Knowledge shared by our community

Managing Teams Across Broad Time Zones

When working with teams across different time zones, it is important to consider the issues of delegating responsibility and building trust. To address these issues, we have implemented a front-end and back-end team structure, sent engineers to work in other countries, changed meeting times, and provided end of the day updates on a shared channel. Additionally, each site was given a meaningful mission to ensure they felt like they were contributing to the overall story.

Creating and Tailoring a Skills Grid for a New Engineering Group

This article outlines the process of creating a new engineering group in a new country. The author developed a matrix to clarify expectations and provide clear goals for success. They also provided reference training materials and compensation bands for each level. The author also learned lessons such as getting and using data, establishing ladders early, and communicating changes.

Working with an Overseas Manager

After a misunderstanding with his manager, the author took action to ensure that his manager was kept up to date on his work. He implemented weekly catch up calls and sent notes after meetings with his manager's peers. Through this, he learned that his job was to make his manager's work life easier and that regular, informative catch up calls were necessary to maintain a balanced routine.

Balancing and Prioritizing Your Professional and Personal Life

This article discusses the challenge of balancing personal and professional life, and how one woman managed to prioritize her son's sporting event over an important work presentation. She chose to delegate the presentation to a trusted team member, and in doing so, realized that she did not have to do everything and that there are always options and choices.

Leveraging Your Internal Network for Career Growth

After three years with a company, the team the protagonist was on decided to restructure and their role would no longer exist. Rather than sticking through the process, they reached out to a colleague in another department who mentioned an opening on her team. After speaking to the manager, the protagonist was offered the job on the spot. This experience taught them the importance of leveraging their internal network and being bold and courageous when reaching out to people.

The Magic of the Remote Organization

Mike Hansen, head of product development at a fully remote organization, outlines the benefits of a remote model, such as a level communications playing field, easier access to all team members, and improved quality of life. He also emphasizes the importance of time zone overlap and avoiding a mixed model of co-located and remote members.

Preparing Your Pitch and Specifying Your Process for Hiring

When hiring software engineers, it is important to have a well-honed pitch that explains the company's mission and the engineering team's opportunities for autonomy and mastery. The hiring process should be kept to a minimum of interactions, and the candidate should be checked for close-ability from the start. Time-boxing the offer and tracking the process are also important. Other best practices include practicing the pitch often, being responsive and sensitive to the candidate, and using an online tool for code challenges.

The Essentiality of Identifying ‘Who You Are’ When Hiring

Hiring software engineers is becoming increasingly competitive due to demand from traditional businesses. As a result, it is important for hiring managers, engineering teams, and companies to be aware of their own management style, values, and skills when beginning the hiring process. Additionally, managers should be mindful of their impression on potential candidates, and teams should assess their own values and skills. Companies should also have compelling anecdotes ready to convey their culture to candidates. Lastly, managers should learn how to listen, interrupt, and be respectful of the candidate's time.

Guiding Your Direct Reports Onto Their Own Career Paths

The author, early in their management career, assumed that their direct reports wanted to follow the same career trajectory as them. However, they soon realized that it was their job to help their direct reports figure out their own career paths. To do this, the author gave their direct reports professional development opportunities, such as attending meetups and conferences, and encouraged them to speak at these events. Through this, the author learned that it is important to be open-minded about the career growth of their direct reports and to support them in whatever career trajectory they choose.

Aligning Direct Reports’ and Manager Expectations

This article discusses the importance of creating a personalized document that outlines the expectations of both the manager and the direct reports. The document includes a mission statement, values, manager expectations, expectations of direct reports, details, and an evaluation and compensation cycle. It has been useful for onboarding new members and for performance management. The document acts as a contract between the manager and direct reports, providing evidence of expectations and fair warning of what is expected.

How to Be an Effective New Manager

A successful transition from individual contributor to manager requires a shift in mindset from focusing on one area to keeping an eye out and harmonizing the overall situation. To do this, the manager should have regular one-on-one meetings with their team members and use an ancient Egyptian story of the king as an eye to symbolize the importance of paying attention and observing.

Aligning Performance Management Across Countries At Different Stages

As a Technology Executive, the author faced the challenge of aligning performance figures across three different development centres in Europe with different mentalities and backgrounds. To tackle this, the author created an agenda that included skill development, focus areas, and a collaboration component. After several sessions and follow-up discussions, the author was able to create a unified goal set for the entire company that included collaborative tasks and shared KPIs. This example shows how an obstacle can be turned into an opportunity.

Managing M&A transitions as Middle Management

During a 3-year period of global economic downturn, a large software technology company experienced 3 re-orgs and 2 mergers. The Healthcare Division was impacted by budget cuts and roadmap decisions being put on hold. To address the challenges, the leader of one of the large teams implemented an "over communication" drive which included weekly team communication, 1:1 outreach, monthly senior leadership calls, and mapping of team expertise and product knowledge. This enabled the team to stay together and transition to new product teams with zero attrition. The outreach efforts also helped to retain the team with high morale.

Starting out as a Leader in a New Company

This article outlines the steps taken by a new leader of a product development team to transition properly. The leader spent time with the previous leader to understand the team and their strengths and challenges. They also spent 1:1 time with each team member to share their strengths, management principles, and expectations. The leader also spent time understanding the product portfolio and customer perspective. The article also provides lessons learned such as being approachable and available, listening to conversations, establishing trust and credibility, empathizing with the team, and communicating regularly.

Defining Your Product as a Painkiller or a Vitamin

This article discusses the difference between a "pain killer" and a "vitamin" product, and how to categorize them based on who you are selling to and how they are used. Pain killers are used to solve an urgent, top-of-mind problem, while vitamins are used to help prevent something bad from happening in the future. It is important to understand the customer's priorities when selling a product, as it is easier to sell a pain killer due to the urgency, but old habits die hard. When selling a vitamin, it is best to understand what prompts the customer to think about the calamity your product helps them avoid.

Why Agile and Roadmaps Don’t Mix

This article discusses how to use Agile project plans to express goals to stakeholders without using Gantt timelines. The steps outlined include defining KPIs, identifying hypotheses, prioritizing hypotheses, testing hypotheses, and presenting updates on KPIs. It is important to get consensus internally before proceeding, and to track KPIs in real time. When presenting to stakeholders, the goal is to show whether KPIs are moving.

