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āRationalize and solveā doesnāt help someone who is venting
If youāre doing the whole servant leadership thing, youāre gonna hear some people venting frustrations. Yihwan Kim, When a 1:1 turns into a vent session: As an engineering manager, Iām 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. […]
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One priority is like wind in the sails
Itās 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 āpriorityā ā put all my energy into one outcome until itās done. Then the next one, the next […]
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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. Itās 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 […]
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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 […]
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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!
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Hire based on outcomes instead of role descriptions
The first time I hired someone, I wish Iād known itās much better to think about the outcomes youāre hiring for. With that in mind, work backwards to the experience and skills required for a person to succeed in this role.
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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 Iām starting a project or when the going gets weird, checklists are usually how I end up thinking my way through.
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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 […]
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Use a tag line that means something
I like that Ember’s tagline is about ambition.
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Use factories to create jumbo object graphs
The entire time Iāve been using FactoryBot, several years at this point, Iāve 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 […]