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Awesome List of Engineering Team Management Knowledge
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Awesome List of Engineering Team Management Knowledge

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# 👔 Awesome Engineering Team Management



A compilation of advices, anecdotes, knowledge tidbits, discussions, industry small-talks and rants. A bibliography of sort, gathered the last few years while transitioning my career from a software engineer to an engineer's manager. And later from a manager to a manager's managers (you all love recursion right? ʘ‿ʘ).



It is on this substrate that I crafted my management style, as I found anchoring the later with [the usual labels](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Management_style#Types_of_management_styles) is way too limiting and short-sighted. Limiting as management is both of an art and a science. And short-sighted as a style shouldn't be taken at face-value and always be sensible to our fellow humans talents and the business context of the company.



## Contents



- [Engineering to Management Transition](#engineering-to-management-transition)

- [Building Teams](#building-teams)

- [Roles](#roles)

  - [Executives](#executives)

  - [Managers](#managers)

  - [Engineers](#engineers)

  - [Consultants](#consultants)

- [Recruitment](#recruitment)

- [Motivation](#motivation)

- [Culture](#culture)

- [Cognitive Tools](#cognitive-tools)

- [Team Dynamics](#team-dynamics)

- [Remote Work](#remote-work)

- [Meetings](#meetings)

- [Product Management](#product-management)

- [Project Management](#project-management)

- [Agile](#agile)

- [Key Performance Indicator (KPI)](#key-performance-indicator-kpi)

- [Objectives and Key Results (OKR)](#objectives-and-key-results-okr)

- [Training](#training)

- [Literacy](#literacy)

  - [Knowledge](#knowledge)

  - [Reading](#reading)

  - [Documentation](#documentation)

  - [Writing](#writing)

- [Career](#career)

- [Compensation](#compensation)

- [Politics](#politics)

- [Re-organizations](#re-organizations)

- [Stress & Burnout](#stress--burnout)

- [Setbacks and Failures](#setbacks-and-failures)

- [Exits](#exits)



## Engineering to Management Transition



The first step. The hardest: how to requalify oneself from an Individual Contributior (IC) to a front-line manager.



* You always been a developer. Being offered [a management position is not a promotion. It is a change in career](https://fractio.nl/2014/09/19/not-a-promotion-a-career-change/).

* [17 Reasons not to be a Manager](https://charity.wtf/2019/09/08/reasons-not-to-be-a-manager/) - An article to [discourage the faint-hearted recruits](https://youtu.be/b07887ZzKiw?t=40).

* [Advice to new managers](https://twitter.com/ValaAfshar/status/966125964861280256) - 9 fundamental principles of the behavior required to be a great manager.

* [Going from Developer to Manager. What should I know or learn?](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18823616)

* [How to be a Manager – A step-by-step guide to leading a team](https://getweeklyupdate.com/manager-guide) - A full, detailed guide on modern management practices.

* [On being an Engineering Manager](https://ruiper.es/2018/01/15/on-being-an-engineering-manager/) - Some of these points needs nuance, but others are a good taste of things to come for first-time managers.

* [Responsibility vs. accountability](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21892816) - The biggest difference between manager (accountable) and engineers (responsible): `“Bad things” happen for the person accountable, whereas the person responsible can move on to the next project.`.

* `It is a job where your goal is to try disappoint people most slowly.` ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18222488)).



## Building Teams



Whether you inherit an already existing team or have to start from scratch, you'll need to practice the art of building (and consolidating) them.



* [Building and Motivating Engineering Teams](http://www.elidedbranches.com/2016/11/building-and-motivating-engineering.html) - What DO engineers want? Money, purpose and respect.

* [Paper we love: Software Engineering Organizations](https://github.com/papers-we-love/papers-we-love/tree/master/software_engineering_orgs) - `The practice of software engineering, and its history is, itself, a complex study in humanity, coordination, and communication.`.

* [Teams are like bread](https://blog.jessitron.com/2019/06/15/teams-are-like-bread/) - `If you have one team where the magic is flourishing, don't kill it. Feed it, grow it, and let it be a source of further strong teams. No rushing.`.

* [Developer Tropes: "Google does it"](https://tomaytotomato.com/developer-tropes/) - It's [cargo-cultish](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult) to imitate the big names in our industry as a path to success. Instead, the take home from this article `would be that managers and other leaders should be like ecologists; who measure, observe and nurture their ecosystems. Doing so will help build a unique workplace that will yield great results.`.



## Roles



On the profiles, attitude, behaviors, and expectations between developers, managers and executives.



### Executives



Executives are the senior/highest management layers of a company. They reports to a board of directors in bigger companies, or directly to the shareholders in smaller ones. Leadership is expected at this level. As a manager these are the people you report to.



* [What do executives do, anyway?](https://apenwarr.ca/log/20190926) - Paraphrasing [Andy Grove's book, High Output Management](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0679762884), `the job of an executive is: to define and enforce culture and values for their whole organization, and to ratify good decisions.`. The article also details the failures modes of a CEO: forcing his own decisions downstreams, or various ways of not resolving conflicts.

* [Executives ratify decisions made on the spot](https://twitter.com/kdeldycke/status/1088001688722644992) - Refines the concept above adapting [Tolstoy's thesis to business](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18089716).