Transitioning from an Engineer to a Product Manager

A software engineer looking to transition into a product management role should ask themselves questions about the type of role they are looking for, what aspects of PM interest them the most, and what aspects they have the least experience with. To gain knowledge and skills for the desired role, they should talk to their current PM, observe the UI of apps they use, and take intro courses to pricing and finance. When hiring a PM, industry specific skills and knowledge are important, as well as decision making skills and sound reasoning.

Defining Your Personal Space by Increasing Productivity

This article outlines the tools and techniques used by the author to stay productive and organized in the face of a demanding workload. These include scheduling time-bound events on Google Calendar, using text files to track individual tasks, using followupthen.com for emails that require a timely response, using Gmail filters to label and skip the inbox for system-generated messages, and using Slack etiquette to keep up with group chat. The author also suggests scheduling a recurring calendar event to get to inbox and Slack zero, and using the mute feature on Slack to focus on work.

Executing Continuous Delivery

This article discusses the successful implementation of continuous delivery at LivingSocial and LearnZillion, which allowed for safe code shipping without the need for complicated and time-costly infrastructure. It outlines the individual responsibilities, smallest overlap of responsibilities, sacred master branch, Twelve-Factor App methodology, test suite, automated QA test suite, and dashboards that were used to achieve this goal. It also highlights the importance of trust and the ability to go directly to production from development. In conclusion, continuous delivery is a viable alternative to continuous deployment that can provide the same benefit of safe and consistent product delivery.

Creating a Livable, Enjoyable, and Rewarding Environment to Be an Ops Engineer

This article discusses how to treat operations engineers well, including maintaining a sane software engineer to ops engineer ratio, deploying during working hours, having reasonable maintenance windows, assuming it's a software issue until ops is proven guilty, making space for proactive ops engineering, and checking in regularly. It also emphasizes the importance of not letting employees drown in work, practicing continuous delivery, and paying ops engineers competitively.

Managing Teams Across Broad Time Zones

When working with teams across different time zones, it is important to consider the issues of delegating responsibility and building trust. To address these issues, we have implemented a front-end and back-end team structure, sent engineers to work in other countries, changed meeting times, and provided end of the day updates on a shared channel. Additionally, each site was given a meaningful mission to ensure they felt like they were contributing to the overall story.

Creating and Tailoring a Skills Grid for a New Engineering Group

This article outlines the process of creating a new engineering group in a new country. The author developed a matrix to clarify expectations and provide clear goals for success. They also provided reference training materials and compensation bands for each level. The author also learned lessons such as getting and using data, establishing ladders early, and communicating changes.

Working with an Overseas Manager

After a misunderstanding with his manager, the author took action to ensure that his manager was kept up to date on his work. He implemented weekly catch up calls and sent notes after meetings with his manager's peers. Through this, he learned that his job was to make his manager's work life easier and that regular, informative catch up calls were necessary to maintain a balanced routine.

Balancing and Prioritizing Your Professional and Personal Life

This article discusses the challenge of balancing personal and professional life, and how one woman managed to prioritize her son's sporting event over an important work presentation. She chose to delegate the presentation to a trusted team member, and in doing so, realized that she did not have to do everything and that there are always options and choices.

Leveraging Your Internal Network for Career Growth

After three years with a company, the team the protagonist was on decided to restructure and their role would no longer exist. Rather than sticking through the process, they reached out to a colleague in another department who mentioned an opening on her team. After speaking to the manager, the protagonist was offered the job on the spot. This experience taught them the importance of leveraging their internal network and being bold and courageous when reaching out to people.

The Magic of the Remote Organization

Mike Hansen, head of product development at a fully remote organization, outlines the benefits of a remote model, such as a level communications playing field, easier access to all team members, and improved quality of life. He also emphasizes the importance of time zone overlap and avoiding a mixed model of co-located and remote members.

Preparing Your Pitch and Specifying Your Process for Hiring

When hiring software engineers, it is important to have a well-honed pitch that explains the company's mission and the engineering team's opportunities for autonomy and mastery. The hiring process should be kept to a minimum of interactions, and the candidate should be checked for close-ability from the start. Time-boxing the offer and tracking the process are also important. Other best practices include practicing the pitch often, being responsive and sensitive to the candidate, and using an online tool for code challenges.

The Essentiality of Identifying ‘Who You Are’ When Hiring

Hiring software engineers is becoming increasingly competitive due to demand from traditional businesses. As a result, it is important for hiring managers, engineering teams, and companies to be aware of their own management style, values, and skills when beginning the hiring process. Additionally, managers should be mindful of their impression on potential candidates, and teams should assess their own values and skills. Companies should also have compelling anecdotes ready to convey their culture to candidates. Lastly, managers should learn how to listen, interrupt, and be respectful of the candidate's time.

Guiding Your Direct Reports Onto Their Own Career Paths

The author, early in their management career, assumed that their direct reports wanted to follow the same career trajectory as them. However, they soon realized that it was their job to help their direct reports figure out their own career paths. To do this, the author gave their direct reports professional development opportunities, such as attending meetups and conferences, and encouraged them to speak at these events. Through this, the author learned that it is important to be open-minded about the career growth of their direct reports and to support them in whatever career trajectory they choose.

Aligning Direct Reports’ and Manager Expectations

This article discusses the importance of creating a personalized document that outlines the expectations of both the manager and the direct reports. The document includes a mission statement, values, manager expectations, expectations of direct reports, details, and an evaluation and compensation cycle. It has been useful for onboarding new members and for performance management. The document acts as a contract between the manager and direct reports, providing evidence of expectations and fair warning of what is expected.

How to Be an Effective New Manager

A successful transition from individual contributor to manager requires a shift in mindset from focusing on one area to keeping an eye out and harmonizing the overall situation. To do this, the manager should have regular one-on-one meetings with their team members and use an ancient Egyptian story of the king as an eye to symbolize the importance of paying attention and observing.

