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August 22 · Issue #106 · View online
Level Up delivers a curated newsletter for leaders in tech. A project by https://patkua.com. Ideal for busy people such as Tech Leads, Engineering Managers, VPs of Engineering, CTOs and more.
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Good decisions don’t guarantee good outcomes I had a recent conversation with a technical leader about opening up a technical decision. About 6 months ago, their tech team decided to review their front-end web framework as they are moving from a desktop client to a web application. They explained their decision-making process, which seemed very reasonable to me. Before starting their migration, they mapped out a number of options, described characteristics of a good solution, evaluated them through experimentation and trials and made a decision based on the data they collected. 6 months into their migration, work was progressing and the team was moving ahead well. A recent event involving people triggered this technical leader into thinking they should re-open the decision. All leaders face this struggle all the time, asking questions like, “Did we make a good decision?”, “Is there a better decision to make now?” and “Why didn’t we consider this option when we made this decision?” Our conversation reminded me of some lessons learned from the book Thinking in Bets. Don’t confuse a good decision with a good outcome. Luck and timing always plays a role, whether or not a good decision results in a good outcome. Focus on the things you can control such as the decision-making process. Don’t see decisions with a binary lens (yes/no, right/wrong, black/white). Instead, consider adding a confidence factor about when you make the decision ( 30% confidence is very different from 80% confidence). If you’re curious about how the conversation turned out, it seemed like the recent event shook their confidence about the decision, but like many architecturally significant decisions, opening up the decision would have many more downsides than the potential 5 or 10% increase in confidence they felt they might find. Your challenge this week is to look closer at what decisions you and your team make. Does your decision-making process help you improve your “bet”? Enjoy this week’s newsletter and be sure to pass it on to a friend or colleague. Want to level up your technical leadership skills? Sign up for the online workshop, “Shortcut to Tech Leadership” or take a self-paced course at the http://techlead.academy.
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Leaders make sure decisions get made in a timely fashion
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Former Chrome Team Member Takes a Dig at Hardships Behind Creating Internet Explorer
Reading time: 8mins Ex-microsoft employee Hadi Partovi recently tweeted about some of the behind-the-scenes of building Internet Explore (soon to be shut down). He also referred to the negative personal impact it had on some team members. This article captures the essence as well as a contrasting leadership style behind Chrome that didn’t. Decide what leadership style you want to cultivate from these stories.
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6 steps for leading successful data science teams
Reading time: 10mins I don’t come across many articles targeted at data science teams, so I loved reading this article from Rama Ramakrishnan (@rama100) about how you might lead data science teams differently and what to focus on. I know of many leaders who would benefit from this guide. |
IT sales were once done on the golf course. Today’s companies work differently.
Reading time: 14mins CIOs must decide on how they support the business with appropriate IT tools. This article by Joe Williams (@JoePWilliams31) explores the shift from centralised to more decentralised approach but recognises the trade-offs of less visibility and a different operating model |
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Why Doesn't Software Show Up in Productivity?
Reading time: 20mins This is such a great read to understand the nature of tech as Austin Vernon (@Vernon3Austin) explores the question, “Why doesn’t software show up in productivity?” Understanding the nature of tech (GPT or not) is a good way of understanding the impact of tech. |
The non-functional-no-value trap
Reading time: 11mins
Uwe Friedrichsen (@ufried) explores the common fallacy that only business features have business value. Everyone needs to recognise the value of system quality traits (often called non-functional requirements) and be able to explain them to others.
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AIOps Strategies for Augmenting Your IT Operations
Reading time: 8mins I enjoyed reading this article by Yoram Pollack and Matt Campbell (@BeardedCoder) which doesn’t just touch about the buzzword AIOps coined by Gartner but instead, share some practical ways organisations can benefit from applying AI tech in their operational processes. |
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Uber Eats Safety Team On-Call Overview
Reading time: 11mins I’ve connected with a number of startups recently who struggle to put together a reasonable on-call process which is why I’m including this timely article written by Uber Eats engineers Eduardo David and Josh Kline.
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Writing our Golden Path from Eventbrite
Reading time: 10mins Daniel Micol shares how Eventbrite documented company guidelines on what tools teams should use. Their approach reminded me of the Tech Radar although they use different phrases like Emerging, Recommended, Allowed, Deprecated, and Rejected. |
Why 3X is only half the story
Reading time: 4mins I love this take from @sleepyfox, who takes an iterative (or cyclic) view of growth. A wonderful explanation, connection and visualisation worth remembering. |
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A great thread about turning failure into learning
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Yesterday I had a skip level mentoring session w/a less experienced engineer. They were sharing w/me that they were the culprit of a major incident last week.
At first we talked about the usual: feeling embarrassed, ways to add better guard-rails in the future. But then 1/4
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Read this thread for some good classic lessons learned
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Hey you, the developer who just got promoted to management, I've got some advice to help you out. I did this journey 8 years ago when my boss left and I was the most senior engineer. Here's a few things I wish I knew then 🧵
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If you enjoyed this newsletter, please send me feedback and share with others! |
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Patrick Kua, Postfach 58 04 40, 10314, Berlin, Germany
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