* [Army Leadership and the Profession](https://fas.org/irp/doddir/army/adp6_22.pdf) - Establishes and describes what leaders should be and do.

* [US Air Force's Strategic Leadership Studies](http://leadership.au.af.mil/sls-skil.htm) - A reference of leadership's competencies and skills.

* [What Only the CEO Can Do](https://hbr.org/2009/05/what-only-the-ceo-can-do) - TL;DR: `1. Defining and interpreting the meaningful "outside" of the company; 2. Answering the two-part question: What business are we in and what business are we not in? 3. Balancing sufficient yield in the present with necessary investment in the future; 4. Shaping the values and standards of the organization.`.

* [How CEOs Manage Time](https://hbr.org/2018/07/the-leaders-calendar) - A study on what CEO of large companies spent their time on, and how. Opens a new window into what leadership is all about and into its many components and dimensions.

* [Operations and Internal Communication Strategies For Effective CEOs](https://www.sametab.com/blog/operations-and-internal-communication-strategies-for-effective-ceos) - After insisting on the importance of context and narratives, the author provide an interesting template (good for inspiration) of ritual and recurring internal communication devices.

* [Narcissistic CEOs Weaken Collaboration and Integrity](https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/narcissistic-ceos-weaken-collaboration-integrity) - `The prototypic visionary leader profile is so similar to that of a narcissist, if boards aren't careful, they’re going to end up choosing people who are narcissistic as CEOs`.

* `Hiring isn’t the challenge. The challenge is finding people who can be effective while working for executives whose only qualifications and training are narcissistic levels of self confidence.` ([source](https://twitter.com/kellan/status/1205113384632500224)).



### Managers



* [What are the signs that you have a great manager?](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20230133) - `The irony is that you don't really notice a great manager.`

* [Identify what makes a great manager](https://rework.withgoogle.com/guides/managers-identify-what-makes-a-great-manager/steps/learn-about-googles-manager-research/) - Google tried to prove managers don't matter. Instead, it discovered [10 Traits of the Very Best Ones](https://www.inc.com/scott-mautz/google-tried-to-prove-managers-dont-matter-instead-they-discovered-10-traits-of-very-best-ones.html).

* `Over the years we have developed the policy that it is important for the supervisor to thoroughly know and understand the work of his group.` ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20683609)) - Echoes articles above, that quote is [from David Packard](https://www.amazon.fr/dp/0060845791) (HP co-founder), decades before current [management fad](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Management_fad).

* [As a product manager, how do you earn the respect and trust of your team?](https://twitter.com/johncutlefish/status/1124938723093766144)

* [Great PMs don’t spend their time on solutions](https://www.intercom.com/blog/great-product-managers-dont-spend-time-on-solutions/) - Not on solutions, no. But on customer's problems.

* [Things I have learnt as the software engineering lead of a multinational](https://minnenratta.wordpress.com/2017/01/25/things-i-have-learnt-as-the-software-engineering-lead-of-a-multinational/) - Some interesting points here, some others needs to be challenged.



### Engineers



* [7 absolute truths I unlearned as junior developer](https://monicalent.com/blog/2019/06/03/absolute-truths-unlearned-as-junior-developer/) - TL;DR: `1. I’m a senior developer; 2. Everyone writes tests; 3. We’re so far behind everyone else (a.k.a. tech FOMO); 4. Code quality matters most; 5. Everything must be documented; 6. Technical debt is bad; 7. Seniority means being the best at programming`.

* [On Being A Senior Engineer](https://www.kitchensoap.com/2012/10/25/on-being-a-senior-engineer/) - `I expect a “senior” engineer to be a *mature* engineer.`

* [Things I Learnt from a Senior Software Engineer](https://neilkakkar.com/things-I-learnt-from-a-senior-dev.html) - `I sat next to a senior software engineer for a year. Here’s what I learnt.`

* [5 Things I’ve Learned in 20 Years of Programming](https://daedtech.com/5-things-ive-learned-in-20-years-of-programming/) - `A programmer with 5 years of experienced has more industry tenure than half of the entire industry.`. Also see this follow-up comment of [10 things I've learned after 35 years](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21612990).

* [Devs I really enjoy pairing with](https://twitter.com/ScribblingOn/status/1002598672444448768).

* [All the best engineering advice I stole from non-technical people](https://medium.com/@bellmar/all-the-best-engineering-advice-i-stole-from-non-technical-people-eb7f90ca2f5f) - `It’s intriguing that the stuff that really seems to make a difference in the quality of software never seems to be about software.`

* [What Makes A Great Software Engineer?](https://faculty.washington.edu/ajko/papers/Li2015GreatEngineers.pdf) - This papaer doesn't present any clear answe, but a model based on 53 attributes (!). Still a good source referencing other papers on the topic.

* [Google Engineering Practices Documentation](https://google.github.io/eng-practices/) - Best take away:



* [Choose Boring Technology](http://boringtechnology.club) - `Boring in the sense that it’s well understood.`

* [Technical Debt Is Like Tetris](https://medium.com/s/story/technical-debt-is-like-tetris-168f64d8b700) - Another way to explain technical debt: `Scenarios like these create technical debt within the product code. A buried gap in Tetris represents technical debt. (…) Paying down technical debt keeps you competitive. It keeps you in the game.`.