Aligning Performance Management Across Countries At Different Stages

As a Technology Executive, the author faced the challenge of aligning performance figures across three different development centres in Europe with different mentalities and backgrounds. To tackle this, the author created an agenda that included skill development, focus areas, and a collaboration component. After several sessions and follow-up discussions, the author was able to create a unified goal set for the entire company that included collaborative tasks and shared KPIs. This example shows how an obstacle can be turned into an opportunity.

Managing M&A transitions as Middle Management

During a 3-year period of global economic downturn, a large software technology company experienced 3 re-orgs and 2 mergers. The Healthcare Division was impacted by budget cuts and roadmap decisions being put on hold. To address the challenges, the leader of one of the large teams implemented an "over communication" drive which included weekly team communication, 1:1 outreach, monthly senior leadership calls, and mapping of team expertise and product knowledge. This enabled the team to stay together and transition to new product teams with zero attrition. The outreach efforts also helped to retain the team with high morale.

Starting out as a Leader in a New Company

This article outlines the steps taken by a new leader of a product development team to transition properly. The leader spent time with the previous leader to understand the team and their strengths and challenges. They also spent 1:1 time with each team member to share their strengths, management principles, and expectations. The leader also spent time understanding the product portfolio and customer perspective. The article also provides lessons learned such as being approachable and available, listening to conversations, establishing trust and credibility, empathizing with the team, and communicating regularly.

Defining Your Product as a Painkiller or a Vitamin

This article discusses the difference between a "pain killer" and a "vitamin" product, and how to categorize them based on who you are selling to and how they are used. Pain killers are used to solve an urgent, top-of-mind problem, while vitamins are used to help prevent something bad from happening in the future. It is important to understand the customer's priorities when selling a product, as it is easier to sell a pain killer due to the urgency, but old habits die hard. When selling a vitamin, it is best to understand what prompts the customer to think about the calamity your product helps them avoid.

Why Agile and Roadmaps Don’t Mix

This article discusses how to use Agile project plans to express goals to stakeholders without using Gantt timelines. The steps outlined include defining KPIs, identifying hypotheses, prioritizing hypotheses, testing hypotheses, and presenting updates on KPIs. It is important to get consensus internally before proceeding, and to track KPIs in real time. When presenting to stakeholders, the goal is to show whether KPIs are moving.

Transitioning from an Engineer to a Product Manager

A software engineer looking to transition into a product management role should ask themselves questions about the type of role they are looking for, what aspects of PM interest them the most, and what aspects they have the least experience with. To gain knowledge and skills for the desired role, they should talk to their current PM, observe the UI of apps they use, and take intro courses to pricing and finance. When hiring a PM, industry specific skills and knowledge are important, as well as decision making skills and sound reasoning.

Defining Your Personal Space by Increasing Productivity

This article outlines the tools and techniques used by the author to stay productive and organized in the face of a demanding workload. These include scheduling time-bound events on Google Calendar, using text files to track individual tasks, using followupthen.com for emails that require a timely response, using Gmail filters to label and skip the inbox for system-generated messages, and using Slack etiquette to keep up with group chat. The author also suggests scheduling a recurring calendar event to get to inbox and Slack zero, and using the mute feature on Slack to focus on work.

Executing Continuous Delivery

This article discusses the successful implementation of continuous delivery at LivingSocial and LearnZillion, which allowed for safe code shipping without the need for complicated and time-costly infrastructure. It outlines the individual responsibilities, smallest overlap of responsibilities, sacred master branch, Twelve-Factor App methodology, test suite, automated QA test suite, and dashboards that were used to achieve this goal. It also highlights the importance of trust and the ability to go directly to production from development. In conclusion, continuous delivery is a viable alternative to continuous deployment that can provide the same benefit of safe and consistent product delivery.

Creating a Livable, Enjoyable, and Rewarding Environment to Be an Ops Engineer

This article discusses how to treat operations engineers well, including maintaining a sane software engineer to ops engineer ratio, deploying during working hours, having reasonable maintenance windows, assuming it's a software issue until ops is proven guilty, making space for proactive ops engineering, and checking in regularly. It also emphasizes the importance of not letting employees drown in work, practicing continuous delivery, and paying ops engineers competitively.

Managing Teams Across Broad Time Zones

When working with teams across different time zones, it is important to consider the issues of delegating responsibility and building trust. To address these issues, we have implemented a front-end and back-end team structure, sent engineers to work in other countries, changed meeting times, and provided end of the day updates on a shared channel. Additionally, each site was given a meaningful mission to ensure they felt like they were contributing to the overall story.

Creating and Tailoring a Skills Grid for a New Engineering Group

This article outlines the process of creating a new engineering group in a new country. The author developed a matrix to clarify expectations and provide clear goals for success. They also provided reference training materials and compensation bands for each level. The author also learned lessons such as getting and using data, establishing ladders early, and communicating changes.

Working with an Overseas Manager

After a misunderstanding with his manager, the author took action to ensure that his manager was kept up to date on his work. He implemented weekly catch up calls and sent notes after meetings with his manager's peers. Through this, he learned that his job was to make his manager's work life easier and that regular, informative catch up calls were necessary to maintain a balanced routine.

Balancing and Prioritizing Your Professional and Personal Life

This article discusses the challenge of balancing personal and professional life, and how one woman managed to prioritize her son's sporting event over an important work presentation. She chose to delegate the presentation to a trusted team member, and in doing so, realized that she did not have to do everything and that there are always options and choices.

Leveraging Your Internal Network for Career Growth

After three years with a company, the team the protagonist was on decided to restructure and their role would no longer exist. Rather than sticking through the process, they reached out to a colleague in another department who mentioned an opening on her team. After speaking to the manager, the protagonist was offered the job on the spot. This experience taught them the importance of leveraging their internal network and being bold and courageous when reaching out to people.

The Magic of the Remote Organization

Mike Hansen, head of product development at a fully remote organization, outlines the benefits of a remote model, such as a level communications playing field, easier access to all team members, and improved quality of life. He also emphasizes the importance of time zone overlap and avoiding a mixed model of co-located and remote members.

