8 min read

šŸ– Storytelling, Having All the Answers, Annoying Your Engineers, Trunk-Based Development, Resilience and Anxiety: TMW #419

See some of the conversations happening in the CTO Craft community...
šŸŽŸļø
Are you coming to CTO Craft Con? Tickets are still available for our London and Toronto events - come along and meet the community and learn from some of the industry's best!

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

The CTO Craft Slack community has seen some record-breaking growth in the first six weeks of 2025, with over 250 new technology leaders getting involved - we've seen activity spike in the community because of this, and it's not slowing down. Just in the last week, we've seen conversations about...

  • Choosing the right technology for an application rewrite
  • SOC2 audit recommendations
  • DPO as a Service
  • Cost modelling for personalised AI agents
  • Challenges in hiring and team dynamics
  • Integrating WhatsApp for sales automation
  • And dozens of other discussions...

Technology leadership can be really lonely, but you donā€™t have to go it alone - join the community, or join us in London on 10th and 11th March for two days packed with game-changing insights, candid discussions, and real connections with the best tech leaders in the UK and beyond. With great sessions, loads of networking, and a community that truly understands your challenges, this is your chance to find your tribe.

Secure your spot before itā€™s too late, use the code Community-Spring-25 to unlock member tickets when registering.

Want to get ahead on the networking? Join our warm-up mixer in London on 27th February - it's open to everyone, not just event attendees. Register for free here

That's it, let's look at some links...

Andy @ CTO Craft

CTO Craft Events

Don't forget, as a TMW subscriber you have access to the Member Pricing for upcoming CTO Craft Con events.  You can unlock membership pricing by using the following access codes in the checkout when purchasing tickets:

CTO Craft Con: London 2025 - Community-Spring-25
CTO Craft Con: Toronto 2025 - Community-Toronto-25

CTO Craft Mixer: London 2025
Join us for our pre-con Mixer and get to know our community of CTOs and senior tech leaders ahead of CTO Craft Con: London for a relaxed and insightful meet-up in London.
CTO Craft Mixer: Munich | CTO Craft
Connect with our community of CTOs and senior tech leaders in Munich in 2025, share insights, and set the tone for a successful year ahead.
CTO Craft Mixer: Toronto 2025
Join our community of CTOs and senior tech leaders for an informal meet-up in the Toronto area.

Reads of the Week

Corporate ā€œDEIā€ is an imperfect vehicle for deeply meaningful ideals
I have not thought or said much about DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) over the years. Not because I donā€™t care about the espoused ideals ā€” I suppose I do, rather a lot ā€” but because corporateā€¦
TBM 341: 10 Tips for Turning Around a Platform Team
Platform teams are tough work. The idea sounds great, but the day-to-day is hard. Someone recently reached out for advice with this common scenario. If you are a platform team member, you might find this helpful. Otherwise, consider forwarding it if you know a team in this situation.

Spilling the AI Tea - How CTOs are really using Generative AI

In today's rapidly evolving technological landscape, Generative AI is emerging as a game-changer for businesses across industries. We conducted a survey in partnership with our friends at Softwire to try and learn more about the day-to-day realities of AI on companies and those impacted in their leadership roles.

Read the Exclusive Report

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, Damilah, DoIT, Google Cloud, Jellyfish, Plandek, Skiller Whale, Softwire, Sema, Uplevel, 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

Effective Storytelling: Bottom Line Up Front Explained
Want to nail every presentation? Use the **Bottom Line Up Front (BLUF)** technique to grab attention instantly. Get to the point, back it with data, and make every word count. Hereā€™s how!
Leading while learning: why great managers donā€™t have all the answers
Your influence comes from creating an environment where learning is encouraged, failure is a stepping stone, and innovation thrives.
15 lessons from 15 years in tech
15 hard lessons learned from a Software Engineering Director at Oracle!
Exploring for strategy.
A surprising number of strategies are doomed from inception because their authors get attached to one particular approach without considering alternatives that would work better for their current circumstances. This happens when engineers want to pick tools solely because they are trending, and when executives insist on adopting the tech stack from their prior organization where they felt comfortable. Exploration is the antidote to early anchoring, forcing you to consider the problem widely before evaluating any of the paths forward. Exploration is about updating your priors before assuming the industry hasnā€™t evolved since you last worked on a given problem. Exploration is continuing to believe that things can get better when youā€™re not watching.

Culture, People & Teams

8 guaranteed ways to annoy your senior engineer
A comprehensive list of things that grind the gears of most software engineer, especially the seniors
Frustration Tolerance: An Essential for Surviving Large Orgs
In leadership and life, ambitions often outpace our ability to consistently execute on them. A hidden hurdle that trips up many is their level of ā€œfrustration tolerance.ā€ This is particularly true in large organizations that are literally designed to frustrate ambitions and agendas. In this piece, I unpack the critical
Measuring the Intangible: Setting OKRs for Cultural and Behavioral Change
Struggling to measure culture and behavior change? Everything is measurableā€”if you know where to look.
The 5 intensity zones of software teams
The dangers of always staying in the same one

Technology, Operations & Delivery

Common misconceptions of Trunk-based development | Bucket
When you search Google for Trunk-based development, this is the title of one of the first results: Isnā€™t ā€œtrunk based developmentā€ just a complete crock of shit? It seems there are some misconceptions to clear up.
Is ops a bullshit job?
I recently had the pleasure of reading anthropologist David Graeberā€™s 2018 book, Bullshit Jobs: A Theory. Graeber defines a bullshit job as, a form of paid employment that is so completely poā€¦
Scrum Doesnā€™t Sayā€¦
TL;DR: Scrum, at its core, is a really minimal process improvement framework. Understanding how that framework is put together will help you deal with the ghastly stretch-goal, velocity tracking, eighty-hour-work-week monstrosity thatā€™s often labelled Scrum.
What Is a Modular Monolith?
Microservices are dead, monoliths are the future!

Stress, Wellbeing & Growth

Resilience: some key ingredients
Brian Marick posted on Mastodon the other day about resilience in the context of governmental efficiency. Reading that inspired me to write about some more general observations about resilience. Noā€¦
The Power of Perspective: Managing Anxiety in Leadership ā€“ Scott Cochrane
Stop Overthinking, Start Leading: The Power of Taking the First Step
The best leaders donā€™t wait for confidence. They build itā€Šā€”ā€Šone step at a time.
Effects of Stress on the Brain: How Stress Rewires Your Mind
An overwhelming amount of evidence exists documenting the harmful effects of stress on the human body and brain, and how you can prevent it.

Thatā€™s it!

If youā€™d like to be considered for the free CTO Craft Community, fill in your details here, and weā€™ll be in touch!

https://ctocraft.com/community

Please do remember to share this link if you know of anyone whoā€™d like to receive TMW:

https://techmanagerweekly.com

Have an amazing week!

Andy