Tech Leadership Weekly

Issue 75, August 2, 2017

Sam McAfee
The Dangers of Measuring Performance

Effective organizations have shifted from an operational mindset to a customer-facing mindset. The most valuable metric is the the speed at which your team can deliver work to customers. Empower small teams to deliver single pieces of work and optimize as they learn. The productivity of each individual is more closely aligned to the system rather than their individual skills.

Reading Time: 8 minutes
 

Brenda Jin
Technical Leadership: Getting Started

Working well with others is the hardest, and most important, part of software engineering. To be effective, you need to be able to work with others. Find alignment with your team and your organization. Focus on becoming an expert, and improve areas of weakness. Share your knowledge by teaching and showing. Develop consistency by taking on a variety of different types of projects. Listen, and synthesize information and context to the team.

Reading Time: 8 minutes
 

Lila MacLellan
The ultimate case against using shame as a management tactic

The air traffic controllers community has long operated as a blameless culture.  When problems do occur, the core issues that led to the mistake are addressed.  The concept of psychological safety is beginning to move to other industries. When employees feel safe raising concerns, the team can be collaborate and creative. Learning from mistakes rather than blaming leads to better productivity.

Reading Time: 6 minute
 

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