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April 17 · Issue #140 · 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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Reflecting on in-person workshops I was asked quite frequently if I have a preference for in-person or remote workshops, but having done both now for many years, I don’t find one better than the other. Each is different. This is true for many organisations and software architecture. It’s all about trade-offs. It reminded me of our human trait for hedonic adaptation (AKA we don’t get as much pleasure from the same activity day after day). After going for so long without any in-person interaction, it reminded me of the value of ad hoc conversations with people around tea/coffee and lunch breaks. The in-person interactions reminded me how much easier it is as the course host to “temperature check” the room by walking around and silently observing group energy levels. I’m sure there was also a huge difference for participants to focus easier when present in the room instead of having the distractions of email/slack/twitter in the background or interruptions when home-life blends into work-life due to children, pets or other unpredictable events. Having said that, the jetlag doesn’t seem to be getting any easier as I age and there is a significant “fixed overhead” in travel time and cost. With remote workshops, I’m able to reach more people in difficult to reach destinations with less overhead on both sides. For one version of my Shortcut to Tech Leadership workshop that I ran aimed at US East/Europe time, I had someone join in from New Zealand where it was 2am there time! 🤯 This would not have been possible with an in-person experience. I’ve found remote workshops also require a stricter structure to keep them engaging and high energy. While this keeps the flow going and prevents a “loud person” from dominating activities and conversations it also makes the more serendipitous conversations harder to experience. Like a lot of you are probably finding, the answer is rarely one or the other extreme but both. Having some in-person events are great for building relationships, understanding and empathy. Remote workshops are great for creating focused work but feel more transactional. Although each region and country are in different stages, I challenge you to reflect on the interactions you have and to see if there’s a way to experiment with an alternative format. Are you getting the benefits you want? What are you trading off? What might you try differently? Enjoy this week’s newsletter and please pass it on to a friend or colleague who might benefit.
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It's been a while since I got to visit New York and see Grand Central Station
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Being VP Of Engineering Is Harder Than Being CEO We always hear about how difficult it is to be a CEO, but Ori Keren says being a VP of Engineering was much harder.
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How to grow your impact beyond your team
Reading time: 10mins The folks over at LeadDev recently published an article of mine aimed at Senior Engineers, Staff or Principal Engineers trying to increase the scope of their impact.
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Humans+Tech Podcast - Sarah Wells
Podcast: 56mins (transcript reading time: 54mins) The wonderful folk behind the Humans+Tech podcast, Amy Phillips and Aaron Randall recently interviewed Technical Director of Engineering Enablement at the FT, Sarah Wells (@sarahjwells). This interview covers many great insights including her technical leadership journey so far.
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Encouraging a change-ready mindset: 7 tips from CIOs
Reading time: 9mins Our world is full of change today, whether or not people want it or are ready for it. This article from Carla Rudder (@carlarudder) shares seven short tips from industry CIOs on how to guide people through change and uncertainty.
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How to improve your listening skills? Here are five tips
Reading time: 4mins More leaders in tech would benefit if they listened better but many don’t realise hearing something is not the same as listening. Read this article by communications expert, Laurie Brown (@laurie_brown) to understand what you can do to improve your listening skills.
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Want to level up your technical leaders skills? Sign up for upcoming courses in May
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Update on the Atlassian outage affecting some customers
Reading time: 5mins Many of you are either aware or directly affected by the biggest outage I’ve seen for a long time from such a heavily used product like the Atlassian suite. Communication, or rather a lack of, has led to many frustrated people. CTO Sri Viswanath (@sriviswan) finally addressed this with a public article acknowledging the issues and hinting at some of the causes and actions being taken.
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A year with serverless at BBC Online
Reading time: 7mins I’ve learned so much from reading case studies in tech so I like sharing them further. In this one, Johnathan Ishmael (@Mirdin) reflects on a year’s progress of adopting serverless including some of the reasons they went down this path, some of the challenges and successes they’ve had.
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Inside the Bitcoin Bust That Took Down the Web’s Biggest Child Abuse Site
Reading time: 76mins (long read warning!) If you like criminal investigations, this captivating story will pull you into a place that intersects modern tech and the darker side of society that can abuse it. Such a well-written article by Andy Greenberg (@a_greenberg) but comes with a trigger warning that this covers topics like child abuse and suicide.
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Effective Remote Work is out in print
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Prioritization is a Political Problem as Much as an Analytical Problem
Reading time: 9mins Product and engineering leaders tend to be analytical, and we think of prioritization as an algorithmic problem. Unfortunately, other execs see a different kind of problem which Richard Mironov (@richmironov) outlines in this article and I’ve seen many many (far too many) times.
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The Rise of the Triple Peak Day
Reading time: 8mins Microsoft recently shared some research based on studying how people used Teams, coming to the conclusion that knowledge workers had two productivity peaks in their workday: before lunch and after lunch but a third peak emerged during the pandemic. Note: They describe it as productivity, I would describe this as activity 😅
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A great thread about incentive and why you need to consider the broader system. Click the tweet below 👇 to expand and read the rest of the thread.
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FAANG promo committees are killing Kubernetes: A Short Thread 🧵
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Good software architecture takes both debate and iteration.
You need trust on a team for both.
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If you enjoyed this newsletter, 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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