### Consultants



* `A consultant is someone 4 pages ahead in the manual` ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20786286)).

* `The value that most orgs get from a consultant (…) is the political cover to make changes they knew they should make all along, but didn't have the social capital or the focus to make those changes` ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21714791)). And that's the reason bureaucracies and highly political organizations are fertile grounds for consultants.



## Recruitment



* [Back-End Developer Interview Questions](https://github.com/arialdomartini/Back-End-Developer-Interview-Questions) - A great source of inspiration.

* [Reverse interview](https://github.com/viraptor/reverse-interview) - Questions to ask the company during your interview. Be prepared to answer them as a manager.

* [Hire people who aren't proven](https://leonardofed.io/blog/startups-hiring.html) - If anyone else in the world can objectively say this is a great player, you and your startup won't be able to hire the player. Someone will steal him from you. You have to go after people that aren't proven. In short, you need to be extremely good at forecasting talent.

* [Organizational Skills Beat Algorithmic Wizardry](https://prog21.dadgum.com/177.html) - `When it comes to writing code, the number one most important skill is how to keep a tangle of features from collapsing under the weight of its own complexity.`

* [Secret manager trick of hiring data scientists](https://twitter.com/kdeldycke/status/1008383946831417344)

* [Hiring Without Whiteboards](https://github.com/poteto/hiring-without-whiteboards) - List of companies without the kind of CS trivia questions that are associated with bad interview practices.



## Motivation



* [Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc)

* [3 tricks to start working despite not feeling like it](https://www.deprocrastination.co/blog/3-tricks-to-start-working-despite-not-feeling-like-it) - `"Screw it, let's do it"; Start sloppy; Start small`.

* [Some reasons why enterprise software is good and maybe even fun](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21231455) - The majority of us will not build the next unicorn: we statiscally have a better chance to build enterprise software. The twist? It might even be more interesting than you expect.

* [US spy manual has tips for coping with toxic bosses](https://qz.com/work/1717297/how-to-cope-with-a-toxic-boss-according-to-a-us-spy-manual-from-wwii/) - Derived from WWII-era [Simple Sabotage Field Manual](https://www.cia.gov/news-information/featured-story-archive/2012-featured-story-archive/CleanedUOSSSimpleSabotage_sm.pdf), a classic read to spot harassing and demoralizing behaviors.



## Culture



* [hacker-laws](https://github.com/dwmkerr/hacker-laws) - Laws, Theories, Principles and Patterns that developers will find useful.

* [Adaptation vs adaptability](https://people.clas.ufl.edu/ulan/files/Conrad.pdf) - There is a spectrum between perfect efficiency and being completely flexible. This article explores ecosystems and the flows of material and energy between different organisms within the ecosystem. ([hinted by HN comment](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20963513))

* [The IT revolution and southern Europe's two lost decades](https://voxeu.org/article/it-revolution-and-southern-europes-two-lost-decades) - If you still doubt management culture could make or break an industry: `inefficient management practices have kept southern European firms from taking full advantage of the IT revolution`.

* [Meaningful differences that makes Google offices more productive](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20443133) - TL;DR: `The people are smarter, your manager (and their manager) cares a lot about you and it's easy to move.`

* [It’s Not Enough to Be Right—You Also Have to Be Kind](https://forge.medium.com/its-not-enough-to-be-right-you-also-have-to-be-kind-b8814111fe1) - `It’s harder to be kind than clever.`, or put another way by Abraham Joshua Heschel: `When I was young, I used to admire intelligent people; as I grow older, I admire kind people.`.

* [FizzBuzz Enterprise Edition](https://github.com/EnterpriseQualityCoding/FizzBuzzEnterpriseEdition) - A satire of over-engineering for the sake of enterprise-grade software.

* `If you cannot disrupt a perverted culture by introducing a new culture, the politics of the perverted culture will work against you until you break, align, or leave. It is not unwise to leave before you break and it is easier to leave before you align.` ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20914779)) - At one point, even with the most unselfish of intentions, your attempts to elevate the culture might stall. It is not fair, but it's probably the time to leave.



## Cognitive Tools



* [Mental Models I Find Repeatedly Useful](https://medium.com/@yegg/mental-models-i-find-repeatedly-useful-936f1cc405d#.qb3gkdmtk) - Huge compiled list of mental models. Became the basis of book.

* [Hanlon's_razor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor): `Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.` - My favorite flavor of [Occam's Razor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor), critical in defusing paranoia in a highly political setting.

* [Regression toward the mean](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regression_toward_the_mean) - Or why after a period of intense euphoria and ambition, things slowly get back to their usual mediocrity.

* [Locus of control](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locus_of_control) - A framework on `the degree to which people believe that they have control over the outcome of events in their lives, as opposed to external forces beyond their control.`

* [Coglode: bite-size behavioral research analysis](https://www.coglode.com) - Mostly applied behaviour insights to help you build up strategies and tactics on product, design and planning.

* `People make bad choices if they’re mad or scared or stressed.` - [Disney’s Frozen](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/b5/17/97/b5179700050b96f91f63e086e053b5ee.jpg).