Preparing Your Pitch and Specifying Your Process for Hiring

When hiring software engineers, it is important to have a well-honed pitch that explains the company's mission and the engineering team's opportunities for autonomy and mastery. The hiring process should be kept to a minimum of interactions, and the candidate should be checked for close-ability from the start. Time-boxing the offer and tracking the process are also important. Other best practices include practicing the pitch often, being responsive and sensitive to the candidate, and using an online tool for code challenges.

The Essentiality of Identifying ‘Who You Are’ When Hiring

Hiring software engineers is becoming increasingly competitive due to demand from traditional businesses. As a result, it is important for hiring managers, engineering teams, and companies to be aware of their own management style, values, and skills when beginning the hiring process. Additionally, managers should be mindful of their impression on potential candidates, and teams should assess their own values and skills. Companies should also have compelling anecdotes ready to convey their culture to candidates. Lastly, managers should learn how to listen, interrupt, and be respectful of the candidate's time.

Guiding Your Direct Reports Onto Their Own Career Paths

The author, early in their management career, assumed that their direct reports wanted to follow the same career trajectory as them. However, they soon realized that it was their job to help their direct reports figure out their own career paths. To do this, the author gave their direct reports professional development opportunities, such as attending meetups and conferences, and encouraged them to speak at these events. Through this, the author learned that it is important to be open-minded about the career growth of their direct reports and to support them in whatever career trajectory they choose.

Aligning Direct Reports’ and Manager Expectations

This article discusses the importance of creating a personalized document that outlines the expectations of both the manager and the direct reports. The document includes a mission statement, values, manager expectations, expectations of direct reports, details, and an evaluation and compensation cycle. It has been useful for onboarding new members and for performance management. The document acts as a contract between the manager and direct reports, providing evidence of expectations and fair warning of what is expected.

How to Be an Effective New Manager

A successful transition from individual contributor to manager requires a shift in mindset from focusing on one area to keeping an eye out and harmonizing the overall situation. To do this, the manager should have regular one-on-one meetings with their team members and use an ancient Egyptian story of the king as an eye to symbolize the importance of paying attention and observing.

Aligning Performance Management Across Countries At Different Stages

As a Technology Executive, the author faced the challenge of aligning performance figures across three different development centres in Europe with different mentalities and backgrounds. To tackle this, the author created an agenda that included skill development, focus areas, and a collaboration component. After several sessions and follow-up discussions, the author was able to create a unified goal set for the entire company that included collaborative tasks and shared KPIs. This example shows how an obstacle can be turned into an opportunity.

Managing M&A transitions as Middle Management

During a 3-year period of global economic downturn, a large software technology company experienced 3 re-orgs and 2 mergers. The Healthcare Division was impacted by budget cuts and roadmap decisions being put on hold. To address the challenges, the leader of one of the large teams implemented an "over communication" drive which included weekly team communication, 1:1 outreach, monthly senior leadership calls, and mapping of team expertise and product knowledge. This enabled the team to stay together and transition to new product teams with zero attrition. The outreach efforts also helped to retain the team with high morale.

Starting out as a Leader in a New Company

This article outlines the steps taken by a new leader of a product development team to transition properly. The leader spent time with the previous leader to understand the team and their strengths and challenges. They also spent 1:1 time with each team member to share their strengths, management principles, and expectations. The leader also spent time understanding the product portfolio and customer perspective. The article also provides lessons learned such as being approachable and available, listening to conversations, establishing trust and credibility, empathizing with the team, and communicating regularly.

Defining Your Product as a Painkiller or a Vitamin

This article discusses the difference between a "pain killer" and a "vitamin" product, and how to categorize them based on who you are selling to and how they are used. Pain killers are used to solve an urgent, top-of-mind problem, while vitamins are used to help prevent something bad from happening in the future. It is important to understand the customer's priorities when selling a product, as it is easier to sell a pain killer due to the urgency, but old habits die hard. When selling a vitamin, it is best to understand what prompts the customer to think about the calamity your product helps them avoid.

Why Agile and Roadmaps Don’t Mix

This article discusses how to use Agile project plans to express goals to stakeholders without using Gantt timelines. The steps outlined include defining KPIs, identifying hypotheses, prioritizing hypotheses, testing hypotheses, and presenting updates on KPIs. It is important to get consensus internally before proceeding, and to track KPIs in real time. When presenting to stakeholders, the goal is to show whether KPIs are moving.

Transitioning from an Engineer to a Product Manager

A software engineer looking to transition into a product management role should ask themselves questions about the type of role they are looking for, what aspects of PM interest them the most, and what aspects they have the least experience with. To gain knowledge and skills for the desired role, they should talk to their current PM, observe the UI of apps they use, and take intro courses to pricing and finance. When hiring a PM, industry specific skills and knowledge are important, as well as decision making skills and sound reasoning.

Defining Your Personal Space by Increasing Productivity

This article outlines the tools and techniques used by the author to stay productive and organized in the face of a demanding workload. These include scheduling time-bound events on Google Calendar, using text files to track individual tasks, using followupthen.com for emails that require a timely response, using Gmail filters to label and skip the inbox for system-generated messages, and using Slack etiquette to keep up with group chat. The author also suggests scheduling a recurring calendar event to get to inbox and Slack zero, and using the mute feature on Slack to focus on work.

Executing Continuous Delivery

This article discusses the successful implementation of continuous delivery at LivingSocial and LearnZillion, which allowed for safe code shipping without the need for complicated and time-costly infrastructure. It outlines the individual responsibilities, smallest overlap of responsibilities, sacred master branch, Twelve-Factor App methodology, test suite, automated QA test suite, and dashboards that were used to achieve this goal. It also highlights the importance of trust and the ability to go directly to production from development. In conclusion, continuous delivery is a viable alternative to continuous deployment that can provide the same benefit of safe and consistent product delivery.

Creating a Livable, Enjoyable, and Rewarding Environment to Be an Ops Engineer

This article discusses how to treat operations engineers well, including maintaining a sane software engineer to ops engineer ratio, deploying during working hours, having reasonable maintenance windows, assuming it's a software issue until ops is proven guilty, making space for proactive ops engineering, and checking in regularly. It also emphasizes the importance of not letting employees drown in work, practicing continuous delivery, and paying ops engineers competitively.

