During the Second World War, the CIA created a short manual called Simple Sabotage. It had instructions on how citizens of enemy countries can take steps to harm their own governments’ efforts, in case they didn’t agree to their actions. While containing information about using inadequate tools, misplacing orders, and so on, it contains several […]
Tech executives, especially those coming from a substantial hands-on background, naturally gravitate towards focusing on rote delivery. In my work, I often see clients toting grandiose roadmaps that boil down to “we will do what Product has asked,” but less succinctly. Of course, delivery is essential. If you don’t deliver, no one cares how nice […]
When smart people hear both parties separately and understand there’s a miscommunication, they can seldom stop themselves from intervening and helping them bridge the communication gaps. I have to fight this urge all the time when I’m sitting down at clients and interview several people. When a VP Engineering proudly describes having helped two directors […]
Your team starts a 2-week sprint. You have the sprint kick-off ritual, they commit to a bunch of tasks, and off you go. Putting aside the actual delivery of the tasks, ten workdays have gone by, and now you’re at the end of the sprint. You might have a quick retrospective ritual to come up […]
What would you do if you were told you could not hire anyone with seniority? Oh, and that 90% of your employees would leave when they reach three years in the company? That might sound like an impossible task, but that pretty much how the technological units in the Israeli army work. I’ve served there […]
Imagine having an IC whose manager describes like so: Doesn’t follow up. Doesn’t communicate when things are taking longer than expected. Rarely even estimates and commits to a time frame. Cannot show tangible results over the past six months. Sounds terrible, right? I’m sure you wouldn’t want to thatperson’s manager. It sure doesn’t seem like […]
Having discussions with multiple tech executives every day, I get to see the kinds of questions they are spending their brain cycles on getting answers for. It might be questions that they are coming with to me, or that as we are sitting someone barges in with an “urgent” issue. Observing this, I notice the […]
A common occurrence with technical people who have grown to leadership positions is to appear secretive and nontalkative. Whatever worked when you were a senior engineer doesn’t always map that well as you progress, and that becomes more acute the higher up you get. Reasons might include low EQ, being introverted, or merely thinking all […]
As the tech industry keeps getting more and more bizarre and given the state of the market and extremely high demand for engineers, I keep seeing companies go at great lengths to coddle their teams. It’s one thing to create a work environment that people enjoy coming to, and that enables hiring great talent. It’s […]
Look back and consider what those things that a year ago you were set on seeing improvements on that you or your organization are still struggling with today are. Have you been working hard on issues without getting the gains you thought will manifest by now? Here are a bunch of examples I’ve witnessed my […]