* [I coached CEOs, founders, VCs and other executive: These are the biggest takeaways](https://leowid.com/2019-2) - Exerpt: `We’re all just big, complicated bags of emotion walking around; Power comes with the ability to receive a No; Learning to manage your focus, not your time.`

* [The Efficiency-Destroying Magic of Tidying Up](https://florentcrivello.com/index.php/2019/09/04/the-efficiency-destroying-magic-of-tidying-up/) - `Efficiency tends to look messy, and good looks tend to be inefficient.`. A reminder that sometimes we should just accept [the messiness of the world](https://github.com/kdeldycke/awesome-falsehood).

* [Strong Opinions, Weakly Held — a framework for thinking](https://medium.com/@ameet/strong-opinions-weakly-held-a-framework-for-thinking-6530d417e364) - `“Allow your intuition to guide you to a conclusion, no matter how imperfect — this is the ‘strong opinion’ part. Then –and this is the ‘weakly held’ part– prove yourself wrong.`

* [Yes, and…](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yes,_and...) - `A rule-of-thumb in improvisational comedy (…). It is also used in business and other organizations as a principle that improves the effectiveness of the brainstorming process, fosters effective communication, and encourages the free sharing of ideas.`

* [Avoiding Intellectual Phase Lock](https://books.google.com/books?id=__CnDwAAQBAJ&lpg=PT21&dq=intellectual%20phase%20lock%20Frank%20Dunnington&pg=PT21#v=onepage&q=intellectual%20phase%20lock%20Frank%20Dunnington&f=false) - Anticipating an important result so much, humans by nature are suceptible to introduce subtle confirmation bias. To combat IPL, you might introduce random unknowns to supress any attempt to game the system toward the object of your desire. I.e. avoid to cheat yourself to success.

* `People who excel at software design become convinced that they have a unique ability to understand any kind of system at all, from first principles, without prior training, thanks to their superior powers of analysis. Success in the artificially constructed world of software design promotes a dangerous confidence.` - A reminder of the needs of humility and recognition of limits in our industry, [from a panel on the Moral Economy of Tech](https://idlewords.com/talks/sase_panel.htm).

* [I thought that using loops was cheating…](https://www.facebook.com/spliceofficial/photos/a.555206991212765/679408552125941/?type=1&theater) - How much is too much? Libraries, wether software or audio loops, are tools. A typical case of [NIH syndrome](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_invented_here) transposed to music production.



## Team Dynamics



On the day-to-day dynamics of the team, and its interaction with other teams.



* [How to Celebrate the Small Wins](https://medium.dave-bailey.com/how-to-celebrate-the-small-wins-4a03004a1816)

* [Coaching questions for one-to-ones](https://mobile.twitter.com/ctford/status/1163129999882444800).

* [Team Leader Venn Diagram](https://larahogan.me/blog/team-leader-venn-diagram/) - `A tool for gaining a shared understanding of responsibilities`.

* [A conversation with Elon Musk about Starship](https://youtu.be/cIQ36Kt7UVg?t=203) - In a team with very talented contributors, everyone's is a chief engineer: you are expected to challenge the status-quo and questions other department's constraints. This allow smart engineers to avoid the trap of optimizing for something that should not exist in the first place.

* [Symptoms of Groupthink](https://courses.washington.edu/psii101/Powerpoints/Symptoms%20of%20Groupthink.htm) - Overconfidence, tunnel vision and conformity pressure can led a group astray.

* [It's Not Sabotage, They're Drowning](https://shermanonsoftware.com/2019/11/15/its-not-sabotage-theyre-drowning/) - Some kind of push backs shouldn't be interpreted as intentional sabotage, but as drowning people sinking the lifeboat in an attempt to save themselves.

* `Community already exists, you just create a communication platform for it` ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21828666)) - Or why trying to create a community from the ground up might not be the right way of looking at things: a better and more subtle strategy would be to enhance the already existing channels.

* `Why Should Code Reviews Be Fast? (..) [To] optimize for the speed at which a team of developers can produce a product together, as opposed to optimizing for the speed at which an individual developer can write code.` ([source](https://github.com/google/eng-practices/blob/master/review/reviewer/speed.md#why-should-code-reviews-be-fast-why)), from [Google Engineering Practices](https://google.github.io/eng-practices/).



## Remote Work



* [Managing Remote Teams - A Crash Course](http://klinger.io/post/180989912140/managing-remote-teams-a-crash-course)

* [Asynchronous Communication: The Real Reason Remote Workers Are More Productive](https://doist.com/blog/asynchronous-communication/) - `Remote workers are more productive than their office-bound counterparts.`

* [A guide to distributed teams](https://increment.com/teams/a-guide-to-distributed-teams/) - A nice wrap up on the numerous dispositions required to have a highly effective distributed team.



## Meetings



* [How to have great meetings, according to 200 scientific studies](https://qz.com/work/1713662/how-to-have-great-meetings-according-to-200-scientific-studies/) - A roadmap for getting meetings right.



## Product Management



In a team, the Product Manager is supposed to be the "voice of the market".



