8 min read

🍅 Gamifying Work, OKRs vs Strategy, Meetings, IC Accountability, Cloud Cost Optimisation, Focus, Burnout: TMW #384

See the full agenda for CTO Craft Con: Berlin
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This issue of TMW is sponsored by Campus by CTO Craft - the best resource for senior technology leaders to build skills and confidence, fast, built by CTOs for CTOs.

Hello there! Welcome to the week

Guess what? We're coming to Berlin for our very first international CTO Craft Con, on September 24th and 25th, and I'm happy to announce that the agenda is now live! We've been working hard to bring you an event that promises unparalleled insights, networking and inspirational talks for every technology leader.

Here's who's speaking at CTO Craft Con: Berlin:

  • FĂĽsun Wehrmann, Group CTO, InPost
  • Deepak Kumar, CTO, Seven.One Entertainment Group
  • Andre Neubauer, CTO, Trusted Shops
  • David Gebhardt, CTO, mobile.de
  • Hizam Sahibudeen, CTO, Shipmonk
  • Claus Höfele, Director of Engineering, On
  • Ravneet Shah, CTO, Allica Bank
  • Natasha Dimban, Board Member, L'Observatoire de la Fintech

And many more! Tickets have been flying in - if you'd like to be part of it, you can register with the community code "Community-Berlin-24" here: CTO Craft Con: Berlin tickets.

CTO Craft Con: Berlin | 24th - 25th September 2024
CTO Craft Con will bring together hundreds of 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 in Berlin, Sep 2024

Also coming up in London on June 27th is our next in-person Bytes event - Investing in AI. Come along to meet other members of the CTO Craft community, and learn about how the best startups are making decisions around how to embed AI in their ecosystem.

CTO Craft Bytes: Investing in AI - Opportunities and Pitfalls for Leaders
Over the course of the evening, we will delve into strategic investment opportunities across industries, discuss risk management strategies to navigate potential pitfalls, and share insights on future-proofing your AI investments in a rapidly evolving landscape.

That's it! On with the links - see you next week

Andy @ CTO Craft

CTO Craft Events

CTO Craft Mixers - meet other technology leaders in your area
Join CTOs and other tech leaders in your city at our informal drinks and networking events, get feedback on ideas and make life-long connections.

Reads of the Week

Why gamifying work works (and how to do it right) - Work Life by Atlassian
Fresh ways to turn your workplace woes into longer-term wins.

About Campus by CTO Craft

[From Campus] Supercharge your tech leadership knowledge

Empower your decision-making with the industry's most comprehensive learning ecosystem for senior technology leaders. Curated by renowned experts, Campus offers exclusive courses and cutting-edge insights on both technical advancements and strategic leadership models. Navigate the ever-evolving tech landscape with confidence.

Here's what sets Campus apart:

  • Developed by CTOs, for CTOs: Learn from the best. The curriculum is meticulously crafted by accomplished CTOs and technology executives.
  • Actionable Insights: Gain practical knowledge and proven strategies to elevate your performance and guide your team towards success.
  • Exclusive Community: Connect with a network of like-minded senior leaders who share your challenges and aspirations.
    Invest in your future.

Enroll in CTO Craft Campus today.

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

Leadership, Strategy & Business

OKRs ≠ Strategy — Ant Murphy
Your OKRs don’t live in a vacuum. Yet this is exactly how I see many organizations treat their OKRs. They jump on the bandwagon and create OKRs void of any context. Here’s what I see all the time…
The 10 Most Common Mistakes of First-Time CTOs, #1 and #2
I’ve made most of these mistakes myself, and see people following the same path over and over. Don’t let these mistakes limit your ability to have impact in this role.
The recipe for running your best meeting ever
Most of us have attended our fair share of bad meetings — they’re memorable for all the wrong reasons. But if you’re the person in charge…
Interview with Peter Block - Leader as Convener - Crisp’s Blog
You have been missing out on whether you are a consultant, coach, or leader and have yet to become familiar with Peter Block. We are fortunate to have Peter in this year’s leading complexity program…

Culture, People & Teams

What we found asking technology leaders if individual accountability was important and how they achieve it - Echobox Techfood
We wanted to understand how technology leaders achieved individual accountability within their teams and organisations. Or if they even thought it was important? Innovating, building and maintaining software is a team sport and it’s widely accepted that a foundational degree of accountability is essential for the effective functioning of any such team. The best teams
Accelerating Technical Decision-Making by Empowering ICs with Engineering Strategy
Carta harnesses the power of a small group of senior engineers called navigators to bridge the gap between global strategy and local decision-making, using a written engineering strategy. Navigators replace a need for consensus and boost velocity by combining technical context, domain context, strategic alignment, and judgment to make engineering decisions quickly.
Conflict
Sometimes it is useful
Key Strategies for Building High-Performance Teams in Tech
Explore the journey from forming a team to creating a high-performance tech team. Discover the stages of team development, learn about traits of high-performance teams, and uncover effective tools to enhance team dynamics for optimum productivity.

Technology, Operations & Delivery

Million Dollar Lines of Code - An Engineering Perspective on Cloud Cost Optimization
A single line of code can shape an organization’s financial future. Erik Peterson, the CTO and founder at CloudZero, presented an engineering perspective on cloud cost optimization at QCon San Francisco.
Ask questions first, shoot later
The fact that fixing and diagnosing often converge to the same actions doesn’t change the fact that these two concurrent activities have different goals. The goal of fixing is to bring the sy…
Explore The Agile Team Effectiveness Model With Your Team
A simple 90-minute workshop format to familiarize your team (and others) with the Agile Team Effectiveness model
Increase Developer Productivity With Generative AI | Toptal®
Learn techniques to unlock the power of generative AI tools for coding.

Stress, Wellbeing & Growth

HolaDev - Work-life balance, avoiding the burnout
Let’s be real, the developer life can be awesome. We’re constantly learning new stuff, building cool things, basically coding ninjas with superpowers. But with great power comes great responsibility, right? The responsibility to take care of ourselves and avoid turning into burnt-out developers.
Why can’t I focus?
Being able to focus, to do deep, meaningful work is a key skill for engineering leaders. Yet, oftentimes it seems hard to maintain a sustained high concentration level. I thought about my experiences when I struggled with this, and listed a few reasons I might have had trouble maintaining focus.
Changing How Others Perceive You. Most Importantly, Those Who Dislike You.
If you’ve found yourself on someone’s bad side, what strategies can you use to turn things around?
New study reveals signs of burnout not to be ignored
A new study highlights the importance of recognising the signs of burnout to maintain overall well-being and address the root causes before they escalate.

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