Good long reads this week: Camille Fournier on the manager’s path in the age of AI and how AI affects building things by Paulo André. Quote of the Week The first rule is that a measurement—any measurement—is better than none. High Output Management Andrew S. Grove Leadership If your team is happy, are you doing a good job? - it’s a business and happy means different things to different people. ...
A bit of a catch-up from recent weeks today. I recommend the two Book Overflow episodes about The Pragmatic Programmer and with Uncle Bob. The long post from Charity about Slop is also worth a read. Quote of the Week Another benefit of writing a test for every logged message is that it’s painful. Sometimes pain is a good thing. Agile Java™ Jeff Langr Leadership Managers Are Catalysts - “Your job, as a manager, is lowering that activation energy.” ...
I skipped a week again. Some good podcasts this week, have a listen to the ones about The Pragmatic Programmer and the one about performance. For some fun, play Snek and watch the relaxing visualisation of train movements. Quote of the Week You look at where you’re going and where you are and it never makes sense, but then you look back at where you’ve been and a pattern seems to emerge. And if you project forward from that pattern, then sometimes you can come up with something. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Robert M. Pirsig Leadership Headed for the Exit: the Great Engineering Leader Career Break - I can definitely relate. I would say that this doesn’t affect only leaders. ...
My tip for this week: search for more videos of Danny Leon’s amazing skate in front of the eclipse. If you speak German, the podcast about people believing in pseudoscience is great too. Quote of the Week Paradoxically, change only has a chance of succeeding if failure—at least a little bit of failure—is also okay. Peopleware Tom DeMarco, Tim Lister Leadership Roadmap decisions rather than dates. - I find dates generally a bad smell and a throwback to quarterly thinking. ...
I liked the “Border Collie” post today, the podcast about air conditioning in Europe, and the interview with Mike D. Quote of the Week […] the eco-philosopher Derrick Jensen, who says: ‘The good thing about everything being so fucked up is that no matter where you look, there is great work to be done.’ Meditations for Mortals Oliver Burkeman Leadership TBM 433: The Border Collie Faustian Bargain - fun model. I think this applies to other ways of buy-in too. ...