🦩 Failing Smart, Decision Frameworks, CT-Nos, Org Debt, Fancy Titles, Scope vs Thoroughness, Team Health Checks: TMW #391

Hello, hello, good to see you! It's Monday again

The Call for Papers is now open for our next London conference, in March 2025, and we've already had dozens of brilliant submissions. If you have a talk in mind and would like to deliver it to over 400 other technology leaders, this is your chance. You can also pre-register to be the first to hear about the launch of tickets for the event - as with all our previous conferences, it will sell out, so don't miss out.

We've had over 350 responses to our Spilling the GenAI Tea survey - this is heating up to be a really solid foundation for painting a realistic picture of how technology leaders are experiencing the generative AI rush in their businesses. There's still time to get involved, and we'd really like to hear from you - you'll also be entered into a draw for a £50 Amazon voucher. Thanks in advance!

That's it, on with the links...

Andy @ CTO Craft

CTO Craft Events

CTO Craft Con: Berlin | 24th - 25th September 2024

CTO Craft Con will bring together Chief Technology Officers and other senior technology leaders from the most exciting start-ups, scale-ups, unicorns, and big tech companies to elevate their engineering culture.

CTO Craft Con: Berlin 2024

CTO Craft: Conversations | CTO Craft

Welcome to the launch of our newest event: CTO Craft: Conversations! Join us for a half-day of engaging discussions and networking opportunities designed specifically for CTOs and engineering leaders. Pick from nine dynamic sessions led by industry experts and facilitators who will delve into critical topics such as: Measuring developer productivity and performance Building an aligned, engaged & resilient culture Riding the GenAI waveObservability 2.0: How we build better software Leading the charge: What happens when things go wrong These intimate roundtable discussions offer the perfect setting to share reflections, stories, experiences, lessons, and best practices with fellow leaders in similar positions. Don’t miss out on this exclusive opportunity! Due to the nature of the event, tickets are extremely limited. Secure your priority access now by pre-registering your interest today. Date: Wednesday 6th November Time: 12:00 – 18:00 Location: London Agenda: 12:00 – Registration & Lunch 13:00-18:00 – Roundtable Discussions 18:00 – Drinks Reception Register Your Interest

CTO Craft

Check out all of our upcoming Mixer events, including events in Bristol and Toronto next week - is there one happening in your city soon?

Reads of the Week

Typical First Years of Startup Engineering Leadership

All startups are very different, but many VC backed companies share common traits and fall in the same pits. In this article I share the story of such startup, their issues and how to mitigate them.

marcgg # blogMarc G Gauthier

Decision Making Frameworks

Why leaders should rely on them

Fish Food for ThoughtMike Fisher

Ending This Week: Have You Spilled the Tea Yet?

We really want to know how CTOs are actually using Generative AI in their businesses, but also how they feel about these ubiquitous new technologies. Here's the hot gossip you'll get:

• How your AI practices stack up against the industry.
• What other CTOs are REALLY doing with Generative AI.
• Insights to help you navigate the Gen AI buzz and get ahead.

Plus, you'll receive a detailed report after the survey and have a chance to win a £50 Amazon voucher.

Spill the GenAI Tea here!

About our Sponsors

A huge thanks to all our sponsors and partners, who make Tech Manager Weekly and the CTO Craft community possible:

AWS, Albany Partners, Code Climate, Coherence, HeadChannel, Google Cloud, Jellyfish, Polly, Skiller Whale, Softwire, Sema, Unblocked, Uplevel, Vention, YLD, 101 Ways

If you're interested in sponsoring TMW or any of our events, drop us a line at partners@ctocraft.com.

Leadership, Strategy & Business

Pragmatism, Neutrality and Leadership

Every year or so, some tech CEO does something massively stupid, like declaring “No politics at work!”, or “Trump voters are oppressed and live in fear!”, and we all get a good pained laugh over ho…

charity.wtfmipsytipsy

Are You a CT-NO?

A CEO once told me it felt like the CTO misheard and thought his title was CT-NO. “Can we do that? No. Is that feasible? No.” After wiping myself from having spilled my coffee laughing, I realized …

Aviv Ben-Yosef

Categories of leadership on technical teams

overall direction • people management • project management • technical leadership • example divisions of labor

benkuhn.netJose Luis Ricon

Fail Safe, Fail Smart… Succeed! (Part 2 of 3)

This is part two of Chapter 1 from It Depends: Writing on Technology Leadership 2012-2022.

It Depends / Nimble AutonomyKevin Goldsmith

Culture, People & Teams

Organizational Debt Syndrome Poses a Threat | Human-Centered Change and Innovation

Braden Kelley is a popular innovation keynote speaker creating workshops, masterclasses, webinars, tools, and training for organizations on innovation, design thinking and change management.

Human-Centered Change and InnovationStefan Lindegaard

Engineering progression - Groundwork

The path to building a career framework for tech organization

Pawel DolegaPawel Dolega 👊🏾

The Fancy Job Title Madness

Who wouldn’t want to be a “Senior Distinguished Engineer”?

Lars Richter's BlogLars Richter

Developers want more, more, more: the 2024 results from Stack Overflow’s Annual Developer Survey - Stack Overflow

Stack OverflowErin Yepis

Technology, Operations & Delivery

Honey, I Shrunk the Backlog

Five Tips For Trimming Your Product Backlog

Maarten’s NewsletterJon Odo

Scope? How about we talk about thoroughness instead? - The Engineering Manager

Maybe we’re misusing the term scope and it’s leading to bad discussions with our stakeholders. Perhaps we should discuss thoroughness instead.

The Engineering ManagerJames Stanier

Why Tech Projects Still Fail Today?

About My Personal Coding Experience

Tips and thoughts gathered throughout the yearsGheorghina Gligor

Team Size Can Be the Key to a Successful Software Project

QSM research concludes that a 3-7 people is the optimum team size for a software development project. Read the article to learn more project management best practices!

QSM Software Project Estimation

Stress, Wellbeing & Growth

How Team Health Checks Help Software Teams to Deliver

In healthy software teams, people feel psychologically safe to solve problems and contribute, Brittany Woods said in her talk at QCon London. She presented how they do team health checks and the benefits that it has brought them.

InfoQBen Linders

Improving Mental Health at Work: Strategies for a Healthier Workplace

Discover essential strategies to enhance mental health in the workplace. Learn how to balance workloads, foster a supportive culture, and implement practical tips for both organizations and individuals to maintain well-being and productivity.

Leads HorizonsAlvaro Lorente

TBM 302: Why Reflexive Thinkers Need to Take More Breaks

In this post, I will argue why people who are more reflexive, open to diverse perspectives, and cognitively flexible need to invest extra time in self-care and “switching off.”

The Beautiful MessJohn Cutler

RDEL #52: How do agile development teams build psychological safety?

This week we look at research that discovers the top factors for establishing psychological safety in engineering teams.

Research-Driven Engineering LeadershipLizzie Matusov

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:

https://techmanagerweekly.com

Have an amazing week!

Andy