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January 9 · Issue #126 · 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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Starting 2022 with fresher eyes I hope you all had a wonderful and healthy end to 2021 and a great start to the new year. Hopefully, you found some time at the end of last year to reflect (see Issue #122 if you missed out) but now is the time to take action. Here are some actions you might want to try:
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Declare Email Bankruptcy - If you have lots of unread emails in your inbox that are older than a couple of weeks, will you really get around to reading them? Typically if something is important, it’ll come back so now is a good time to empty your email inbox and try to keep your inbox to a manageable size (aim for Inbox Zero, but honestly I have <10 items I use as reminders).
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Reset your calendar - You may not be lucky enough to have your CEO remove all your recurring meetings, so try doing this for yourself to get on top of your calendar. Defragment your calendar by grouping related activities to create more focused time. Consider if you need to really add that recurring meeting. Maybe now’s the time it’s better replaced with something that’s asynchronous (and likely more remote-friendly).
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Commit to a new behaviour for 30 days - Try doing something differently for 30 days and it might become a new habit that lasts throughout the year. It might be as simple as setting aside 15 minutes to read, checking in randomly with a person in your company to build relationships, or practising gratitude.
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If you have a yearly goal, put in a mechanism to remind you - There are many simple things you can do like adding a sticky note on your monitor or bathroom mirror or reserving time in advance (end of Q1, etc) in your calendar. For me, I sometimes change my computer password to a passphrase as a reminder, and I currently have an email wallpaper with text that reinforces my own goals.
A new year is a great time to try out one small action or do something differently. If you want to share what you’re trying with me, let me know via email. Enjoy this week’s newsletter and be sure to pass it on to a friend or colleague.
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Start your year with an experiment
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Keep shipping fast — even as your company grows As your business grows, software development tends to slow down. Swarmia gives you the insights and tools you need to keep shipping fast without compromising culture or quality.
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100 Women in Tech to Watch in 2022
Reading time: 3mins One of my yearly traditions is to look at my Twitter feed and see if it is tapped into diverse perspectives and that I’m not finding myself in an echo chamber. This list might inspire you to follow new role models and learn about the perspectives of different leaders in tech. |
Why Emotionally Intelligent Leaders Follow the Rule of Zero Off-Hours Email to Improve Their Employees Lives, Backed by Science
Reading time: 4mins
Jeff Haden (@jeff_haden) explains the science and reasons why you should avoid emails out of hours. Help your staff start the new year well and try using the “ Schedule for later” feature in Slack or “ Schedule send” in Gmail. Also beware for those of you with remote workers in Portugal as contacting them out of hours is illegal.
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Five takeaways from looking for a new senior role in tech
Reading time: Reading time: 17mins Newly minted Global CTO of Picpay, Phil Calçado (@pcalcado) details his experience on a topic that is not often talked about - how to find a senior (management) role in tech. Some great insights and practical take-aways. |
Click the banner to find out new dates for this online interactive workshop
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Tech predictions for 2022 and beyond
Reading time: 13mins Amazon.com’s CTO, Werner Vogels (@werner), offers his five predictions of what might be in store for us this year and beyond. Read this with a grain of salt that he’s naturally going to be biased towards the AWS ecosystem. Interesting nevertheless. |
Uncomfortable Truths in Software Engineering
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Measuring Software Complexity: What Metrics to Use?
Reading time: 19mins Do you have a new year’s resolution to reduce complexity in your software system? If so, this article from Matthieu Cneude (@Cneude_Matthieu) will prove useful. It’s great to know a number of different metrics to measure complexity and track progress. |
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🌟🌟🌟 Reach thousands of engineering leaders around the world. Maybe you want to share a leadership role you’re looking to fill? Interested in becoming a sponsor? Get in touch for details. 🌟🌟🌟 |
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Engineering Manager Forum
Reading time: 9mins
Dan Na (@dxna) details a relatively easy-to-implement tool to foster learning and build a support network for Engineering Managers. He provides some practical structure on how you might get started 🚀
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Engineering managers: How to reduce drag on your team
Reading time: 13mins
Chris Fraser (@de_fraz) details four factors that typically create drag for your team and the things you can try to address each of them.
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Inspection and the limits of trust
Reading time: 9mins Although I’m a big fan of generating as much autonomy as possible, the situational leadership model reminds us that sometimes managers and leaders need to inspect to provide additional support before spectacular failure. Will Larson (@lethain) describes why and how. |
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You’re probably underinvesting in platform work 👇
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Another common question I’m answering working with scaling tech companies is…
Q. How much of your r&d spend should be focused on platform work?
A. 50%, and most teams are way off what it should be. Let me explain…🧵 (1/21)
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Although I’m not sure about the order, these are certainly useful practices to look into (and start using if your team is not) 👇
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IMHO, 5 practices having biggest impact on software quality (in order of magnitude):
1. Pair/Mob Programming
2. Refactoring Techniques
3. Modular Design Principles
4. Test Driven Development
5. Code Review
Practicing all can change the rules of the game.
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If you enjoyed this newsletter, please send me feedback and share it with others! |
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Patrick Kua, Postfach 58 04 40, 10314, Berlin, Germany
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