Managing Teams Across Broad Time Zones

When working with teams across different time zones, it is important to consider the issues of delegating responsibility and building trust. To address these issues, we have implemented a front-end and back-end team structure, sent engineers to work in other countries, changed meeting times, and provided end of the day updates on a shared channel. Additionally, each site was given a meaningful mission to ensure they felt like they were contributing to the overall story.

Creating and Tailoring a Skills Grid for a New Engineering Group

This article outlines the process of creating a new engineering group in a new country. The author developed a matrix to clarify expectations and provide clear goals for success. They also provided reference training materials and compensation bands for each level. The author also learned lessons such as getting and using data, establishing ladders early, and communicating changes.

Working with an Overseas Manager

After a misunderstanding with his manager, the author took action to ensure that his manager was kept up to date on his work. He implemented weekly catch up calls and sent notes after meetings with his manager's peers. Through this, he learned that his job was to make his manager's work life easier and that regular, informative catch up calls were necessary to maintain a balanced routine.

Balancing and Prioritizing Your Professional and Personal Life

This article discusses the challenge of balancing personal and professional life, and how one woman managed to prioritize her son's sporting event over an important work presentation. She chose to delegate the presentation to a trusted team member, and in doing so, realized that she did not have to do everything and that there are always options and choices.

Leveraging Your Internal Network for Career Growth

After three years with a company, the team the protagonist was on decided to restructure and their role would no longer exist. Rather than sticking through the process, they reached out to a colleague in another department who mentioned an opening on her team. After speaking to the manager, the protagonist was offered the job on the spot. This experience taught them the importance of leveraging their internal network and being bold and courageous when reaching out to people.

The Magic of the Remote Organization

Mike Hansen, head of product development at a fully remote organization, outlines the benefits of a remote model, such as a level communications playing field, easier access to all team members, and improved quality of life. He also emphasizes the importance of time zone overlap and avoiding a mixed model of co-located and remote members.

Preparing Your Pitch and Specifying Your Process for Hiring

When hiring software engineers, it is important to have a well-honed pitch that explains the company's mission and the engineering team's opportunities for autonomy and mastery. The hiring process should be kept to a minimum of interactions, and the candidate should be checked for close-ability from the start. Time-boxing the offer and tracking the process are also important. Other best practices include practicing the pitch often, being responsive and sensitive to the candidate, and using an online tool for code challenges.

The Essentiality of Identifying ‘Who You Are’ When Hiring

Hiring software engineers is becoming increasingly competitive due to demand from traditional businesses. As a result, it is important for hiring managers, engineering teams, and companies to be aware of their own management style, values, and skills when beginning the hiring process. Additionally, managers should be mindful of their impression on potential candidates, and teams should assess their own values and skills. Companies should also have compelling anecdotes ready to convey their culture to candidates. Lastly, managers should learn how to listen, interrupt, and be respectful of the candidate's time.

Guiding Your Direct Reports Onto Their Own Career Paths

The author, early in their management career, assumed that their direct reports wanted to follow the same career trajectory as them. However, they soon realized that it was their job to help their direct reports figure out their own career paths. To do this, the author gave their direct reports professional development opportunities, such as attending meetups and conferences, and encouraged them to speak at these events. Through this, the author learned that it is important to be open-minded about the career growth of their direct reports and to support them in whatever career trajectory they choose.

Aligning Direct Reports’ and Manager Expectations

This article discusses the importance of creating a personalized document that outlines the expectations of both the manager and the direct reports. The document includes a mission statement, values, manager expectations, expectations of direct reports, details, and an evaluation and compensation cycle. It has been useful for onboarding new members and for performance management. The document acts as a contract between the manager and direct reports, providing evidence of expectations and fair warning of what is expected.

How to Be an Effective New Manager

A successful transition from individual contributor to manager requires a shift in mindset from focusing on one area to keeping an eye out and harmonizing the overall situation. To do this, the manager should have regular one-on-one meetings with their team members and use an ancient Egyptian story of the king as an eye to symbolize the importance of paying attention and observing.

Aligning Performance Management Across Countries At Different Stages

As a Technology Executive, the author faced the challenge of aligning performance figures across three different development centres in Europe with different mentalities and backgrounds. To tackle this, the author created an agenda that included skill development, focus areas, and a collaboration component. After several sessions and follow-up discussions, the author was able to create a unified goal set for the entire company that included collaborative tasks and shared KPIs. This example shows how an obstacle can be turned into an opportunity.

Managing M&A transitions as Middle Management

During a 3-year period of global economic downturn, a large software technology company experienced 3 re-orgs and 2 mergers. The Healthcare Division was impacted by budget cuts and roadmap decisions being put on hold. To address the challenges, the leader of one of the large teams implemented an "over communication" drive which included weekly team communication, 1:1 outreach, monthly senior leadership calls, and mapping of team expertise and product knowledge. This enabled the team to stay together and transition to new product teams with zero attrition. The outreach efforts also helped to retain the team with high morale.

Starting out as a Leader in a New Company

This article outlines the steps taken by a new leader of a product development team to transition properly. The leader spent time with the previous leader to understand the team and their strengths and challenges. They also spent 1:1 time with each team member to share their strengths, management principles, and expectations. The leader also spent time understanding the product portfolio and customer perspective. The article also provides lessons learned such as being approachable and available, listening to conversations, establishing trust and credibility, empathizing with the team, and communicating regularly.

Defining Your Product as a Painkiller or a Vitamin

This article discusses the difference between a "pain killer" and a "vitamin" product, and how to categorize them based on who you are selling to and how they are used. Pain killers are used to solve an urgent, top-of-mind problem, while vitamins are used to help prevent something bad from happening in the future. It is important to understand the customer's priorities when selling a product, as it is easier to sell a pain killer due to the urgency, but old habits die hard. When selling a vitamin, it is best to understand what prompts the customer to think about the calamity your product helps them avoid.

Why Agile and Roadmaps Don’t Mix

This article discusses how to use Agile project plans to express goals to stakeholders without using Gantt timelines. The steps outlined include defining KPIs, identifying hypotheses, prioritizing hypotheses, testing hypotheses, and presenting updates on KPIs. It is important to get consensus internally before proceeding, and to track KPIs in real time. When presenting to stakeholders, the goal is to show whether KPIs are moving.

