“Oh, we’re doing great on our end; tech isn’t the bottleneck for us.” Have you said anything along those lines recently? Many startup tech leaders have boasted about this situation in the past. Now, I’d hate to be a bottleneck, but truth be told, in most cases where I witnessed the described situation, things didn’t […]
🎶 You’re so vain, you probably think these metrics are about you 🎶. Having just wrapped up a series about profitable R&D organizations, I realized there’s one added aspect that we need to cover, and that’s aligning your own personal sense of progress, achievement, and impact with actual business value. To do that, let’s quickly […]
We’ve covered profitability in your tech team when it comes to the guiding principles, actual software, and your organization. This article will address a holy grail of highly impactful teams: innovation. How do you handle tech debt profitably? Why aren’t hackathons worth it? And more. Unprofitable Innovation I think it will be easier to discuss […]
For the vast majority of tech executives, profitability was an entirely foreign concept for years. Startups rarely aimed to reach that goal in general, and even more rarely was R&D viewed from that lens in startups. Continuing this theme of profitable tech teams, this article will focus on the people in your organization and what […]
My latest article about highly profitable R&D teams got a lot of attention, and thus, we’re continuing with that subject. We’ll start and cover first aid: how can you quickly stop the bleeding in your already unprofitable software? Unprofitable Software? First, I feel this is something we have to tackle. I still come across startup […]
Up until a year or so ago, less than 5% of startups would even consider the concept of engineering being a profitable and healthy organization. ZIRP and the financial climate meant that wasn’t really a consideration. You could continue piling up more and more coders. As the industry is going through a healthy correction, you […]
As part of the new year, I’d like to see more people being proactive and not waffling on decisions. One of the major issues is of having things that don’t suck enough. That’s when you can trick yourself into believing it’s not that bad. However, once too much time passes, it definitely is taking a […]
Seeing that the first part got some people thinking and that I managed to share some non-trivial examples of problems, here are some instances of issues you might be having and not aware of. A bit of follow-up on comments: Yes, probably the most common argument I hear is that the tech leadership is plainly […]
I know the title might be a bit provocative, but life’s too short to always sugarcoat harsh feedback. This article is a collection of real things I regularly hear from CEOs, other executives, and employees. Too often, people don’t feel comfortable saying these things to your face, so you can be wasting precious months and […]
I’ve rarely seen anyone honestly admit to being controlled by their egos at work. I’m sure you never partake in irrational thought, it’s just everyone else around you, right? The fact of the matter is that often, when I’m working with executives about issues, they already have a hunch about the right way to address […]