all posts tagged 'management'

Poets and Police


šŸ”— a linked post to randsinrepose.com » — originally shared here on

As a self-declared Poet, I can confidently describe the Police because it is a job requirement that develops strong working relationships with these essential humans. I need them because the Police do the challenging work of keeping the trains on time. This isnā€™t simply holding conductors to a schedule but also maintaining the trains, taking care of the track, and ensuring we have a qualified staff of humans to do all this work. Oh, and how about a budget? How are we going to afford all of this? Someone needs to build a credible business plan for this train company so we can afford to keep the trains on time.

As a self-declared Poet, we also need to understand the aspirational goals of this train company. I also understand the importance of consistently sharing this vision with everyone. I know we need to listen because we need to understand how the company feels. Iā€™m adept at organizing teams of humans with differing ideas and skills. Itā€™s an endless puzzle that I enjoy attempting to solve. I love celebrating our victories. I feel our failures deeply, but I know that with the Police, we will learn from these failures.

Iā€™ve spent a lot of my life thinking my personality is Police, but I think itā€™s because Iā€™ve been ashamed to admit Iā€™m actually a Poet.

My kids used to watch Daniel Tiger, and there was a song on there that went, ā€œEveryoneā€™s job is important, we all help in different ways.ā€

Our society needs Police equally as much as we need Poets.

Continue to the full article


Why Canā€™t I Motivate Myself To Work?


šŸ”— a linked post to youtu.be » — originally shared here on

Leave it to Cal Newport to show up in my algorithm and give terminology to part of the struggle Iā€™ve faced for several years now: deep procrastination.

Deep procrastination is when youā€™re physically unable to work up the motivation to do work that needs to be done. Even with external pressures like deadlines, your body is unable to find the drive to do the thing.

This is different from depression because deep procrastinators were still able to feel joy in other areas of their lives, but not work.

He also mentions dopamine sickness, an effect from being constantly rewarded by quick hits of dopamine for an extended period of time.

If you are dopamine sick, you are unable to focus for long periods of time because your brain is literally wired for short term wins, not for deep, difficult thinking.

His solutions to both of these problems are infuriatingly simple: use an organizational system to handle doing these tasks, make hard tasks easier, use time boxing, remember your vision for your life and aim your work toward that.

In the video, Cal says, ā€œwe appreciate hard things when we know why weā€™re doing them.ā€ It reminds of the episode of Bluey called ā€œRagdollā€ where Bandit agrees to buy the kids ice cream only if they are able to physically put his body into the car to drive them to the ice cream place.

After a series of mighty struggles, Bluey is finally able to take a lick of an ice cream cone and is instantly greeted with a moment of euphoria, made possible only after all that hard work.

There are several pieces of content that Iā€™ve consumed today which are all colliding into one potential blog post about how Iā€™m deciding to be done with my crippling anxiety. Maybe after this video, Iā€™ll pull out my laptop and start some deeper writing.


Choose Boring Technology


šŸ”— a linked post to mcfunley.com » — originally shared here on

I saw this article referenced while reading Bill Millā€™s recap of relaunching a website, which in and of itself is a delightful read for those of us who nerd out on large-scale system architectures.

I am almost certain Iā€™ve read Danā€™s piece on boring code before, but I wanted to share it here because it serves as a great reference for those of us who are sick of making bad tech stack decisions for bad reasons.

In particular, the ending here sums up my experience consulting with many different tech teams:

Polyglot programming is sold with the promise that letting developers choose their own tools with complete freedom will make them more effective at solving problems. This is a naive definition of the problems at best, and motivated reasoning at worst. The weight of day-to-day operational toil this creates crushes you to death.

Mindful choice of technology gives engineering minds real freedom: the freedom to contemplate bigger questions. Technology for its own sake is snake oil.

The teams which move the fastest are the ones who are aligned on a vision for what is being built.

Often, these teams hold a ā€œstrong opinions, loosely heldā€ mentality where they decide what tools theyā€™ll use, and theyā€™ll use them until they no longer solve the problem at hand.

Put another way: in a business context, experimenting with your tooling is a huge organizational expense that rarely yields a worthwhile return on investment.

