Categories
management

Creating Success, Together

This is the final part of a 6-part series of blog posts based on a talk I prepared called Successfully Derailed Product. It’s about the ways in which we define and talk about “success” influence what – and how – we build. See part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5. We want to […]

Categories
management

How Should We Define Success?

This is part 5 of a series of blog posts based on a talk I prepared called Successfully Derailed Product. It’s about the ways in which we define and talk about “success” influence what – and how – we build. See part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4. What we’ve covered up to now is […]

Categories
Career management

Interview: How to create momentum on day zero

I did an interview with GitPrime about hiring and onboarding. I really like how it came out, and I hope you like it too! “We talk about how engineers hate process,” says Cate Huston, Mobile Lead at Automattic, “but here’s my theory: engineers often love process, but when they love it, they call it culture.” It’s […]

Categories
management

How Do Users Define Success?

This is part 4 of a series of blog posts based on a talk I prepared called Successfully Derailed Product. It’s about the ways in which we define and talk about “success” influence what – and how – we build. See part 1, part 2, part 3. Let’s take another step back and talk about how […]

Categories
management

How Do Teams Define Success?

This is part 3 of a series of blog posts based on a talk I prepared called Successfully Derailed Product. It’s about the ways in which we define and talk about “success” influence what – and how – we build. See part 1, part 2. Taking a step back from individual success, I wanted to understand […]

Categories
management

How do Developers Define Success?

This is part 2 of a series of blog posts based on a talk I prepared called Successfully Derailed Product. It’s about the ways in which we define and talk about “success” influence what – and how – we build. See part 1.  With the caveat that how we define success comes from various places, […]

Categories
management

Whose Expectations are Those, Anyway?

This is part 1 of a series of blog posts based on a talk I prepared called Successfully Derailed Product. It’s about the ways in which we define and talk about “success” influence what – and how – we build.   There used to be a joke at a company I worked for that went […]

Categories
management

Managing Up and Down

“Managing up” can seem like a dirty word, I definitely thought so for a while, and deludedly aspired to be the kind of manager who did not need to be “managed up” (thankfully I have friends like Camille to call me on my bullshit). Now I can accept that 100% my team have to manage up with […]

Categories
management

Try This One Weird Tip To Increase Leadership in Your Organization

As leaders, most of us have been in a place where we’re maxed out. It can be tempting to just do it ourselves and hope things improve. Another thing that often happens is that it gets shoved on someone else, and they’re left to deal with it. As a rule, I try not to hand […]

Categories
management Reflections

Questions for an End of Year 1:1

My coach (Dani) went through this list of questions in our call last week, and I’ve been using it in my last 1:1s of 2017. I’ve been finding it interesting as a structure for a conversation that looks back at the year and where we are now, versus where we were a year ago. Sometimes […]