* `You're the broker for a lot of unstructured information and have to fend off all kinds of disruptive influences to land even close to where you're trying to go.` ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19050555))

* [Awesome Product Management](https://github.com/dend/awesome-product-management)

* [What Everybody Ought To Know About The Product Manager Case Interview](http://www.venturegrit.com/what-everybody-ought-to-know-about-the-product-manager-case-interview/)

* [What are frequently asked questions in product manager interviews?](https://www.quora.com/What-are-frequently-asked-questions-in-product-manager-interviews)

* [A curated list of product management advice for technical people](https://github.com/tron1991/open-product-management)

* [Things Many People Find Too Obvious To Have Told You Already](https://twitter.com/patio11/status/936615043126370306)

* [I wasted $40k on a fantastic startup idea](https://tjcx.me/posts/i-wasted-40k-on-a-fantastic-startup-idea/) - A tale of building a product no user want to pay for. `You can’t just create value for the user: that’s a charity. You also can’t just create value for your company: that’s a scam. Your goal is to set up some kind of positive-sum exchange, where everyone benefits, including you. A business plan, according to this textbook, starts with this simple question: how will you create value for yourself and the company?`

* [David Rusenko - How To Find Product Market Fit](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LNQxT9LvM0) - `Details the story of how Weebly developed one of the most popular website creation and hosting sites on the web today.`

* [The product roadmap is dead: welcome to the age of problem roadmaps](https://medium.com/product-managers-at-work/the-product-roadmap-is-dead-welcome-to-the-age-of-problem-roadmaps-7c7745ac8ae0) - `Fall in love with your problems and not with your solutions.`

* [Kasparov’s Law](https://curatedintelligence.com/2017/10/20/kasparovs-law/) - Weak human + Machine > Machine > Strong Human.

*  Windows Vista as a prime example of a [sacrificial lamb product](https://twitter.com/SwiftOnSecurity/status/851861076429991937): a massive unpopular re-architecture required to pave the way for future innovative release. That's the cautionary tale of why you should be ready for intense criticism and adversity, if by chance or fate your wander down the path of monumental changes in a business software.

* Talking about Vista, Microsoft found out following its unsuccessful launch that [the #1 bug predictor is not technical, it's organizational complexity](https://augustl.com/blog/2019/best_bug_predictor_is_organizational_complexity/).

* [How to exit vim, the Product Manager way](https://github.com/hakluke/how-to-exit-vim/blob/master/README.md#the-product-manager-way) - A satire whith a grain of truth, especially the comparison between the basic vs experienced level.



## Project Management



* [Let’s have no managers, instead of managers with no engineering experience](https://medium.com/hackernoon/lets-have-no-managers-instead-of-managers-with-no-engineering-experience-e8b7cd29d398) - The title is misleading, article's argument is: we don't need *project* managers if we already have *product* managers and scrum masters.

* [Best project management practices in 2018?](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16377523) - TL;DR: there is no silver bullet.

* [Strategies for long Projects](http://benbrostoff.github.io/2019/09/28/long-projects.html) - TL;DR: Relentless, irrational optimism; Daily progress documentation; Compounding investments; Time budgeting.

* [Dear Startup: You have no idea how much that costs.](http://kyleprifogle.com/dear-startup/) - `We are completely clueless about how long things should take.`. Here is a [trick to handle expectation of unreasonable estimates](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21069178).

* [Escalation of commitment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escalation_of_commitment) - A.k.a. sunk-cost fallacy, or the rational explanation of why the hell do we still irrationally keep investing in a bad project.

* [GitHub labels for reuse across projects](https://twitter.com/abdonrd/status/991697736230633474) - Simple yet practical.



## Agile



* `The fundamental problem that drives most agile failures isn't in the team's execution, it's in the business' expectations. One side is signed up for incremental delivery, and one side is set up for a fixed scope and deadline and the result is misery.` ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20326074))

* [Why do some developers at Google consider Agile development to be nonsense?](https://www.quora.com/Why-do-some-developers-at-strong-companies-like-Google-consider-Agile-development-to-be-nonsense/answer/David-Jeske) - Because the short-term focused Scrum processes `seem suited to particular types of development, most notably consulting or contract programming, where the customer is external to the organizations, runs the show because they are paying for development, and can change their mind at any time`. Still, google engineers already practice a culture close to what looks like the 10-points Agile manifesto. But that it.

* [Detecting Agile Bullshit](https://media.defense.gov/2018/Oct/09/2002049591/-1/-1/0/DIB_DETECTING_AGILE_BS_2018.10.05.PDF) - US Departement of Defense guide to detect software projects that are really using agile development versus those that are simply waterfall or spiral development in agile clothing (“agile-scrum-fall”).

* [Who are you trying to impress with your deadlines?](http://jatins.gitlab.io/me/why-deadline/) - `There are companies where those deadlines are set in stone, and a missed deadline is next to fire. That's when the problem starts.`



## Key Performance Indicator (KPI)



KPIs are a set of quantitative measurements at the team or organizational level, to measure the sucess of the business.



* `Numerical goals set for other people, without a road map to reach the goal, have effects opposite to the effects sought.` - [W. Edwards Deming](https://quotes.deming.org/authors/W._Edwards_Deming/quote/2068-2)

* [SRE fundamentals: SLIs, SLAs and SLOs](https://cloudplatform.googleblog.com/2018/07/sre-fundamentals-slis-slas-and-slos.html) - If you are in the business of cloud services, these metrics are certainly great KPIs.

* `My team tracks life impact as a metric (pages outside business hours) and works to drive that down to zero.` ([source](https://twitter.com/dwc/status/962179099606200320))

* [The 4 Worst Software Metrics Agitating Developers in 2019](https://www.gitclear.com/blog/the_4_worst_software_metrics_agitating_developers_in_2019) - The worst KPIs to track a software team output: Lines of Code, Commit Count, Issues Resolved (aka “Shipping Velocity”) and Code Churn (aka "Efficiency").



