What I read this week... Branding for Engineers, WIP Limits, Agile, Pull Requests
7 links to help you grow, take inspiration for your own journey
“It's easier to turn attention into capital than it is to turn capital into attention.”
― Alexandra Botez, All In Summit 2023
You’ll become successful through overcoming challenges and facing your obstacles.
… but that doesn’t mean it has to lack inspiration or fun.
Here’s a few links that you can skim in under 60 seconds.
I hope it will inspire you, and on occasion help you get unstuck.
All-In Summit: Alexandra Botez takes on the Besties in a 1v4 simultaneous chess match. It was interesting to see the equivalent of mob programming during a presentation while also playing chess at a high level, and entertaining the audience. Just like in tech, the ability to keep the group entertained and on the same level is priceless.
Beyond Agile: Becoming a great product organization. A rare material that I recommend despite it having Agile in the title. Very to the point, summarised in under 45 minutes, highlighting high vs. low performing software product organisations.
Deep Dive: Designing the dynamic irrigation and water systems in Timberborn. In math and physics it is not uncommon to see complex models for the real world that are difficult to calculate and reason about precisely, but are trivial to model numerically or statistically. Similarly, I find that simulation games and risk management have a “numerical” intersection with product engineering and team productivity.
Why Limiting WIP, Starting Together, Being Less Busy, and Working Together is SO HARD. shares a “beautiful mess” story about organisational incentives, collaboration of the pairing kind and why it’s so tempting to try reducing a complex organisation to simple rules.
Developing domain expertise: get your hands dirty. Will is the author of Elegant Puzzle, an engineering management book. In this article he describes the playful incentives of how to get employees to use the product they build in order to get some hands-on experience with its intricacies.
Rules Have Reasons (Always Ask Why). Christopher and his whiteboard. He has a simple, unique format that’s really gripping. He’s a great speaker and educator and I love to follow through his process on object-oriented concepts even as an advanced user.
Crazy Beard Stream—Pull Requests. Following up on this thread on linkedin after one of our streams. Kaloyan is one of our regulars. Not just regular, he’s the GOAT Our Tech Journey mascot. So obviously we invited him onto the stream. We had a lot of fun and the discussion in this thread captured the essence and enthusiasm for what we do. To more to come. Thank you!