and creating an environment of learning.

Achieving Alignment and Efficiency Through a Technical Strategy

A fast-growing company was facing a lack of clarity and confusion about future decisions, leading to inefficiency. To solve this problem, a technical strategy was developed that detailed what should and shouldn't be done to be successful in the long run. This involved reaching out to different people to better understand the reasons behind slow decision-making, tailoring presentations to suit two different audiences, and establishing a process for teams and a "design and architecture" group to collaborate on designs. Lessons learned included the importance of securing buy-in before decision-making meetings, reviewing past decisions, customizing content for different audiences, and documenting decisions and guidelines.

Starting a Personal Mentoring Program at Work

This article discusses the experience of a Principal Engineer at Auth0 who was tasked with mentoring junior engineers from multiple teams. The engineer identified three types of conversations they had with mentees: concrete, day-to-day topics; specific, but more general topics; and general career council/advise. The engineer also discussed the importance of being prepared for every session, determining a mentoring time capacity in advance, and keeping an internal network up-to-date.

To Be a Great Leader, You Need To Find Time for Yourself

Leaders often feel short of time and need to find ways to secure time for themselves in order to boost their creativity and be pro-active. To do this, three key principles should be applied: finding time for yourself, blocking time to foster creativity, and classifying and prioritizing activities. These principles are interconnected and will help leaders unlock their creativity, find balance, and be energized to lead and create.

When a Jump Down to a Smaller Scope is a Jump up in Maturity and Wisdom

In 2016, the author was asked to join a much smaller team than the one they were leading before. Initially, they were apprehensive and struggled to reconcile the situation, but eventually they learned that success and professional growth are not always measured by the size of one's team or direct reports. Through communication with their manager and other stakeholders, the author learned to look beyond the surface and to measure their growth by the impact they were creating. They also learned that influence is more valuable than authority, and that it reaches far beyond those who report to them.

Know When To Walk Away: Handling a Toxic Working Environment

This story is about a person who was working for a small startup and was looking to move into a technical leadership role. Despite having a successful career and positive feedback from supervisors, their management felt they weren't the right fit for the role. The person took their concerns seriously and worked hard to improve their communication skills, leadership style, and passion for their work. Despite their efforts, they were not promoted and eventually had to leave the company. They eventually found a job where their skills and strengths were appreciated, and regained their confidence. The story emphasizes the importance of being in an environment that values you for what you have to offer, and not having to prove your worth.

Adjusting Your Working Style to Agile Practices and Mindset

A non-linear thinker was tasked with writing a document management system in four weeks, using Agile/scrum methodologies. When a new priority came up, they had to ship what was done so far, even though it wasn't complete. After a difficult conversation with a chief architect, they learned to adapt their working style to the Agile model, and to be self-aware and humble when admitting mistakes. This lesson taught them to evaluate their personal working style, think through projects in advance, and be ready to ship something shippable when priorities change.

How to Lead your Leaders

When expectations are not met, people can become frustrated and complacent, leading to a lack of collaboration and progress. To prevent this, it is important to be aware of the possibility to lead your leaders, recognize that everyone is on the same team, and communicate your needs to your superiors. It is also important to remove the hurdles that cause people to wait around and explain the why to both the team and leadership.

How to Inspire Mission Among Engineers

Leaders have the responsibility to inspire a mission-driven culture among their teams. This can be difficult when the problem is not tech-centered. To inspire a mission-driven culture, leaders should articulate the mission clearly and often, lead by example, understand the motivation of their engineers, share their own motivation and how it has evolved, not compromise the quality of tech, explain the why of the project, make sure engineers learn something from working on a project, and consider bringing engineers closer to customers. Ultimately, it is important to remember that we are privileged to work in tech and use it as a tool to make a positive social impact.

How to Close the Confidence Gap

This article discusses the confidence gap between women and men, which starts in childhood and is reinforced through academic and professional years. It provides actions to address the confidence gap, such as understanding the problem, educating others, creating a forum for people to share, being conscious while recruiting, coaching perfectionism, creating a safe environment to take risks, and encouraging a collaborative workplace. It also emphasizes that the confidence gap affects not only women, but also other cultures, and that addressing it can lead to more innovation, risk-taking, and less burnout and attrition.