## Objectives and Key Results (OKR)



OKRs are a framework. Extending KPIs, they applies individually to each members of an organization, down to the IC level. Everyone is supposed to have its own set of OKRs.



* [OKRs from a development team’s perspective](https://zafulabs.com/2019/05/24/okrs-from-a-development-teams-perspective/) - On how OKRs articulates with a backlog.

* `One way in which I've seen OKRs used effectively is as a defense against the type of middle or upper manager who is constantly coming up with new ideas or tasks.` ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19550614))

* [Why individual OKRs don’t work for us](https://hrblog.spotify.com/2016/08/15/our-beliefs/) - Spotify decision to stop using OKRs for individuals.

* [Google's usage of OKRs](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17492038) - OKR grades are public, but not use for promotion. It was never taken very seriously.



## Training



On mentoring, education and learning.



* [Developers mentoring other developers: practices I've seen work well](https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/developers-mentoring-other-developers/) - Discusses mentorship practices that work well engineer-to-engineer.

* [What Medieval People Got Right About Learning](https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/2019/06/07/apprenticeships/) - `Why apprenticeships beat classrooms`.

* [Developer Roadmaps](https://roadmap.sh/roadmaps) - Very high-level guides and paths to learn different practice and tools.



## Literacy



It is not only about reading and writing. It encompass all the social practice, context sharing and communication surrounding the activity and production of a team.  



Especially a software team, wich will generate a huge amount of knowledge. All this knowledge is fragile and about to be lost for good. Unless you materialization it in the form of writing.



### Knowledge



On knowledge surrounding a team.



* [You’re Not Managing a Team of Software Engineers, You’re Managing a Team of Writers](https://medium.com/coaching-notes/youre-not-managing-a-team-of-software-engineers-you-re-managing-a-team-of-writers-b263d3a10cc7).

* [What senior engineers do: fix knowledge holes](http://www.mooreds.com/wordpress/archives/3232).



### Reading



Before you know how to write, you need to know how to read. 



* [How to Read a Paper](http://blizzard.cs.uwaterloo.ca/keshav/home/Papers/data/07/paper-reading.pdf) - Outlines a practical and efficient three-pass method for reading research papers.



### Documentation



The various forms of technical writing, their structure and target audience.



* [What nobody tells you about documentation](https://www.divio.com/blog/documentation/) - There is four kinds of documentation: tutorials, how-to guides, explanation and reference. Each with their own structure and mode of writing.

* [Flying Circus Platform - Disaster recovery](https://flyingcircus.io/doc/reference/security/disaster-recovery.html#disaster-recovery) - Critical infrastructure which aims to be available 24/7 needs a [Disaster Recovery Plan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disaster_recovery). It generally takes the form of a document providing an overview of the expected severe failures and a set of procedures on how the system and the team operating it is prepared to deal with. The one linked here is a great example of such document, and is strong evidence the team is prepared for the worse.



### Writing



General advices on how to convey meaning and clarity by nastering the style. If badly written, your documentation is likely to have poor usage and utility.



* [How to Write a Technical Paper](https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/441f/ac7c2020e1c8f0d32adffca697bbb8a198a1.pdf) - Serves as a guideline on how to write a good technical paper, in the form of a typical journal publication.

* [Algorithm for writing a scientific manuscript](https://iubmb.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/bmb.20329) - A process to guide the preparation and refinement of manuscripts.

* [The Baldwin Formula for scientific writing: writing papers and reviews](https://www.ice.mpg.de/ext/fileadmin/extranet/dept_itb/The_Baldwin_Formula_for_writing_a_scientific_paper_and_reviewing_papers.pdf) - `The most efficient way to write scientific papers is to write while you are still conducting experiments`.

* [Ten simple rules for structuring papers](https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/088278v5.full) - `Focusing on how readers consume information, we present a set of 10 simple rules to help you get across the main idea of your paper.`

* [Tips for Writing Technical Papers](https://cs.stanford.edu/people/widom/paper-writing.html) - Another set of tips, specifically using the example of a technical paper describing a improvment of an algorithm.

* [Write an Excellent Programming Blog](https://speakerdeck.com/pycon2016/a-jesse-jiryu-davis-write-an-excellent-programming-blog) - Tips on structure and style to produce great blog posts.

* [Notes on Technical Writing](https://mkaz.blog/misc/notes-on-technical-writing/).

* [BLUF: The Military Standard That Can Make Your Writing More Powerful](https://www.animalz.co/blog/bottom-line-up-front/) - `BLUF is a military communications acronym—it stands for “bottom line up front”—that’s designed to enforce speed and clarity in reports and emails.`



## Career



Now that you've proven your worth as a front-line manager, what's the next step? These articles explore the follow-up roles, from managing managers to director, and everything in between.



* [Work at different management levels](https://larahogan.me/blog/manager-levels/) - A great progressive breakup of what it feels like to work at different levels of management.

* [How do managers get stuck?](http://www.elidedbranches.com/2017/09/how-do-managers-get-stuck.html) - Identify scenario preventing managers to be promoted at the next level.

