Adam Keys is typing

Developer and engineering manager at large

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  • June 12, 2021

    ā€œRationalize and solveā€ doesn’t help someone who is venting

    If you’re doing the whole servant leadership thing, you’re gonna hear some people venting frustrations. Yihwan Kim, When a 1:1 turns into a vent session: As an engineering manager, I’m learning that a big part of my job (perhaps my only job) is to help people solve problems. I happen to enjoy solving problems myself. […]

  • June 1, 2021

    One priority is like wind in the sails

    It’s true that I can scale myself, teams, and organizations to walk and chew gum at the same time, but it is surprisingly effective to focus on one thing at a time. This is the essence of ā€œpriorityā€ — put all my energy into one outcome until it’s done. Then the next one, the next […]

  • May 8, 2021

    Planning focuses our ideas

    Planning is essential. But, not too much. Mostly in the next 90-day window (with apologies to Michael Pollan). Humans are, with few exceptions, awful at planning. It’s impossible to see the future. We rely on our previous experience over data too often. Or, not enough. Or, in the wrong combination for this scenario. Beyond a […]

  • April 29, 2021

    Working, directly & small

    Omar Rizwan recollects that one of the original selling points of React was that you could consolidate all the HTML, CSS, and JS for a single component in one file. No navigating across large directory trees to find the one line of code that implements the behavior you want. Far less worrying “if I change […]

  • March 3, 2021

    Let them go their own way

    A mistake many newly minted (and some experienced) engineering managers (EMs) make is listening to their team (good!), discussing potential solutions and tradeoffs (good!), and then telling them how to solve the problem. Whoops!

  • January 27, 2021

    Hire based on outcomes instead of role descriptions

    The first time I hired someone, I wish I’d known it’s much better to think about the outcomes you’re hiring for. With that in mind, work backwards to the experience and skills required for a person to succeed in this role.

  • January 10, 2021

    The unreasonable effectiveness of checklists

    Checklists are a fantastic tool for thinking. This despite the existence of GTD, Kanban, PARA, and any number of ways to organize projects and figure out how to finish them. When I’m starting a project or when the going gets weird, checklists are usually how I end up thinking my way through.

  • October 19, 2020

    Onboard new teammates with a 90-day plan

    My new boss had written up a 90-day plan for me the week before I started. This was perfect timing. I was already starting to put a bow on my current work and my focus was wandering. Now my brain could start working on ideas for the next gig. Plus, I had a much better […]

  • October 5, 2020

    Use a tag line that means something

    I like that Ember’s tagline is about ambition.

  • September 17, 2020

    Use factories to create jumbo object graphs

    The entire time I’ve been using FactoryBot, several years at this point, I’ve used it one factory at a time: company = create(:company, name: "Acme, Inc.") alice = create(:user, name: "Alice Smith") posts = create_list(:post, 3, user: alice) Do you see the mistake I make all the dang time? Spoiler alert, I forgot the company […]

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