Building Awareness Around Your Authentic Leadership Style

It is important for managers to take time to reflect on their authentic leadership style and prioritize this activity. This can be done by understanding why it is important, setting aside time for reflection, educating oneself on management systems and approaches, learning from other great leaders, practicing and listening to feedback, and keeping evolving. Authentic leadership is beneficial for both the leader and those around them, and it is an ongoing journey.

Challenges of Migrating Old Legacy Software

This article discusses the problem of managing old legacy software and the steps taken to move it to the cloud. The author suggests breaking down the goal into smaller tasks and making incremental changes. They also suggest advocating for resources with a clear plan and data to back it up. Finally, they suggest starting with a small team, getting data, and using it to make decisions and influence change.

Pursuing an Unpopular Project

A company had to go through a certification process that required changes to their software deployment, tracking of modifications, and documentation. The person responsible for the engineering organization implemented the changes while balancing the sales opportunity with the team's discontent. He limited the scope of the changes to a small team of people and reframed the key objective to emphasize the benefits of the changes. He learned that it is important to keep changes small and easy, and to vet the reality of the changes before any action is taken.

Building Teams While Maintaining Consistent Company Culture

This article discusses the challenges of growing a team while maintaining a common sense of culture within the organization. It outlines the actions taken to address cultural differences between the US-based offices and the Spanish-speaking office in Mexico, such as providing Spanish lessons, bringing people onsite for onboarding, and having regular coffees. It also highlights the importance of cultural differences and the need for active and continual effort to address them.

Creating Psychological Safety and Why It Matters

Psychological Safety is a key factor in creating a successful organization, and it is based on trust. At GuideSpark, the engineering environment was low on trust, so the challenge was to transform the organization. To do this, the company had to understand the importance of software development and embrace key pillars such as Iteration, Introspection, and Improvement. To build trust, an Architecture Review Board was created to bring Product and Engineering together in a place where they could openly talk about ideas without blame or fear. This exercise, along with other tactics, helped to build trust and create Psychological Safety, which is the foundation for success.

Owning Your Career

A person with Imposter Syndrome has learned to take ownership of their career and to believe in themselves. They have done this by learning to catch their self-doubt, to accept positive feedback, to see negative feedback as systemic, and to fake it until they make it. They have also sought out mentors, networking opportunities, and therapy to help them on their journey. They have learned that many people, especially women in male-dominated fields, are struggling with Imposter Syndrome and should be encouraged to introspect, speak up, take risks, and believe in themselves.

Managing a Perfectionist: A Lesson Learned the Hard Way

A senior engineer with a reputation for being difficult to work with was assigned to a small team with a tight deadline. The team leader set clear expectations and tried to get the team on board, but the engineer's perfectionism caused delays and tension. The team leader eventually had to involve HR to manage the engineer out of the team. The experience taught the team leader to be more careful when taking on challenging opportunities, to talk to past managers, and to involve HR in the process.

In Need of Extra Hands: Hiring Independent Contractors and External Vendors

When needing to hire additional capacity or expertise, it is important to secure the hiring budget, identify contractors or vendors, vet their quality, and be prepared on the logistical, product, and engineering side. Contracting is a good opportunity to make the right hire and it is important to ensure that the regular team knows and understands what the contractors are building.

Three Goals To Consider When Building a Career Ladder

The CTO of a company with forty people in the R&D department introduced a formal career ladder to provide engineers with a vision for their future, justify salary increases, and provide a clear sense of understanding of their mission. The process strengthened employees' engagement with the company, and the key challenge was to encompass the diversity of roles and responsibilities with one title. Assessing core skills and competencies was included in monthly one-on-ones to help employees progress on their career path.

Guiding With Trust while being a (new) CTO

When the CTO of Synthesio joined in 2018, the employees were concerned about how his appointment would affect their daily operations. To build trust and rapport, he read The Manager’s Path and engaged with the employees to learn about their problems. He also used voting and consensus to ensure everyone was involved in the strategy-making process. Through this approach, he was able to instill a sense of ownership and motivate the employees.

