Crafting Tech Teams - Quarterly Update
Topics for the coming months, frequency updates, coaching calls
Hey everyone! This is a special issue of Crafting Tech Teams to update you on what’s happening going forward.
The community has been a blast, thank you for all the comments and questions. If there’s ever any doubt, you can always reply to this email or contact me on Substack/Linkedin.
✉️ I’m very DM friendly.
Now let’s discuss the future!
📑 Summer Topics
The two main pillars of my work are coaching tech leads and just-in-time training for their teams. There may be a third one forming as you can read below. This is an intense mix of personal growth and pragmatic, down-to-earth tech, business and productivity improvements.
The JIT training comes in 2 cadences— strategic and tactical. You have likely spotted this trend. The newsletter issues for this summer will cover a combination of all three:
Surveys and DevEx
Well-being complementing hard tech metrics
DORA and SPACE metrics
TDD
Refactoring (complex examples)
Bringing Product and Engineering Together
Leadership focus, delegation
Complete Team Structures
Team Topologies
Domain-driven Design
Event Modeling
Exploring DDD Aggregates
Clean Architecture
Continuous Delivery
Reasonable Testing Automation
Negotiation, Emotional Team Responses
Teamwork, pairing
Attachment, Worries, Anxieties
Personal Vision, Team Identity
📖 Book reviews
I am an avid speed reader and am wrapping up a number of books. Once ready, you can expect book reviews in the form of 3-4 articles per book to discuss the main ideas. Here’s the current list:
Implementing Lean Software Development
Designing Data Intensive Applications
Would you like to join a book club where we can discuss these with the community or prefer it in the articles? Let me know!
💬 Paid Subscribers’ Slack
I have sent out the first wave of invites to paid subscribers containing access to my coaching slack. It’s where you can discuss matters with the newsletter audience as well as my paid coaching clients who are sharing the workspace for some key insights.
To join, please consider upgrading your subscription.
🌟 Coaching for Coaches— a Stealth Project
I have received an influx of messages from all of you after appearing on the podcasts. The common theme being was how to follow in my footsteps and go from salaried tech lead, engineer to coach, consultant.
The majority of my audience are seeking tech team & leadership coaching or general life coaching. This interest surprised me as is seemingly forming into a third pillar. For now, it’s a closed group of enthusiasts called High Performance Product and Engineering Coaches dedicated to a closed, private group of early enthusiasts.
If you’d like to know more please DM me.
💯 Coach Denis
I became a father of two wonderful twins beginning of this year, which mostly coincided with my coaching work, writing the No-nonsense TDD Booklet and launching this newsletter.
As a consequence, the Technologist Podcast on Youtube and LinkedIn Live is resting for a bit.
However, as I’m recovering some semblance of order amidst the baby chaos and working from home, I am opening up availability for more tech lead and team coaching. When you’d like to take your tech team to the next level, we will start by having an intro call.
Furthermore, I am launching a 6month life coaching cohort starting in November this year. This is not tech focused, but it is tech-adjacent as it is supremely valuable for recovering left-brainers and overachievers stuck on the hustle. Please DM me for more information.
📹 Podcasts
I have recorded three podcasts recently. And all guest appearances!
Ditching Hourly with Jonathan Stark, Part 1
Ditching Hourly with Jonathan Stark, Part 2
Tech Excellence - Domain-Driven Qualities of High Performing Teams
I’ve written intros and copied summaries below. Please check out the authors of the podcast as well if you find it valuable!
💳 Crafting Tech Teams
The content on the newsletter will remain free for at least the next two quarters. I’ve been enjoying the growth so far and see no need to monetise it directly just yet.
If you’d like to support nonetheless, I invite you to join as a paid subscribe or pledge as a founding member.
If you like this content, share it with your coworkers and enthusiasts.
If you’d like to dip your toes into something tactical, and are dealing with procrastination and doubt regarding TDD— there’s always the booklet.
It’s been an amazing first few months, hitting 300 subscribers soon!
Thank you humbly for all the support ❤️
Denis