Transitioning from an Engineer to a Product Manager

A software engineer looking to transition into a product management role should ask themselves questions about the type of role they are looking for, what aspects of PM interest them the most, and what aspects they have the least experience with. To gain knowledge and skills for the desired role, they should talk to their current PM, observe the UI of apps they use, and take intro courses to pricing and finance. When hiring a PM, industry specific skills and knowledge are important, as well as decision making skills and sound reasoning.

Defining Your Personal Space by Increasing Productivity

This article outlines the tools and techniques used by the author to stay productive and organized in the face of a demanding workload. These include scheduling time-bound events on Google Calendar, using text files to track individual tasks, using followupthen.com for emails that require a timely response, using Gmail filters to label and skip the inbox for system-generated messages, and using Slack etiquette to keep up with group chat. The author also suggests scheduling a recurring calendar event to get to inbox and Slack zero, and using the mute feature on Slack to focus on work.

Executing Continuous Delivery

This article discusses the successful implementation of continuous delivery at LivingSocial and LearnZillion, which allowed for safe code shipping without the need for complicated and time-costly infrastructure. It outlines the individual responsibilities, smallest overlap of responsibilities, sacred master branch, Twelve-Factor App methodology, test suite, automated QA test suite, and dashboards that were used to achieve this goal. It also highlights the importance of trust and the ability to go directly to production from development. In conclusion, continuous delivery is a viable alternative to continuous deployment that can provide the same benefit of safe and consistent product delivery.

Creating a Livable, Enjoyable, and Rewarding Environment to Be an Ops Engineer

This article discusses how to treat operations engineers well, including maintaining a sane software engineer to ops engineer ratio, deploying during working hours, having reasonable maintenance windows, assuming it's a software issue until ops is proven guilty, making space for proactive ops engineering, and checking in regularly. It also emphasizes the importance of not letting employees drown in work, practicing continuous delivery, and paying ops engineers competitively.

Managing Teams Across Broad Time Zones

When working with teams across different time zones, it is important to consider the issues of delegating responsibility and building trust. To address these issues, we have implemented a front-end and back-end team structure, sent engineers to work in other countries, changed meeting times, and provided end of the day updates on a shared channel. Additionally, each site was given a meaningful mission to ensure they felt like they were contributing to the overall story.

Creating and Tailoring a Skills Grid for a New Engineering Group

This article outlines the process of creating a new engineering group in a new country. The author developed a matrix to clarify expectations and provide clear goals for success. They also provided reference training materials and compensation bands for each level. The author also learned lessons such as getting and using data, establishing ladders early, and communicating changes.

Working with an Overseas Manager

After a misunderstanding with his manager, the author took action to ensure that his manager was kept up to date on his work. He implemented weekly catch up calls and sent notes after meetings with his manager's peers. Through this, he learned that his job was to make his manager's work life easier and that regular, informative catch up calls were necessary to maintain a balanced routine.

Balancing and Prioritizing Your Professional and Personal Life

This article discusses the challenge of balancing personal and professional life, and how one woman managed to prioritize her son's sporting event over an important work presentation. She chose to delegate the presentation to a trusted team member, and in doing so, realized that she did not have to do everything and that there are always options and choices.

Leveraging Your Internal Network for Career Growth

After three years with a company, the team the protagonist was on decided to restructure and their role would no longer exist. Rather than sticking through the process, they reached out to a colleague in another department who mentioned an opening on her team. After speaking to the manager, the protagonist was offered the job on the spot. This experience taught them the importance of leveraging their internal network and being bold and courageous when reaching out to people.

The Magic of the Remote Organization

Mike Hansen, head of product development at a fully remote organization, outlines the benefits of a remote model, such as a level communications playing field, easier access to all team members, and improved quality of life. He also emphasizes the importance of time zone overlap and avoiding a mixed model of co-located and remote members.

Preparing Your Pitch and Specifying Your Process for Hiring

When hiring software engineers, it is important to have a well-honed pitch that explains the company's mission and the engineering team's opportunities for autonomy and mastery. The hiring process should be kept to a minimum of interactions, and the candidate should be checked for close-ability from the start. Time-boxing the offer and tracking the process are also important. Other best practices include practicing the pitch often, being responsive and sensitive to the candidate, and using an online tool for code challenges.

The Essentiality of Identifying ‘Who You Are’ When Hiring

Hiring software engineers is becoming increasingly competitive due to demand from traditional businesses. As a result, it is important for hiring managers, engineering teams, and companies to be aware of their own management style, values, and skills when beginning the hiring process. Additionally, managers should be mindful of their impression on potential candidates, and teams should assess their own values and skills. Companies should also have compelling anecdotes ready to convey their culture to candidates. Lastly, managers should learn how to listen, interrupt, and be respectful of the candidate's time.

Guiding Your Direct Reports Onto Their Own Career Paths

The author, early in their management career, assumed that their direct reports wanted to follow the same career trajectory as them. However, they soon realized that it was their job to help their direct reports figure out their own career paths. To do this, the author gave their direct reports professional development opportunities, such as attending meetups and conferences, and encouraged them to speak at these events. Through this, the author learned that it is important to be open-minded about the career growth of their direct reports and to support them in whatever career trajectory they choose.

Aligning Direct Reports’ and Manager Expectations

This article discusses the importance of creating a personalized document that outlines the expectations of both the manager and the direct reports. The document includes a mission statement, values, manager expectations, expectations of direct reports, details, and an evaluation and compensation cycle. It has been useful for onboarding new members and for performance management. The document acts as a contract between the manager and direct reports, providing evidence of expectations and fair warning of what is expected.

How to Be an Effective New Manager

A successful transition from individual contributor to manager requires a shift in mindset from focusing on one area to keeping an eye out and harmonizing the overall situation. To do this, the manager should have regular one-on-one meetings with their team members and use an ancient Egyptian story of the king as an eye to symbolize the importance of paying attention and observing.