Using Tiger Teams to Solve Problems and Create an Environment for Learning

Place Exchange Engineering experienced an increase in traffic that caused strain on one of their services critical to ad serving. To solve the problem, a tiger team was assembled to investigate the root cause and come up with short and long term solutions. The team communicated through Slack and had a weekly video conference. After the three week period, the team had identified metrics to be created/updated, quick wins, and long term proposals. The team also learned lessons about having the right people to solve the project, setting clear expectations, and creating an environment of learning.

Achieving Alignment and Efficiency Through a Technical Strategy

A fast-growing company was facing a lack of clarity and confusion about future decisions, leading to inefficiency. To solve this problem, a technical strategy was developed that detailed what should and shouldn't be done to be successful in the long run. This involved reaching out to different people to better understand the reasons behind slow decision-making, tailoring presentations to suit two different audiences, and establishing a process for teams and a "design and architecture" group to collaborate on designs. Lessons learned included the importance of securing buy-in before decision-making meetings, reviewing past decisions, customizing content for different audiences, and documenting decisions and guidelines.

Starting a Personal Mentoring Program at Work

This article discusses the experience of a Principal Engineer at Auth0 who was tasked with mentoring junior engineers from multiple teams. The engineer identified three types of conversations they had with mentees: concrete, day-to-day topics; specific, but more general topics; and general career council/advise. The engineer also discussed the importance of being prepared for every session, determining a mentoring time capacity in advance, and keeping an internal network up-to-date.

To Be a Great Leader, You Need To Find Time for Yourself

Leaders often feel short of time and need to find ways to secure time for themselves in order to boost their creativity and be pro-active. To do this, three key principles should be applied: finding time for yourself, blocking time to foster creativity, and classifying and prioritizing activities. These principles are interconnected and will help leaders unlock their creativity, find balance, and be energized to lead and create.

When a Jump Down to a Smaller Scope is a Jump up in Maturity and Wisdom

In 2016, the author was asked to join a much smaller team than the one they were leading before. Initially, they were apprehensive and struggled to reconcile the situation, but eventually they learned that success and professional growth are not always measured by the size of one's team or direct reports. Through communication with their manager and other stakeholders, the author learned to look beyond the surface and to measure their growth by the impact they were creating. They also learned that influence is more valuable than authority, and that it reaches far beyond those who report to them.

Know When To Walk Away: Handling a Toxic Working Environment

This story is about a person who was working for a small startup and was looking to move into a technical leadership role. Despite having a successful career and positive feedback from supervisors, their management felt they weren't the right fit for the role. The person took their concerns seriously and worked hard to improve their communication skills, leadership style, and passion for their work. Despite their efforts, they were not promoted and eventually had to leave the company. They eventually found a job where their skills and strengths were appreciated, and regained their confidence. The story emphasizes the importance of being in an environment that values you for what you have to offer, and not having to prove your worth.

Adjusting Your Working Style to Agile Practices and Mindset

A non-linear thinker was tasked with writing a document management system in four weeks, using Agile/scrum methodologies. When a new priority came up, they had to ship what was done so far, even though it wasn't complete. After a difficult conversation with a chief architect, they learned to adapt their working style to the Agile model, and to be self-aware and humble when admitting mistakes. This lesson taught them to evaluate their personal working style, think through projects in advance, and be ready to ship something shippable when priorities change.

How to Lead your Leaders

When expectations are not met, people can become frustrated and complacent, leading to a lack of collaboration and progress. To prevent this, it is important to be aware of the possibility to lead your leaders, recognize that everyone is on the same team, and communicate your needs to your superiors. It is also important to remove the hurdles that cause people to wait around and explain the why to both the team and leadership.

