#22 Make Boring Plans
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this week's favorite
You’re probably familiar with the concept of Choose Boring Technology. If you’re not, I’ll wait for you to read the excellent blog post by Dan McKinley that inspired a much-needed correction in tech to balance “innovation” with stability. I’m here to take this to the next level, and talk about how “boring” should apply not just to your technology choices, but to your plans.
Building a successful development team
When you look at your development teams, what drives their success? Building your development team is like Lego. You need the pieces to fit together perfectly while encouraging creativity and growth.
In my years as a software engineer I was always drawn to the shiny new things. But time and time again I got confronted with code ridden with technical debt. If you are working in tech you probably heard of technical debt. For product managers it is the sword of Damocles alluding delayed projects and rejected feature requests. For engineers it can be a tremendous source of frustration and reason to quit jobs and move on. Why is technical debt so widespread and why is it so hard to beat?
Tough love for managers who need to give feedback
These five reminders are for the managers (and executives) who need to step up how they deliver feedback to their reports. You owe it to them to be better at this, because you have 100% of the power in this relationship: the power to fire them, the power to limit the projects they take on, and the power to cap the compensation they earn.
Stop chasing your feature development plan and start crafting strategic product roadmaps.
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