When to Build vs Buy
Every engineering leader I know has a build-versus-buy decision sitting in their backlog right now, and most of them are getting it wrong in one of two...
10 min735Read →
Tagged #strategy
7 articles tagged #strategy.
Setting Goals That Do Not Become Theater
Every leadership team I have worked in eventually discovers the same uncomfortable truth: the goals you write down quietly become the goals you optimize for,...
11 min781Read →
Leading Through Uncertainty
Every leader claims to thrive under pressure, but uncertainty is a different beast than pressure. Pressure has a shape: a deadline, a launch, an audit you can...
11 min682Read →
The First Team Principle for Leaders
Most leaders, when asked to name their team, point downward. They describe the engineers, the product managers, the analysts who report to them. That answer...
11 min696Read →
Managing Up Without Losing Yourself
Early in my career I thought managing up was a euphemism for office politics, the kind of thing people did instead of shipping. I was wrong, but not entirely....
12 min507Read →
Why Your Roadmap Keeps Slipping
Every engineering leader I know has a version of the same recurring conversation. A roadmap gets committed in a planning session, everyone nods, the quarter...
12 min420Read →
The Manager's Guide to Saying No
Early in my career I thought that being a good engineering manager meant being a reliable yes. Yes to the new feature, yes to the cross-team favor, yes to the...
11 min958Read →