Your focus should be on what you are building rather than how youā€™re building it.

Continue to the full article


What are you getting paid in?


šŸ”— a linked post to approachwithalacrity.com » — originally shared here on

A long time ago, a manager friend of mine wrote a book to collect his years of wisdom. He never published it, which is a shame because it was full of interesting insights. One that I think a lot about today was the question: ā€œHow are you paying your team?ā€

With this question, my manager friend wanted to point out that you can pay people in lots of currencies. Among other things, you can pay them in quality of life, prestige, status, impact, influence, mentorship, power, autonomy, meaning, great teammates, stability and fun. And in fact most people donā€™t just want to be paid in money ā€” they want to be paid some mixture of these things.

When I was in college, the phrase ā€œitā€™s all about the perksā€ became something I ironically said often when people described their jobs.

Iā€™m realizing as I get older just how true that axiom is.

Continue to the full article


An Unreasonable Investment


šŸ”— a linked post to randsinrepose.com » — originally shared here on

You want some free leadership advice? You build yourself by buildingā€¦ by helping others. The selfless act of helping humans will teach you more about being a credible leader than any book.

Your career is not your job. Itā€™s the humans you help along the way.

Continue to the full article


Dependency rejection


šŸ”— a linked post to amontalenti.com » — originally shared here on

Dependencies seem to be all around us, both in the real world, and in programming. And they are perniciously distracting in just this way. Have you ever noticed how rare it is for you to just do something?

If so, you might have been worrying, up front, about dependencies.

Being a senior developer means you spend most of your time stressed out about the optimal way to get something shipped.

But I donā€™t just see that stress manifest in my professional life. Ask my wife how many side projects around the house she wants me to do that have not even been started.

Itā€™s why I admire people who just start projects with no fear.

And itā€™s a trait I find myself trying to instill in my children, who will naturally jump into a task with both feet and zero regrets while Iā€™m impatiently hovering over them, fretting about ā€œsafetyā€ and messes thatā€™ll need to be cleaned up.

Continue to the full article


The Engineer/Manager Pendulum


šŸ”— a linked post to charity.wtf » — originally shared here on

The best frontline eng managers in the world are the ones that are never more than 2-3Ā years removed from hands-on work, full time down in the trenches. The best individual contributors are the ones who have done time in management.

And the best technical leaders in the world are oftenĀ the ones who do both. Back and forth. Ā Like a pendulum.

Continue to the full article


I Accidentally Saved Half A Million Dollars


šŸ”— a linked post to ludic.mataroa.blog » — originally shared here on

I saved my company half a million dollars in about five minutes. This is more money than I've made for my employers over the course of my entire career because this industry is a sham. I clicked about five buttons.

Oof, this is a very good read that hits pretty close to home. Iā€™ve seen stuff like this in several organizations Iā€™ve worked with.

I wonder why itā€™s so prevalant?

Continue to the full article


Can't Be F*cked: Underrated Cause of Tech Debt


šŸ”— a linked post to jesseduffield.com » — originally shared here on

ā€™But,ā€™ you say, ā€˜premature optimisation is the root of all evil! Duplication is better than the wrong abstraction! Donā€™t be an architecture astronaut!ā€™

The developers Iā€™m thinking about already know of all those takes and have internalised them long ago. They know that sometimes ā€˜good enoughā€™ is the right choice given the constraints of a project. They know that sometimes you need to cut scope to stay on-track. They know that sometimes itā€™s better to wait to learn more about a domain before rearchitecting a system. And yet in spite of those constraints their output remains golden. These are hard working motherf*ckers whose diligence and perseverance put other devs to shame.

Other devsā€¦ like me.

Sometimes, I just CBF.

Continue to the full article


How to Limit What You Say "Yes" To


šŸ”— a linked post to explorewhatworks.com » — originally shared here on

Iā€™d like to offer a tool to put in your emergency kit for shifting self-sabotage to self-care and going from overcommitted to well-resourced. And that is managing for whole capacityā€”rather than simply time or money. In other words, donā€™t ask, ā€œCan I squeeze this in?ā€ when presented with an opportunity. Ask, ā€œDo I have what I need to do this well?ā€

Continue to the full article