Year End Clearance

Whew – what a week it’s been. There’s only drawback I can think of from being in Switzerland last week is that my work and meeting load this week has been nearly double. Given that I’m still catching up from my India trip last month, I’m quite thankful that my travel schedule is light in…

Another Friday, another week with cool things to share. I’m happily working through Steven Johnson’s newest book, Farsighted: How We Make the Decisions That Matter the Most. I’m a massive Steven Johnson fan, and this book is stories and insights about decision making – but not quick decisions like in Blink (Gladwell) or Decisive (Heath…

Should you automate everything, or nothing? Should you test everything, or nothing? How about leadership – should you dictate every detail of what your team should do, or give them no guidance at all. The answer for all of these questions – as you’d expect, is “somewhere in the middle”. In my experience, most people…

It’s that time again. Kathy Keating has a great article this week on how Engineering Leaders are Failing Themselves Netflix has open-sourced another interesting tool – Open-Sourcing Metaflow. This is a short and good video summary of one-on-one conversations with remote employees Once again, I’m working my way through Advent of Code – Day 5…

I intended for my last two posts to cover the main points of my STAR West keynote, but I neglected to mention a few of the books I referenced in my talk (which not coincidentally, are some of my most recommended books for those studying leadership. I first read Leadership on the Line as part…

It’s a sort-of-sunny day in the Pacific northwest, and I have the day off from work (which probably means I’m cleaning the garage today. Here are some links to ponder from my recent browser history. Camille Fournier posted a wonderful (and incomplete) list of skills senior engineers need, beyond coding Lisi Hocke wrote a wonderful…