Tech Manager Weekly by CTO Craft - Issue #169
Hi there, happy Monday!
Our CTO Craft Bytes series motors onwards - this week we'll be joined by Chris Parsons to talk about Agile Delivery and Productivity, on Friday at 12.30 UK time. Don't panic if you can't make it: the recording will be up alongside recordings of all previous Bytes sessions on the CTO Craft Crowdcast page:
📆 https://www.crowdcast.io/ctocraft 📆
We're always looking for speakers, panelists and topic ideas, for the Bytes sessions and also for the CTO Craft Blog. If you'd like to get involved, drop us a line!
Thanks to our sponsors this week, AWS andX-Team! Reply to this email if you’d like to know more about partnering with CTO Craft
Andy @ CTO Craft
How do you work with and manage an exhausted team?
Before trying to find a way to solve (and eventually prevent) the problem, it’s important to understand the causes of collective exhaustion. As a CTO, some of the triggers you’ll have direct control over and may even be contributing to.
From our Partners
Explore AI use cases and best practices - from AWS
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The Definitive Guide to Remote Development Teams - from X-Team
Nowadays, most companies will have a few remote developers, an entirely remote development team, or a remote vendor to improve their team. This guide will explain how you can hire and manage a remote development team while creating a vibrant remote culture too.
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Reads of the Week
Fear-Driven Development: Fears of A Software Developer
One developer-turned-SVP of Engineering recounts some of the fears he had as a developer and talks about what scares him in his current role.
Culture & People
How an interview code submission that wasn’t even submitted changed our process
In a previous role, I was an engineering manager for a well-known company for a particular tech stack. One way we sorted through all the applications was requiring coding tests for potential candidates. One truly stood out, and it taught me to think about what I am really looking for in these sorts of submissions.
Is my engineering team strong? Using the VFQ(H) framework to assess agile team performance
I’m grateful to Emergn for educating me on the Value Flow Quality framework. I’ve found it incredibly useful as a means to structure conversations with teams and individuals about performance. I’ve just made one modification, which is to add the fourth quality Health.
Principles for Managing a Remote Team
Over the years, I’ve been asked countless times “What’s your secret for managing a remote team?”. Most are expecting a magical tip that would make the whole remote thing easy. What I’ve learned over the past decade is there are no simple tips that make managing any team easy.
How product managers and engineers at Asana develop great relationships
A healthy relationship between Product Management and Engineering is critical to building successful products. It’s also essential to creating a team where great people want to work. When it goes well, we’re two partners working shoulder to shoulder towards a shared mission.
Can We Measure Software Developer Productivity?
Short answer: I don’t know. Before you move on though, I’d like to say that “I don’t know” here means that I know from personal experience that trying to measure a software developer’s productivity rarely (or never) ends well.
Leadership & Self-management
The Open Feedback Circle (OFC)
I realized a few years into my career that giving and receiving feedback was something I needed to figure out on my own. I’ve worked at multiple companies that claimed to have feedback cultures, but I rarely received constructive feedback from my managers outside of performance reviews.
How to Write OKRs That Don’t Suck by Adrian Howard
Consultant, coach and trainer Adrian Howard has, over the years, seen many organisations attempt to implement Objectives and Key Results (OKRs), generally in response to a sense that “everything is wrong” and with a hopeful attitude of “these seem simple and clear”.
Written communication is remote work super power
The remote work environment is different from the office. Different environments call for different communication systems.
How to Lead Decisively When You Don't Know What's Next
How do you lead decisively when you just don’t know what’s coming next? You don’t know what you don’t know, and even what you DO know you know could change.
Agile, Engineering & Product
Best practices for REST API design
Best practices on how to design REST APIs to be easy to understand, future-proof, and secure and fast.
Rethinking Ten Sacred Truths Of Agile
Given what’s happened this year, we need to rethink many things. Agile management is no exception. Although Agile firms have fared better than most, Agile cannot remain static: the spirit of Agile requires rethinking Agile management itself. Agile needs to prepare for a larger role in the world.
How to hit your Sprint commitment every time
A Sprint commitment is so often a leap into the unknown. We are asked whether we are going to be able to get certain set of stories done, and it’s such a common response to shrug our shoulders and say, “we’ll try…” In the back of our mind lurks the uncomfortable truth.
What Else?
Conflicting Reports on Remote Worker Productivity and Contentment
Remote working is becoming normal for the tech industry, with most tech employees working remotely due to the ongoing impacts of COVID-19. Studies and surveys are trying to measure the impact on productivity that organisations are seeing as a result of the shift.
That’s it!
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Have an amazing week!
Andy