Aligning Performance Management Across Countries At Different Stages

As a Technology Executive, the author faced the challenge of aligning performance figures across three different development centres in Europe with different mentalities and backgrounds. To tackle this, the author created an agenda that included skill development, focus areas, and a collaboration component. After several sessions and follow-up discussions, the author was able to create a unified goal set for the entire company that included collaborative tasks and shared KPIs. This example shows how an obstacle can be turned into an opportunity.

Managing M&A transitions as Middle Management

During a 3-year period of global economic downturn, a large software technology company experienced 3 re-orgs and 2 mergers. The Healthcare Division was impacted by budget cuts and roadmap decisions being put on hold. To address the challenges, the leader of one of the large teams implemented an "over communication" drive which included weekly team communication, 1:1 outreach, monthly senior leadership calls, and mapping of team expertise and product knowledge. This enabled the team to stay together and transition to new product teams with zero attrition. The outreach efforts also helped to retain the team with high morale.

Starting out as a Leader in a New Company

This article outlines the steps taken by a new leader of a product development team to transition properly. The leader spent time with the previous leader to understand the team and their strengths and challenges. They also spent 1:1 time with each team member to share their strengths, management principles, and expectations. The leader also spent time understanding the product portfolio and customer perspective. The article also provides lessons learned such as being approachable and available, listening to conversations, establishing trust and credibility, empathizing with the team, and communicating regularly.

Defining Your Product as a Painkiller or a Vitamin

This article discusses the difference between a "pain killer" and a "vitamin" product, and how to categorize them based on who you are selling to and how they are used. Pain killers are used to solve an urgent, top-of-mind problem, while vitamins are used to help prevent something bad from happening in the future. It is important to understand the customer's priorities when selling a product, as it is easier to sell a pain killer due to the urgency, but old habits die hard. When selling a vitamin, it is best to understand what prompts the customer to think about the calamity your product helps them avoid.

Why Agile and Roadmaps Don’t Mix

This article discusses how to use Agile project plans to express goals to stakeholders without using Gantt timelines. The steps outlined include defining KPIs, identifying hypotheses, prioritizing hypotheses, testing hypotheses, and presenting updates on KPIs. It is important to get consensus internally before proceeding, and to track KPIs in real time. When presenting to stakeholders, the goal is to show whether KPIs are moving.

Transitioning from an Engineer to a Product Manager

A software engineer looking to transition into a product management role should ask themselves questions about the type of role they are looking for, what aspects of PM interest them the most, and what aspects they have the least experience with. To gain knowledge and skills for the desired role, they should talk to their current PM, observe the UI of apps they use, and take intro courses to pricing and finance. When hiring a PM, industry specific skills and knowledge are important, as well as decision making skills and sound reasoning.

Defining Your Personal Space by Increasing Productivity

This article outlines the tools and techniques used by the author to stay productive and organized in the face of a demanding workload. These include scheduling time-bound events on Google Calendar, using text files to track individual tasks, using followupthen.com for emails that require a timely response, using Gmail filters to label and skip the inbox for system-generated messages, and using Slack etiquette to keep up with group chat. The author also suggests scheduling a recurring calendar event to get to inbox and Slack zero, and using the mute feature on Slack to focus on work.

Executing Continuous Delivery

This article discusses the successful implementation of continuous delivery at LivingSocial and LearnZillion, which allowed for safe code shipping without the need for complicated and time-costly infrastructure. It outlines the individual responsibilities, smallest overlap of responsibilities, sacred master branch, Twelve-Factor App methodology, test suite, automated QA test suite, and dashboards that were used to achieve this goal. It also highlights the importance of trust and the ability to go directly to production from development. In conclusion, continuous delivery is a viable alternative to continuous deployment that can provide the same benefit of safe and consistent product delivery.

Creating a Livable, Enjoyable, and Rewarding Environment to Be an Ops Engineer

This article discusses how to treat operations engineers well, including maintaining a sane software engineer to ops engineer ratio, deploying during working hours, having reasonable maintenance windows, assuming it's a software issue until ops is proven guilty, making space for proactive ops engineering, and checking in regularly. It also emphasizes the importance of not letting employees drown in work, practicing continuous delivery, and paying ops engineers competitively.

Managing Teams Across Broad Time Zones

When working with teams across different time zones, it is important to consider the issues of delegating responsibility and building trust. To address these issues, we have implemented a front-end and back-end team structure, sent engineers to work in other countries, changed meeting times, and provided end of the day updates on a shared channel. Additionally, each site was given a meaningful mission to ensure they felt like they were contributing to the overall story.

Creating and Tailoring a Skills Grid for a New Engineering Group

This article outlines the process of creating a new engineering group in a new country. The author developed a matrix to clarify expectations and provide clear goals for success. They also provided reference training materials and compensation bands for each level. The author also learned lessons such as getting and using data, establishing ladders early, and communicating changes.

Working with an Overseas Manager

After a misunderstanding with his manager, the author took action to ensure that his manager was kept up to date on his work. He implemented weekly catch up calls and sent notes after meetings with his manager's peers. Through this, he learned that his job was to make his manager's work life easier and that regular, informative catch up calls were necessary to maintain a balanced routine.

Balancing and Prioritizing Your Professional and Personal Life

This article discusses the challenge of balancing personal and professional life, and how one woman managed to prioritize her son's sporting event over an important work presentation. She chose to delegate the presentation to a trusted team member, and in doing so, realized that she did not have to do everything and that there are always options and choices.

Leveraging Your Internal Network for Career Growth

After three years with a company, the team the protagonist was on decided to restructure and their role would no longer exist. Rather than sticking through the process, they reached out to a colleague in another department who mentioned an opening on her team. After speaking to the manager, the protagonist was offered the job on the spot. This experience taught them the importance of leveraging their internal network and being bold and courageous when reaching out to people.

The Magic of the Remote Organization

Mike Hansen, head of product development at a fully remote organization, outlines the benefits of a remote model, such as a level communications playing field, easier access to all team members, and improved quality of life. He also emphasizes the importance of time zone overlap and avoiding a mixed model of co-located and remote members.