How to Inspire Mission Among Engineers

Leaders have the responsibility to inspire a mission-driven culture among their teams. This can be difficult when the problem is not tech-centered. To inspire a mission-driven culture, leaders should articulate the mission clearly and often, lead by example, understand the motivation of their engineers, share their own motivation and how it has evolved, not compromise the quality of tech, explain the why of the project, make sure engineers learn something from working on a project, and consider bringing engineers closer to customers. Ultimately, it is important to remember that we are privileged to work in tech and use it as a tool to make a positive social impact.

How to Close the Confidence Gap

This article discusses the confidence gap between women and men, which starts in childhood and is reinforced through academic and professional years. It provides actions to address the confidence gap, such as understanding the problem, educating others, creating a forum for people to share, being conscious while recruiting, coaching perfectionism, creating a safe environment to take risks, and encouraging a collaborative workplace. It also emphasizes that the confidence gap affects not only women, but also other cultures, and that addressing it can lead to more innovation, risk-taking, and less burnout and attrition.

Building Awareness Around Your Authentic Leadership Style

It is important for managers to take time to reflect on their authentic leadership style and prioritize this activity. This can be done by understanding why it is important, setting aside time for reflection, educating oneself on management systems and approaches, learning from other great leaders, practicing and listening to feedback, and keeping evolving. Authentic leadership is beneficial for both the leader and those around them, and it is an ongoing journey.

Challenges of Migrating Old Legacy Software

This article discusses the problem of managing old legacy software and the steps taken to move it to the cloud. The author suggests breaking down the goal into smaller tasks and making incremental changes. They also suggest advocating for resources with a clear plan and data to back it up. Finally, they suggest starting with a small team, getting data, and using it to make decisions and influence change.

Pursuing an Unpopular Project

A company had to go through a certification process that required changes to their software deployment, tracking of modifications, and documentation. The person responsible for the engineering organization implemented the changes while balancing the sales opportunity with the team's discontent. He limited the scope of the changes to a small team of people and reframed the key objective to emphasize the benefits of the changes. He learned that it is important to keep changes small and easy, and to vet the reality of the changes before any action is taken.

Building Teams While Maintaining Consistent Company Culture

This article discusses the challenges of growing a team while maintaining a common sense of culture within the organization. It outlines the actions taken to address cultural differences between the US-based offices and the Spanish-speaking office in Mexico, such as providing Spanish lessons, bringing people onsite for onboarding, and having regular coffees. It also highlights the importance of cultural differences and the need for active and continual effort to address them.

Creating Psychological Safety and Why It Matters

Psychological Safety is a key factor in creating a successful organization, and it is based on trust. At GuideSpark, the engineering environment was low on trust, so the challenge was to transform the organization. To do this, the company had to understand the importance of software development and embrace key pillars such as Iteration, Introspection, and Improvement. To build trust, an Architecture Review Board was created to bring Product and Engineering together in a place where they could openly talk about ideas without blame or fear. This exercise, along with other tactics, helped to build trust and create Psychological Safety, which is the foundation for success.

Owning Your Career

A person with Imposter Syndrome has learned to take ownership of their career and to believe in themselves. They have done this by learning to catch their self-doubt, to accept positive feedback, to see negative feedback as systemic, and to fake it until they make it. They have also sought out mentors, networking opportunities, and therapy to help them on their journey. They have learned that many people, especially women in male-dominated fields, are struggling with Imposter Syndrome and should be encouraged to introspect, speak up, take risks, and believe in themselves.

Managing a Perfectionist: A Lesson Learned the Hard Way

A senior engineer with a reputation for being difficult to work with was assigned to a small team with a tight deadline. The team leader set clear expectations and tried to get the team on board, but the engineer's perfectionism caused delays and tension. The team leader eventually had to involve HR to manage the engineer out of the team. The experience taught the team leader to be more careful when taking on challenging opportunities, to talk to past managers, and to involve HR in the process.

In Need of Extra Hands: Hiring Independent Contractors and External Vendors

When needing to hire additional capacity or expertise, it is important to secure the hiring budget, identify contractors or vendors, vet their quality, and be prepared on the logistical, product, and engineering side. Contracting is a good opportunity to make the right hire and it is important to ensure that the regular team knows and understands what the contractors are building.