* [The Evolution of Management: Transitioning up the ladder](https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=3350548) - Describe the path and expectations at each management level.

* [Founder to CEO](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZJZbv4J6FZ8Dnb0JuMhJxTnwl-dwqx5xl0s65DE3wO8/) - How to start as a technical founder of a startup, build a great team then grow with the company to learn and become a full-fledge CEO.

* [My questions for prospective employers (Director/VP roles)](https://jacobian.org/2019/apr/23/questions-for-employers-director-vp/) - Great list for senior management roles.

* [`That's usually about the time I nope right out of the interview`](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19188246) - Bad signs of a CTO trying to recruit an engineering manager, or the perils of not believing in hierarchies.

* [Get your work recognized: write a brag document](https://jvns.ca/blog/brag-documents/) - There’s this idea that, if you do great work at your job, people will (or should!) automatically recognize that work and reward you for it with promotions / increased pay. In practice, it’s often more complicated than that.

* `Since managers are not tied to a sector (in the way nurses or musicians are), the good ones tend to go where they are payed good money and the bad ones end up wreaking havoc where they are payed at least some money. That, also, is `[Baumol](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol%27s_cost_disease)` in action.` ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20448929)).



## Compensation



* [levels.fyi](https://www.levels.fyi) - Compares salary range and compensation charts across big tech companies.

* [L8-L10 salaries at AWS](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21823987).

* `Never accept a lower salary in exchange for equity.` ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21868845))



## Politics



Here we are, at the intersection of power and influence lies the political game. If its nature and intensity is sourced from the company's core culture and history, you're unfortunately unlikely to avoid it past a certain hierarchical level. So be prepared.



* [HiPPO FAQ](http://bitly.com/HIPPOExplained) - HiPPO stands for `Highest Paid Person's Opinion`, a trait of dysfunctional culture, in which power politics trumps data.

* [*The Prince*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prince) - Machiavelli's ideas on how to accrue honour and power as a leader. Resorting to that level of politics in a company is a sure way to render the culture highly toxic, as well as corrupting and demoralizing the organization at all levels.

* [The Gervais Principle](https://www.ribbonfarm.com/the-gervais-principle/) - A cynical, bleak, but still fascinating take on the management ladder, based on *The Office*.

* [The 48 Laws of Power](https://amzn.com/0140280197/?tag=kevideld-20) by Robert Greene - Can teach you how to cover your ass and be effective in a highly political org.

* [Selectorate theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selectorate_theory) - `In selectorate theory, three groups of people affect leaders. These groups are the nominal selectorate, the real selectorate, and the winning coalition. (…) To remain in power, leaders must maintain their winning coalition.`

* `Playing the game well is now front and center` ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21925738)), or why the [Key practices for achieving large professional goals](https://nodramadevops.com/2019/12/key-practices-for-achieving-large-professional-goals/) is missing the parts about office politics.

* `The actual power wielded by a high level executive is usually inversely proportional to the size of the organization they manage.` (source: [comment](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20260498) on [Why large companies are so difficult to rescue](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20260114)).

* `Cutting costs gets you a raise. Delivering a big project is a path to promotion.` ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21230771))

* `"You know your game fails when you read in the news about the feature you are supposed to have".` ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20220484)). A team learning about its roadmap at the same time of the general public is a sure sign something is wrong.



## Re-organizations



* `If you have dealt with large, completely incompetent organizations and wondered how the hell they actually keep going - theres your answer. If built correctly it's genuinely difficult to mess things up.` ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20533922)). I.e. the structure of the organization is quintessential to its longevity.

* [If I Close My Data Centers, What About the People/Jobs Lost?](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17329028) - F50's data centers being migrated to commercial cloud provider. But what about the people currently doing legacy stuff? The answer: retrain.

* `This is the managerialist dream. To replace employees' judgement and competence with a process and management methodology. (…) It never works.` ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20881308)). And why the retraining answer above is the best one.

* [An Alternative Approach to Re-Orgs At Your Company](https://caseyaccidental.com/alternative-approach-re-orgs/) - `Trying not to repeat re-org mistakes, we started working on a structure that would make the re-org act like a feedback-fueled progress driven by the teams instead of by people above them.`. This is an attempt to extract from the ground up signals pointing to inadequate structure. My cautionary tale: this might only work up to a point depending on the company's culture.

* `When everything is great success, people behind that success shadow the people who could make success in the future. (…) Netflix is great example of how to do big transition right. Netflix was in renting DVDs by mail business. When the decision to move to streaming was made, Netflix CEO did not allow managers who responsible for DVD renting business into meetings where the future was planned.` ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21395557)).

* [I’ve Built Multiple Growth Teams. Here’s Why I Won’t Do It Again.](https://conversionxl.com/blog/dont-build-growth-teams/) - `Few folks understand probability, and most executives don’t care about the data—regardless of what it says.`

* [Speaking Truth to Power: Reflections on My Career at Microsoft](https://onezero.medium.com/speaking-truth-to-power-reflections-on-a-career-at-microsoft-90f80a449e36) - After 3 decades in a deeply flawed company, the author comes to a humble conclusion: leaders should embodies the value of their employees. Not the other way around. `Changes at the top — not speeches, training or hashtags — make the most cultural impact. If you want real and lasting cultural change, sweep away the made-men who succeeded under the previous culture and promote the people who look, act, and think more like their employees than their managers.`

* [How the Digg team was acquihired](https://lethain.com/digg-acquihire/) - Acqui-hire of a whole team can be seen as a type  of reorg. In which managers will have to negotiate the new employment contracts in bulk in one or two days: `Because acquihires are “star” oriented, if you’re a senior leaders who doesn’t explicitly refuse to move forward, pressure will converge on you from all sides`.