Preparing Your Pitch and Specifying Your Process for Hiring

When hiring software engineers, it is important to have a well-honed pitch that explains the company's mission and the engineering team's opportunities for autonomy and mastery. The hiring process should be kept to a minimum of interactions, and the candidate should be checked for close-ability from the start. Time-boxing the offer and tracking the process are also important. Other best practices include practicing the pitch often, being responsive and sensitive to the candidate, and using an online tool for code challenges.

The Essentiality of Identifying ‘Who You Are’ When Hiring

Hiring software engineers is becoming increasingly competitive due to demand from traditional businesses. As a result, it is important for hiring managers, engineering teams, and companies to be aware of their own management style, values, and skills when beginning the hiring process. Additionally, managers should be mindful of their impression on potential candidates, and teams should assess their own values and skills. Companies should also have compelling anecdotes ready to convey their culture to candidates. Lastly, managers should learn how to listen, interrupt, and be respectful of the candidate's time.

Guiding Your Direct Reports Onto Their Own Career Paths

The author, early in their management career, assumed that their direct reports wanted to follow the same career trajectory as them. However, they soon realized that it was their job to help their direct reports figure out their own career paths. To do this, the author gave their direct reports professional development opportunities, such as attending meetups and conferences, and encouraged them to speak at these events. Through this, the author learned that it is important to be open-minded about the career growth of their direct reports and to support them in whatever career trajectory they choose.

Aligning Direct Reports’ and Manager Expectations

This article discusses the importance of creating a personalized document that outlines the expectations of both the manager and the direct reports. The document includes a mission statement, values, manager expectations, expectations of direct reports, details, and an evaluation and compensation cycle. It has been useful for onboarding new members and for performance management. The document acts as a contract between the manager and direct reports, providing evidence of expectations and fair warning of what is expected.

How to Be an Effective New Manager

A successful transition from individual contributor to manager requires a shift in mindset from focusing on one area to keeping an eye out and harmonizing the overall situation. To do this, the manager should have regular one-on-one meetings with their team members and use an ancient Egyptian story of the king as an eye to symbolize the importance of paying attention and observing.

Aligning Performance Management Across Countries At Different Stages

As a Technology Executive, the author faced the challenge of aligning performance figures across three different development centres in Europe with different mentalities and backgrounds. To tackle this, the author created an agenda that included skill development, focus areas, and a collaboration component. After several sessions and follow-up discussions, the author was able to create a unified goal set for the entire company that included collaborative tasks and shared KPIs. This example shows how an obstacle can be turned into an opportunity.

Managing M&A transitions as Middle Management

During a 3-year period of global economic downturn, a large software technology company experienced 3 re-orgs and 2 mergers. The Healthcare Division was impacted by budget cuts and roadmap decisions being put on hold. To address the challenges, the leader of one of the large teams implemented an "over communication" drive which included weekly team communication, 1:1 outreach, monthly senior leadership calls, and mapping of team expertise and product knowledge. This enabled the team to stay together and transition to new product teams with zero attrition. The outreach efforts also helped to retain the team with high morale.

Starting out as a Leader in a New Company

This article outlines the steps taken by a new leader of a product development team to transition properly. The leader spent time with the previous leader to understand the team and their strengths and challenges. They also spent 1:1 time with each team member to share their strengths, management principles, and expectations. The leader also spent time understanding the product portfolio and customer perspective. The article also provides lessons learned such as being approachable and available, listening to conversations, establishing trust and credibility, empathizing with the team, and communicating regularly.

Defining Your Product as a Painkiller or a Vitamin

This article discusses the difference between a "pain killer" and a "vitamin" product, and how to categorize them based on who you are selling to and how they are used. Pain killers are used to solve an urgent, top-of-mind problem, while vitamins are used to help prevent something bad from happening in the future. It is important to understand the customer's priorities when selling a product, as it is easier to sell a pain killer due to the urgency, but old habits die hard. When selling a vitamin, it is best to understand what prompts the customer to think about the calamity your product helps them avoid.

Why Agile and Roadmaps Don’t Mix

This article discusses how to use Agile project plans to express goals to stakeholders without using Gantt timelines. The steps outlined include defining KPIs, identifying hypotheses, prioritizing hypotheses, testing hypotheses, and presenting updates on KPIs. It is important to get consensus internally before proceeding, and to track KPIs in real time. When presenting to stakeholders, the goal is to show whether KPIs are moving.

Transitioning from an Engineer to a Product Manager

A software engineer looking to transition into a product management role should ask themselves questions about the type of role they are looking for, what aspects of PM interest them the most, and what aspects they have the least experience with. To gain knowledge and skills for the desired role, they should talk to their current PM, observe the UI of apps they use, and take intro courses to pricing and finance. When hiring a PM, industry specific skills and knowledge are important, as well as decision making skills and sound reasoning.

Defining Your Personal Space by Increasing Productivity

This article outlines the tools and techniques used by the author to stay productive and organized in the face of a demanding workload. These include scheduling time-bound events on Google Calendar, using text files to track individual tasks, using followupthen.com for emails that require a timely response, using Gmail filters to label and skip the inbox for system-generated messages, and using Slack etiquette to keep up with group chat. The author also suggests scheduling a recurring calendar event to get to inbox and Slack zero, and using the mute feature on Slack to focus on work.

Executing Continuous Delivery

This article discusses the successful implementation of continuous delivery at LivingSocial and LearnZillion, which allowed for safe code shipping without the need for complicated and time-costly infrastructure. It outlines the individual responsibilities, smallest overlap of responsibilities, sacred master branch, Twelve-Factor App methodology, test suite, automated QA test suite, and dashboards that were used to achieve this goal. It also highlights the importance of trust and the ability to go directly to production from development. In conclusion, continuous delivery is a viable alternative to continuous deployment that can provide the same benefit of safe and consistent product delivery.

Creating a Livable, Enjoyable, and Rewarding Environment to Be an Ops Engineer

This article discusses how to treat operations engineers well, including maintaining a sane software engineer to ops engineer ratio, deploying during working hours, having reasonable maintenance windows, assuming it's a software issue until ops is proven guilty, making space for proactive ops engineering, and checking in regularly. It also emphasizes the importance of not letting employees drown in work, practicing continuous delivery, and paying ops engineers competitively.