Three Goals To Consider When Building a Career Ladder

The CTO of a company with forty people in the R&D department introduced a formal career ladder to provide engineers with a vision for their future, justify salary increases, and provide a clear sense of understanding of their mission. The process strengthened employees' engagement with the company, and the key challenge was to encompass the diversity of roles and responsibilities with one title. Assessing core skills and competencies was included in monthly one-on-ones to help employees progress on their career path.

Guiding With Trust while being a (new) CTO

When the CTO of Synthesio joined in 2018, the employees were concerned about how his appointment would affect their daily operations. To build trust and rapport, he read The Manager’s Path and engaged with the employees to learn about their problems. He also used voting and consensus to ensure everyone was involved in the strategy-making process. Through this approach, he was able to instill a sense of ownership and motivate the employees.

Using Tiger Teams to Solve Problems and Create an Environment for Learning

Place Exchange Engineering experienced an increase in traffic that caused strain on one of their services critical to ad serving. To solve the problem, a tiger team was assembled to investigate the root cause and come up with short and long term solutions. The team communicated through Slack and had a weekly video conference. After the three week period, the team had identified metrics to be created/updated, quick wins, and long term proposals. The team also learned lessons about having the right people to solve the project, setting clear expectations, and creating an environment of learning.

Achieving Alignment and Efficiency Through a Technical Strategy

A fast-growing company was facing a lack of clarity and confusion about future decisions, leading to inefficiency. To solve this problem, a technical strategy was developed that detailed what should and shouldn't be done to be successful in the long run. This involved reaching out to different people to better understand the reasons behind slow decision-making, tailoring presentations to suit two different audiences, and establishing a process for teams and a "design and architecture" group to collaborate on designs. Lessons learned included the importance of securing buy-in before decision-making meetings, reviewing past decisions, customizing content for different audiences, and documenting decisions and guidelines.

Starting a Personal Mentoring Program at Work

This article discusses the experience of a Principal Engineer at Auth0 who was tasked with mentoring junior engineers from multiple teams. The engineer identified three types of conversations they had with mentees: concrete, day-to-day topics; specific, but more general topics; and general career council/advise. The engineer also discussed the importance of being prepared for every session, determining a mentoring time capacity in advance, and keeping an internal network up-to-date.

To Be a Great Leader, You Need To Find Time for Yourself

Leaders often feel short of time and need to find ways to secure time for themselves in order to boost their creativity and be pro-active. To do this, three key principles should be applied: finding time for yourself, blocking time to foster creativity, and classifying and prioritizing activities. These principles are interconnected and will help leaders unlock their creativity, find balance, and be energized to lead and create.

When a Jump Down to a Smaller Scope is a Jump up in Maturity and Wisdom

In 2016, the author was asked to join a much smaller team than the one they were leading before. Initially, they were apprehensive and struggled to reconcile the situation, but eventually they learned that success and professional growth are not always measured by the size of one's team or direct reports. Through communication with their manager and other stakeholders, the author learned to look beyond the surface and to measure their growth by the impact they were creating. They also learned that influence is more valuable than authority, and that it reaches far beyond those who report to them.

Know When To Walk Away: Handling a Toxic Working Environment

This story is about a person who was working for a small startup and was looking to move into a technical leadership role. Despite having a successful career and positive feedback from supervisors, their management felt they weren't the right fit for the role. The person took their concerns seriously and worked hard to improve their communication skills, leadership style, and passion for their work. Despite their efforts, they were not promoted and eventually had to leave the company. They eventually found a job where their skills and strengths were appreciated, and regained their confidence. The story emphasizes the importance of being in an environment that values you for what you have to offer, and not having to prove your worth.

Adjusting Your Working Style to Agile Practices and Mindset

A non-linear thinker was tasked with writing a document management system in four weeks, using Agile/scrum methodologies. When a new priority came up, they had to ship what was done so far, even though it wasn't complete. After a difficult conversation with a chief architect, they learned to adapt their working style to the Agile model, and to be self-aware and humble when admitting mistakes. This lesson taught them to evaluate their personal working style, think through projects in advance, and be ready to ship something shippable when priorities change.