Work Posts 6–10 of 12

  • Coaching high performing, senior engineers to grow by doing more Great Work

    Sunday, Jan 14, 2024
    WORK
    Cover

    Coaching high performing, senior engineers is challenging because often there’s nothing they obviously need to improve. To coach them, you have to identify new opportunities which will challenge them and force them to continue growing. Oftentimes managers are able to identify these opportunities for their directs, but I’ve found it’s also possible to encourage high performing, senior engineers to work on identifying their own growth opportunities. This often leads to more exciting opportunities and more engaged engineers.

    Read more

  • People are the hardest part of software development. DISC can help.

    Monday, Nov 20, 2023
    WORK
    Cover

    Have you ever stopped to wonder why some people were easy to work with and why others annoyed you so much? The secret is that we all have different behavioral styles when it comes to work, and when we work with people who have similar styles, it’s easy-breasy, but when we work with people with diametrically opposite styles, it is very, very frustrating. DISC shines a light on those different styles and helps you work better with others and helps your team work better together.

    Read more

  • How status quo bias makes it hard for us to embrace change, personally and at work

    Sunday, Oct 22, 2023
    WORK
    Cover

    When we are faced with change, most of us react with skepticism, hesitancy, reluctance, and maybe even downright hostility. This may seem natural, but why do we react this way? The reason is that we are humans. We have emotions and biases. In this case, there are 3 cognitive biases that come together Voltron-style to create a default bias towards the status quo. But understanding them can help us overcome them.

    Read more

  • There's no manual for how to be a software engineering manager. But these will help.

    Monday, Sep 18, 2023
    WORK
    Cover
    Image from BPTrends

    I definitely didn’t know what the heck I was doing when I first became a manager way back in 2004. I was just the least bad person to fill a needed role. But over almost 2 decades of managing technical teams, I have read a lot and learned a lot from great managers around me. I’ve come to believe that there are a dozen+ resources that hit all the key points on how to be a great manager. I think these form the basis of a learning track for engineering management. I've listed them below, divided based on different stages of maturity.

    Read more

  • Speedy meetings are awesome, but not the way Google created them

    Tuesday, Oct 18, 2022
    TIPSWORK

    Google introduced Speedy Meetings in 2011, which shortens meetings from 30 to 25 or 60 to 50 minutes. The intended goal was to allow you to “prep for your next meeting or get to your next appointment if you have a packed schedule.”

    Speedy Meetings

    Sounds great, right? Unfortunately, speedy meetings the way Google has created them just don’t work. The temptation to keep the meeting going until :30 or :00 is just overwhelming. Human nature leads to people to keep talking past the supposed speedy meeting end time.

    But there is a solution. Instead of ending meetings early, I’ve found it works much better to start meetings late! Wait wait, I know this sounds crazy, but hear me out.

    Read more