With the market downturn, this is a good time for managers to do a retrospective of their workforce planning over the last few years. …

In the context of software engineering, let’s talk about why Velocity is an unhealthy metric to measure and why DORA metrics are better. If you are a product or software engineering leader facing challenges to becoming an effective leader, I can help! I am a fractional CTO, startup advisor, and…

Another thing to consider is that as a Staff level engineer, we expect the person to be capable of coaching other senior engineers. And without demonstrating that over time, it is hard to move from senior to staff level. Good managers have ways to track these things, but it does take time and effort on top of daily responsibilities.

I have been leading and building new software engineering teams and organizations for over a decade. I often recommend additional reading materials for team members during 1:1s. Here is a list of books for software engineers (individual contributors) to read. …

Try this productivity tip out on Friday this week. This Friday, before you are about the shutdown from work for the day, try the following: Archive emails that you have read or responded to. Snooze emails to Monday 8 am that you may need to follow up on Monday. I.e…

What does it mean to focus on impacts and not efforts? Work and professional life are essentially a marathon, not a sprint. So we should focus on outcomes and not outputs. This is particularly important with small teams and startups, where resources are scarce. Leaders should be frugal with our…

What work-life balance means to a workaholic? — I took that photo when I rented a cottage and the view after a decent workday remotely last year in 2021. It took a short two decades to realize that being a workaholic is not necessarily the best thing. One thing to make clear, being a workaholic myself over the…

How to match the right product manager for your projects. — Part 3 — There are many types of product managers in the tech industry today. To drive the right results for your organization, you want to match the right product manager archetypes with projects in our organization. Match them wrong, and it can derail your teams and goals. In this series, we will…

How to match the right product manager for your projects. — There are many types of product managers in the tech industry today. To drive the right results for your organization, you want to match the right product manager archetypes with projects in your organization. Match them wrong, and it can derail your teams and goals. This is part 2 of…