## Stress & Burnout



* [The Toxic Handler: Organizational Hero — and Casualty](https://www.companiesalive.com/toxichandlers-healthandhealing-lifecoaching-miami-leadershiptraining.htm) - `toxic handler, a manager who voluntarily shoulders the sadness, frustration, bitterness, and anger that are endemic to organizational life. Although toxic handlers may be found at every level in organizations, many work near the top`.

* [Manager Energy Drain](https://larahogan.me/blog/manager-energy-drain/) - `How do I handle how tired I am as a manager? 1. Defrag your calendar; 2. Delegate messy and unscoped projects; 3. Say no.`

* [Should we take a few long holidays, or lots of short ones?](http://timharford.com/2019/09/should-we-take-a-few-long-holidays-or-lots-of-short-ones/) - TL;DR: short ones. `Reason one: holiday memories tend to depend not on how long the holiday was, but on the intensity of the experiences. Reason two: a change of activity can be a spur to creativity. Reason three for taking a short break: if we need rest to prevent exhaustion, a single, long vacation won’t do the trick.`

* [How Slack Harms Projects](https://www.silasreinagel.com/blog/2019/08/12/how-slack-harms-projects/) - TL;DR: `promote a false sense of urgency, destroy focus, allow for bypassing project prioritization, strip away essential business context, encourage poorly thought-out communication`. To remediate this, see [How to Use Slack and Not Go Crazy](https://pspdfkit.com/blog/2018/how-to-use-slack-and-not-go-crazy/) article.

* [Examples of harassments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21856352) - How a jealous boss, who felt either betrayed or ridiculed, bullied a capable employee to force him out. Don't be that kind of asshole boss.

* [If You’re So Successful, Why Are You Still Working 70 Hours a Week?](https://hbr.org/2018/02/if-youre-so-successful-why-are-you-still-working-70-hours-a-week) - `Our tendency to overwork and burn out is framed by a complex combination of factors involving our profession, our organization, and ourselves. At the heart of it is insecurity.`

* [What Happens When Your Career Becomes Your Whole Identity](https://hbr.org/2019/12/what-happens-when-your-career-becomes-your-whole-identity) - `A particular confluence of high achievement, intense competitiveness, and culture of overwork has caught many in a perfect storm of career enmeshment and burnout.`

* `In my experience extreme workaholism can often be a way to avoid or defer major life decisions that someone doesn't want to make or even consciously recognize. (…) Eventually the debt comes due but sometimes not until many decades later.` ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21900054))

* [Avoiding burnout as an ambitious developer](https://stackoverflow.blog/2020/01/13/avoiding-burnout-as-an-ambitious-developer/) - `Be willing to say no; Know what you don’t want; Use your energy level realistically; Be kind to your future self`.



## Setbacks and Failures



* `What does not kill me makes me stronger` - Friedrich Nietzsche.

* [Early-career setback and future career impact](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-12189-3) - `Despite an early setback, individuals with near misses systematically outperform those with narrow wins in the longer run.`

* [Steve Jobs explains - Why companies fail?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuZ6ypueK8M) - On how sales and marketing takes over product focused companies.

* [The failure of Scaling Etsy](https://twitter.com/mcfunley/status/1194713711337852928) - When a company lacks technical leadership: developers waste time in costly refactors, over-engineered systems, and ends up detached from the business and product.

* [How Complex Systems Fail](https://web.mit.edu/2.75/resources/random/How%20Complex%20Systems%20Fail.pdf) - `Short treatise on the nature of failure; how failure is evaluated; how failure is attributed to proximate cause; and the resulting new understanding of patient safety`.



## Exits



* [Why I Rejected My Manager](https://medium.com/personal-growth/why-i-rejected-my-manager-b2273e354462) - ` I understand now why the saying is: people leave managers, not companies.`

* [Colleague is leaving. How to investigate what went wrong?](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20786755) - `Most of the time people leave bosses, not the job or the company.` And why you're unlikely to get any substantial insights from exit interviews. ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20787874))

* `“People do get pissed off in clusters” is the best description of a team/company meltdown that I’ve ever seen.` ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19755001))

* `Next time your favorite manager and tech lead quit the company, ask them why.` ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21767843)).

* [The Elves Leave Middle Earth – Sodas Are No Longer Free](https://steveblank.com/2009/12/21/the-elves-leave-middle-earth-–-soda’s-are-no-longer-free/) - Company stopped providing free soda. The engineers were very upset, but it was just soda and they could afford it. But really it wasn't soda. Soda was the canary in the coal mine, triggering an exodus of its best engineers.

* [How to discipline overeager engineer](https://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/145709/how-to-discipline-overeager-engineer) - Over-achieving talent is looking for a management promotion. Management does not recognize effort. Engineer become disgruntled and management is looking to discipline him. A case-study of a bad situation in which both side shows clumsyness.