🧑‍🎨 Knowing-Doing Gap, Flat Tech Teams, Data-based Decisions, Monkey Business, Abundance, Busywork: TMW #401

Hello, hello, hello! It's Monday...

Those of you in Slack or at our Berlin conference a couple of weeks ago will know that we've just launched Super Early Bird tickets for CTO Craft Con: London in March next year. The agenda is coming together nicely, and tickets are already selling fast - as with all our previous events, this one will sell out, so do grab your ticket if you'd like to come and join 450+ other senior technology leaders for two days of outstanding talks, networking, roundtables and all sorts of other activities.

Use the access code "Community-Spring-25" to enable member pricing: grab your ticket here.

In honour of the launch, we've included some recordings of previous events in the sections below - enjoy!

Until next week...

Andy @ CTO Craft

Reads of the Week

Monkey Business

In 1999, Harvard Business Review published Management Time: Who’s Got the Monkey? This article uses a monkey metaphor to warn managers about accepting and carrying every problem that comes their way on their backs instead of deflecting or passing on such issues to others. It has been a popular article—I encountered it in multiple conversations. The metaphor of a monkey on the back is easy to explain. The metaphor is so powerful that it motivated me to address some root causes when I first came across it.

CTO Craft Events

CTO Craft Con: London is back on 10th-11th March!

Join the tech leadership community for insights, networking, and strategies to elevate your teams. Super early bird tickets are live with code Community-Spring-25. Don't miss out!

Secure your spot!

CTO Craft: Conversations

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.

CTO Craft: Roundtables

CTO Craft Bytes: Next-Gen Engineering: Metrics, Strategies, and GenAI

Explore optimising engineering performance with strategic metrics & GenAI. Discover practical tips to enhance productivity & drive success.

CTO Craft

From our Sponsors

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AWS, Albany Partners, Bucket, Code Climate, Coherence, Damilah, DoIT, Google Cloud, Jellyfish, Plandek, Skiller Whale, Softwire, Sema, Vention, YLD

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

Leadership, Strategy & Business

How an abundance mindset makes better OKRs

We often set goals as if our target market is finite. What if we set goals with abundance mindset? Here is what our OKRs would look like.

Jeff GothelfJeff Gothelf

Tech Exec Growth Curves

Continuing on the thread of local maxima in careers, I realized that people don’t consider their growth in relation to the organization around them. Growth is relative. You might be constantly grow…

Aviv Ben-Yosef

Founder Mode: A sign you have yet to, or failed to, hire the right people and build the right…

Why founder-mode is a cop out as you grow your business.

MediumAmir Shevat

RDEL #62: Why does the “knowing-doing gap” exist, and how can engineering leaders overcome it?

This week we explore the gap between knowing and applying leadership skills, and how engineering leaders can bridge it to enhance team performance.

Research-Driven Engineering LeadershipLizzie Matusov

Culture, People & Teams

The secret to scaling up and down seamlessly: a three-team strategy | CTO Craft

Damilah Founder Iain Bishop reveals his secrets to scaling up and down seamlessly with a three-team strategy.

CTO CraftIain Bishop

Thriving in Chaos or Seeking Certainty: The Key Traits for Successful Teams

Dealing with ambiguity is a hot topic in many workplaces. Having strong sense of closure might be more important. Well, let’s find out!

Level Up CodingAndrew Winnicki

Eric Garside as CTO at Freshly: how flat should the tech team be?

As a team grows, it is important to add more layers of hierarchy, but knowing when to do this is among the most subtle of the decisions a leader has to make.

Respectful LeadershipLawrence Krubner

Technology, Operations & Delivery

Modeling impact of LLMs on Developer Experience.

In How should you adopt Large Language Models? (LLMs), we considered how LLMs might impact a company’s developer experience. To support that exploration, I’ve developed a system model of the developing software at the company. In this chapter, we’ll work through: Summary results from this model How the model was developed, both sketching and building the model in a spreadsheet. (As discussed in the overview of systems modeling, I generally would recommend against using spreadsheets to develop most models, but it’s educational to attempt doing so once or twice.) Exercise the model to see what it has to teach us Let’s get into it.

Irrational Exuberance

The importance of data when making decisions in the engineering industry

A real-world example of how data can help us make the right decision!

Engineering LeadershipGregor Ojstersek

5 Ways to Create Accurate Estimates Agile Teams & Orgs Trust

The pressure for guarantees can ruin agile plans. Learn 5 ways to create accurate estimates that teams and stakeholders can depend on.

Mountain Goat SoftwareMike Cohn

Stress, Wellbeing & Growth

TBM 313: Chat, Breathe, and Reflect

When a situation becomes more dynamic and uncertain, it is important to do three things:

The Beautiful MessJohn Cutler

Sorry, Too Busy!

Busywork helps us bury our heads in the sand

Management MattersEmily Sheen

7 Deadly Sins of Psychological Safety | QAspire Consulting

Language plays a crucial role in building a culture of safety. This post outlines ways to communicate psychological safety (and seven deadly sins)

QAspire Consulting | Change Consulting | Visual Facilitation | Leadership Development | Graphical Recording | Sketchnotes & Visual Thinking | IndiaYour name*

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