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🥐 Engineering Strategy, Micromanagement, Failure, Visible Teams, Org Design, Weak OKRs, Overload, On-Call: TMW #425

Check out all our upcoming live and virtual events
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Thanks to RiverSafe for sponsoring this issue of Tech Manager Weekly - experts in Cyber Security, DevOps, and Application Security

Hello again, welcome to the week!

April is packed with opportunities to connect with the CTO Craft community: join us in Manchester (24th April) for CTO Craft Bytes, where we'll explore lean tech leadership, followed by an unconference segment where you can pitch topics and deliver lightning talks.

Prefer virtual events? On 30th April, we’ll be hosting a fireside chat on The Human Edge: Cultivating IT Talent in the Age of AI.

As a CTO Craft community member, you're the first to hear about new events and access exclusive discounts.

CTO Craft Con: Toronto early bird tickets end soon! Meanwhile, super early bird tickets and the call for content are now live for CTO Craft Con: Berlin.

You can check out all of our events here:  https://ctocraft.com/events/

Andy @ CTO Craft

CTO Craft Events

Here are all the upcoming CTO Craft Con events, along with your exclusive access code for discounted subscriber tickets - see you soon

CTO Craft Bytes: The Lean Tech Leadership Playbook - Maximum Impact with Minimum Resources | CTO Craft
Learn practical strategies for building high-performance engineering teams with Tim Benjamin of Softwire. Discover lean methodologies, MVP redefinition, flow optimisation, outcome-based development, key metrics, and AI’s role in scaling with limited resources.
CTO Craft
CTO Craft Virtual Bytes: Future-proof your IT Talent Acquisition Strategy in the Age of AI | CTO Craft
Join CTO Craft Virtual Bytes on April 30, 2025, for a fireside chat with Ash Gawthorp, Chief Academy Officer at Ten10, as we explore strategies for future-proofing your IT talent acquisition. Learn how to build a workforce ready to embrace AI and bridge the tech skills gap with innovative hiring models and a focus on continuous learning.
CTO Craft

Want to meet other TMW subscribers and CTO Craft Community members in your city? See all upcoming Mixers in cities around the world here.

Reads of the Week

Steps to build an engineering strategy.
Often you’ll see a disorganized collection of ideas labeled as a “strategy.” Even when they’re dense with ideas, these can be hard to parse, and are a major reason why most engineers will claim their company doesn’t have a clear strategy even though my experience is that all companies follow some strategy, even if it’s undocumented. This chapter lays out a repeatable, structured approach to drafting strategy. It introduces each step of that approach, which are then detailed further in their respective chapters. Here we’ll cover:
Irrational Exuberance
A Field Guide to Rapidly Improving AI Products – Hamel’s Blog
Evaluation methods, data-driven improvement, and experimentation techniques from 30+ production implementations.
Hamel's BlogHamel Husain

From our Sponsors

[From RiverSafe] Scale Faster, Reduce Risk.

Most engineering teams struggle with inefficiencies, security risks, and bottlenecks in software delivery. Internal Developer Platforms (IDPs) solve these problems by standardising workflows, automating processes, and improving developer experience. This guide cuts through the noise, explaining what IDPs are, why they matter, and how to implement them for maximum impact. No fluff, just actionable insights to help you scale efficiently, reduce cognitive load, and ship better software faster.

Read the guide now – no forms, no barriers

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, RiverSafe, Skiller Whale, Softwire, Sema, Uplevel, Vention, YLD and many more

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

Leadership, Strategy & Business

Micromanagement
Psychological Safety and Micromanagement By Jade Garratt Those who have followed our work at Psych Safety for a while will know that we believe exploring not just what to do – the behaviours and practices that support psychological safety – […]
Psych SafetyJade Garratt
Failure Again
Not all failures are the same
Fish Food for ThoughtMike Fisher
How to fix a weak OKR in 10 Minutes
A checklist for quickly diagnosing and improving vague or ineffective OKRs.
Jeff GothelfJeff Gothelf
8 Impactful Ways To Build Trust With Your Engineers
Because without it, you’ll fail.
Engineering Manager’s JournalAlex Ponomarev

Culture, People & Teams

How to Protect Your Scarcest Innovation Resource: Engineering Focus | Built In
Digital transformation strategies stuck in the mud? It could be a sign that your engineering teams are juggling too many different priorities. Here’s what to do.
Built InNeeha Curtis
Vitamin D for Engineering Teams: Visibility
Did you know that Vitamin D deficiency affects around 42% of people in the US and around 1 billion worldwide?
The Healthy Engineering LeaderSebastiano Armeli
Choices in Organizational Design
And not a mention of Conway’s Law in sight!
JoTJeff
Synchronous Work, Asynchronous Work
We often talk about teams working
Neward & AssociatesTed Neward

Technology, Operations & Delivery

Avoid overloading your platform engineers
Antipatterns and how to avoid them
Engineering StrategyAleix Morgadas
Revenge of the junior developer | Sourcegraph Blog
The latest instalment from Steve Yegge on viiiiibe coding and what that means for developer jobs.
SourcegraphSteve Yegge
Breaking Up with On-Call
This article is about why on-call in it’s current state in big-tech is flawed, or how to properly develop software.
Alexey Karandashev
AMC Plan Visualizer Tool: Agile Forecasting for Accurate Plans - Mountain Goat Software
Learn how to help stakeholders see what can be accomplished, by when, with the Plan Visualizer tool, free for AMC members.
Mountain Goat SoftwareMike Cohn

Stress, Wellbeing & Growth

What high performers know about doing hard things
The mindset, habits, and brain science behind pushing through
The Caring Techie NewsletterIrina Stanescu
From Whine to Win: Transforming Complaints into Actions
Transform complaints into action by asking, ‘What do you expect from me?’ Foster trust and focus on outcomes in your team.
Candost's Blog
Thanks, But No Thanks: Avoiding Unhelpful Help at Work | Working Knowledge
Teresa Amabile’s research shows how asking for help effectively prevents frustration and saves time.
Harvard Business SchoolTeresa M. Amabile
In a Slump at Work? Here’s How to Motivate Yourself.
Poor performance management, lack of visibility, repetitive routines, and restricted growth opportunities can result in feelings of frustration, stagnation and boredom. Maybe you have a boss that doesn’t see your potential. Maybe there’s lots to do, but none of it excites you. In an uncertain economy, making a career move might not feel realistic or desirable. Especially for remote workers, there might not be many opportunities for organic networking opportunities. Here are five ways to reignite motivation at work: Review past feedback on your performance to create a mini performance review, seek a stretch assignment, explore opportunities to shadow others, strengthen skills by sharing knowledge, and recognize incremental wins.
Harvard Business ReviewOctavia Goredema

That’s it!

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Have an amazing week!

Andy

Published by:

Andy Skipper