Rewiring DRY
The Developer DRY (Don’t Repeat Yourself) Developers often learn the useful heuristic DRY (Don’t Repeat Yourself). Having a concept repeated across a codebase many times …
How Many People Can Someone Lead?
The Short Answer A common question I hear in my technical leadership workshops is, “How many people can someone (e.g. a Tech Lead or Engineering …
Polishing Product Management Skills
Leadership roles are, by their nature, fuzzy. Look at the Engineering Manager role and you might see one of 5 common archetypes, or an even …
Look Ahead
When you’re driving a car, you shouldn’t focus on only the metre ahead of you. When you’re walking, you don’t put your entire focus on …
The Holiday Test
First-time leaders often ask, “How do you know you’ve built a high-performing team?” My response? Use the holiday test. You pass the test if you …
Software Engineering Leadership Communities
I receive a number of requests through this blog, in my workshops and through Level Up, a curated newsletter for leaders in tech about connecting …
An End of Year Retrospective Template
From agile retrospectives to a personal retrospective As a person who has published a book on agile retrospectives, you might be convinced I know two …
Double-Loop Learning
Double-loop learning is one of the most powerful leadership tools I draw on. Too many leaders don’t draw on double-loop learning. I can tell because …
The Power of Community
A lot of software engineers want to use a tool because it promises to be “better” than an alternative. While we should seek better tools, …
Anyone Can Be a Leader
I have heard so many misconceptions about leadership and being a leader. One of them, in particular, is that being a leader is something someone …
