🍁 Call for Papers! Clear Expectations, Work Joy vs Fear, Burnout, Conway's Law, Antifragility: TMW #304 by CTO Craft
Howdy! Hope you had a good weekend
We're only a week away from the opening day at CTO Craft Con Winter 2022 - there are still tickets available, so do grab one if you'd like to take part. This week we're opening the Call for Papers for the lightning talks on day three, the Unconference day - we've had some great submissions from the CTO Craft community, but we'd love to hear from each of you as well.
The talks are 15 minutes each, and we have 12 slots altogether - to submit an idea, take a look at this helpful blog post and send us some details via the CfP Google Form.
https://ctocraft.com/blog/we-want-your-lightning-talk-call-for-papers-now/
We've put together a PDF handbook with some more information about what to expect at the Con - take a look here.
Also, don't forget we're all getting together in London this Thursday the 10th to chat about the power of professional networks, drink some drinks and eat some eats. We'd love to see you there if you're in town!
See you soon
Andy @ CTO Craft
CTO Craft Con Winter 2022 - A Conference for CTOs, by CTOs
Grab a front-row seat to the most in-depth discussions of what it means to be a senior leader in a technology organisation, how to build a solid foundation with other C-level leaders, how to ensure alignment between engineering and other functions and how to keep you and your team’s skills sharp. November 14 - 16 2022
Spotlight Q&A with Founder and Chief Coach at CTO Craft, Andy Skipper
Andy Skipper, Founder and Chief Coach at CTO Craft, talks about CTO superpowers, networking tips and the forthcoming CTO Craft Con.
It’s Your Turn: We Want Your Lightning Talk Call for Papers Now!
Call for Papers submissions are open for Lightning Talks on day 3 of the CTO Craft Winter Conference NOW.
CTO Craft Bytes
Bytes London - Networks for Tech Leaders: Creating, Using and Nurturing Tickets, Thu 10 Nov 2022 at 18:00
Whether you’re part of the C-suite or you deal with C-suite members, building your network inside and outside of your own business is a fundamental part of your role as a senior technology leader
In celebration of CTO Craft Con Winter 2022, happening 14th - 16th November, we’re hosting an in-person Bytes on 10th November at ARBORETUM, London. Join us for an informative evening with experts and networking.
From our Sponsors
Velocity Next: Maximizing the Business Impact of Engineering - from Code Climate
Join Code Climate on Nov 10th in NYC for an interactive event filled with delicious food, top shelf drinks, and expert perspectives, as we discuss strategies for turning engineering insights into business impact.
About our Sponsors
Thanks as always to the amazing sponsors helping CTO Craft bring you resources like this newsletter, our events, community and more:
AWS, Albany Partners, Code Climate, Google Cloud, iTechArt, Jellyfish, LinearB, Lohika, 101 Ways, O’Reilly, PGS Software, Pentalog, Skiller Whale, Swarmia, YLD
Culture & People
Getting clear on expectations with the GETSET model
It’s easy in this situation for leaders to fall prey to the fundamental attribution error where we attribute another’s actions to their character or personality, while attributing our own behaviour to external situational factors outside of our control. In other words, we tend to cut ourselves a break while holding others 100 percent accountable for their actions!
The Thinking Team
When the manager thinks productively and empowers the team to think productively too then great things can happen which includes creating an environment of psychological safety that in turn generates innovation. But how can a manager empower their team to think or how can they create an environment that encourages team members to think freely?
Work Joy vs. Work Fear
Coming from a recent team with fear problems due to an unreliable manager, I’m so grateful to have jumped quickly into action once her issues became clear. You can do it too. When a manager shows their true stripes it is unlikely that they are going to improve.
Who do you promote? 5 Qualities of a Good Leader
As your team grows, there’s increasing pressure to develop good leaders within your team. At some point (~10 direct reports) you can’t manage everyone yourself. The logical thing to do is to get help. The best help is someone already in your company, and ideally on your team.
Leadership & Self-management
How to Present a Strategy in 6 Slides
Strategic thinking is a trait that separates executors from leaders. When your boss asks you to create a strategy, know that you’re being given an opportunity to prove that you’re a leader.
It’s not you. A mental model for addressing burnout
Last week I was on a panel addressing the topic of burnout. It’s a topic that pops up with some frequency, yet the misconception that burnout is a personal problem seems to persist. Burnout isn’t something you can solve by doing breathing exercises or starting a bullet-journal.
What Should I Be Doing Right Now? The Director’s Edition
The expectations of Directors seem to be the fuzziest in the corporate ladder. That is because Directors are, as Matt Trunnell (ex-Netflix) described it, “The highest ranking, yet still technical, person who can stand in for a line manager if needed.” Because of this, the functions a Director can perform span a wide range of strategic and tactical things.
Why Feedback Hurts
My job often feels like it largely involves having conversations with people (and whether or not that’s true, having conversations with people is certainly my favorite part of the job).
Performance Review: How to respond to frustrating or lazy performance feedback
This heartfelt post came from years of listening to high-performing employees vent their frustrations about the stupid things their managers said.
Agile, Engineering & Product
Conway's Law
Pretty much all the practitioners I favor in Software Architecture are deeply suspicious of any kind of general law in the field. Good software architecture is very context-specific, analyzing trade-offs that resolve differently across a wide range of environments.
Optimal Use of WIP Limits
Work-In-progress (WIP) is a concept that originated in the Lean manufacturing movement. In both a financial and operational sense WIP is considered a form of waste: work that has been done and paid for but is providing no benefit to the customer or the company.
The Case For Using Lines of Code In Metrics
Are you nuts? Maybe, but let’s dive a bit further and see where we end up!
Understanding Antifragility and Black Swans, and How They Impact to Your R&D Organization
Building a highly functioning software development team is not an easy task. It requires patience and persistence with hiring the right people, maintaining quality of delivery, and promoting your desired culture.
That’s it!
If you’d like to be considered for the free CTO Craft Community, fill in your details here, and we’ll be in touch!
https://ctocraft.com/community
Please do remember to share this link if you know of anyone who’d like to receive TMW:
Have an amazing week!
Andy