All organizations have problems that everyone knows, but nobody has time to fix it. The time never comes to tackle those problems. Every product has other problems that need to be solved, features that need to be implemented, and changes that have to be made. If someone decides to solve that long-lasting problem...
Creating knowledge silos and building software in a team without involving others is unavoidable in growing organizations. That's why organizations create RFC processes to break down silos, collect feedback early and prevent impediments that can come out later in development, which usually are costly. Later these...
Many organizations adopt the Request for Comments (RFC) culture. Creating knowledge silos and building software in a team without involving others is unavoidable in organizations. That's why organizations create RFC processes to break down silos, collect feedback early and prevent impediments that can come out later...
If we ask a group of four software engineers what changes are needed in our system to improve its quality, we will get at least twenty ideas. When the RFCs are used to get support for any idea, it's a complete failure. This was one of the reasons why we failed. We introduced the system to promote ideas and get...
Many organizations have knowledge-sharing sessions where people present what they have learned or found interesting. Software engineers are sometimes expected to be on the stage to level up in their careers, as this is one of the most tangible ways to showcase they're trying to grow others. However, engineers are...
Finding a purpose in life is a difficult journey. Is the journey itself the purpose of life? Or is it something else? Well, this is the Mediation, and I continued searching for why we exist. These days, whoever I talk to splits into two sides. One group has no idea what to do with their lives, and the other group is...
Before you speak (or write a message to someone), pass your message from three gates that ask these questions, as Rumî said, "Is it true? Is it necessary? Is it kind?" The first door eliminates the things your mind makes up. The second door eliminates the thoughts that arise without a filter, the thoughts you have...
In a dinner with a colleague, we talked about psychology in leadership. They were going to therapy and told me the impact of group therapy (I never had one): you see yourself through the eyes and stories of others. When you listen to someone else, it makes you think about yourself and how you relate to their story...
When Patrick Rothfuss wrote about Auri, he didn't tell a story. He defined a person. Auri is still a mystery and will always be. She figured things out in her world away from everyone, and she often understood how things should be. Everything has a purpose. Not every nice thing has to be used and owned by someone....
Every time I see an engineer gets headroom to make some improvements in the system, I get worried. Even though they can turn complex tasks into complicated ones and solve them, they often struggle with freedom. Even though they know exactly where the problems are or where the team needs to improve, they get lost...
Task Relevant Maturity is a concept that helps the leader to understand how much they should monitor their subordinate and guide them. "How often you monitor should not be based on what you believe your subordinate can do in general, but on his experience with a specific task and his prior performance with it — his...
In 2014, Douglas Stone & Sheila Heen, from the Harvard Negotiation Project and the authors of Difficult Conversations, came together and published a book called Thanks for The Feedback. In 309 pages, they talked about how to receive feedback well. They didn't focus on software engineers or any specific profession....
