🥭 Speaker Announcement, Attracting Diversity, Measurements, Rule of Eight, Systems Thinkers, Mise En Place: TMW #263 by CTO Craft
Hello folks! Welcome to the week
Last week we announced the first tranche of confirmed speakers for the CTO Craft MiniCon on Hiring on May 31st. We're over the moon that so many amazing thought leaders have offered to get involved - it's a subject that clearly touches every industry and every kind of engineering team. If you want to understand how some of the biggest organisations are squaring up to the talent challenge, you need to be there. And it's free, too!
Here's who's on the agenda so far:
- Jacob Kaplan-Moss, Engineering Leader and Co-Creator of Django
- Luca Rossi, Founder at Refactoring.fm
- Laura Tacho, Engineering Leadership Coach and Consulting CTO/VPE
- Jessica Zwaan, Chief Operating Officer at Whereby
- Roy Rapoport, Director, Corporate Engineering at Netflix
- and more to be announced very shortly
We're currently talking to potential sponsors for the MiniCon - if you're interested in a conversation, drop me a reply here!
That's it, on with the show
Andy @ CTO Craft
CTO Craft MiniCon - The Complete Engineer Hiring Arc in 3 Hours
Demand from start-ups through to corporates is outstripping supply and pushing wage inflation and candidate rejections. Join us for free on May 31st for 3 hours of in-depth insights from some of the world’s leading experts in Hiring Engineers, and learn how they’ve sustained successful team growth through COVID and the Great Rethink.
CTO Craft Bytes
CTO Craft Bytes: 5 ways to attract and retain diverse talent in tech roles - Fri 29 Apr at 12:30pm BST
In the current climate of ongoing competition to hire and retain talent in the tech industry, it’s imperative to look at different ways to source diverse talent and focus on tried and tested methods to retain diverse talent.
Reads of the Week
How to Freaking Find Great Developers By Having Them Read Code
When hiring developers, there are many things we are looking for, but over the years I have found that raw coding ability is easily the most important quality to look for.
We Need Someone Who Has Done "It" Before
Have you (or your company) tried repeatedly to hire for Role X? And failed? Do you have a revolving door situation at your company?
About our Partners
A huge, huge thanks to our partners for supporting CTO Craft in 2022 - you’re all amazing!
AWS, CircleCI, Code Climate, Karat, O’Reilly, Pentalog, Indiespring, Skiller Whale, The Software House, iTechArt, LinearB, Lohika, Albany Partners, 101 Ways, PGS Software, Steamhaus, Swarmia
🥝 🥝 If you’re interested in reaching thousands of senior technology leaders and decision makers, drop a reply to this email to see our Partnership Opportunities! 🥝 🥝
Culture & People
Five Measurements You Should Make and Then Ignore (Plus One to Watch Intently)
Are we succeeding as a software team? Well, if our job were feature delivery, we could look at the parade of JIRA tickets in our “complete” column. That is only part of our job, though. The purpose of a software team is to provide valued capabilities to customers, internal or external.
The rule of eight for strong decision-making meetings
When you have more than eight participants, you either need to change the format of the meeting, or you need to restructure the participants (and you usually want to do some deeper work on communication and organizational structure).
Annual Performance Reviews Ruin Everything
There is hardly an area of work, psychological safety, growth, collaboration or equity that annual performance reviews don’t undermine. Think I’m exaggerating? Have I got a (long) post for you….
Software Engineering Teams Jelling Cost
When you have multiple teams falling behind, and you have new hires, do you peanut-butter those new hires across all your teams, or do you staff one team accordingly before moving to the next?
Self-direction: navigating agency and responsibility
Sometimes, the signal for imbalance will be clear: you may notice you have not been able time-wise to work on your area of interest for more than a week or two, or a manager may have signaled to you that you’re slipping on some responsibilities. Oftentimes, the signal is more diffuse.
Leadership & Self-management
When your coaching questions freak someone out
In my workshop on mentoring, coaching, and sponsoring, I talk about the difference between these three skills and how to employ each effectively. We spend a lot of time talking about what makes a good coaching question, like: make sure the question starts with the word “what,” be genuinely curious and open-ended (not leading), and keep it short and sweet.
The Curse of Systems Thinkers (Part 1)
Somewhere between 15 and 20 years ago, I worked for a company. It was a very prestigious company, and it was a glorious and frustrating time. The company did amazing things. Literally unbelievable achievements - from my point of view anyway.
20 soft skills that will make you a better engineering leader
In growth conversations where engineers might feel stuck or unsure about where to invest in growth next, I ask them to Score how well they think they are doing at each of the items below I score how well I see them do as well Compare notes and discuss to align Take 2-3 items they care about and scor
How to Manage Your Anger at Work
We’re all a little angrier these days. The sustained level of stress and fear you experience every day when you’re under pressure depletes your emotional resources, making you much more likely to get mad, even at minor provocations. While we’re often told that anger is harmful, irrational, and should be suppressed, there are ways to channel it productively.
Agile, Engineering & Product
Software Mise en Place
I am really, really into cooking. In the heady days of 2016 I regularly threw dinner parties for 30+ people. These days I don’t hate myself that much, but it’s still a big part of my life.
The Anatomy Of A Rotten Codebase
Code rots. Just like everything else in life. It's one of those analogies I keep coming back to. But rotten code isn't just a problem those spoiled, nit-picking developers have to deal with.
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