90% of everything is crap
I like Sturgeon’s law for a lot of reasons. But most of all, I like it as a nudge to try harder to like things.
Death to covert contracts
“If I do X, then you’ll do Y, even though neither of us have acknowledged it.” This is crap.
Consistency before quality
Do anything consistently for a long time (meaning multiple years), and you’ll be good at it.
Your employees are your customers
ICs (independent contributors, aka non-managers) serve the customers, and the rest of the organization serves the ICs.
Prove you can write regularly before you think about the tools
Do you actually want to write or do you just to be a person who writes?
Audience friendly goals
Write your goals so that outsiders can understand the difficulty and judge completion.
If it will matter after today, stop talking about it in a chat room
Live chat is for things that can get lost.
A simple process beats a perfect process
The value of universal understanding outweighs the value of accounting for every possible edge case and gotcha.
Atomic blog posts
There’s no law that says a blog post needs more than one idea or more than one sentence.
“Don’t bring problems, bring solutions” is bull crap
If people can’t bring a problem without a solution, then lots of important stuff won’t get talked about. Let the team own the solution.
Don’t flip the bozo bit
So you work with an idiot. I know you do, because everyone does. The question is: what do you do about it?
Making success controllable
Tim Ferriss selects projects where he wins even if they fail. We can do that too.
The 12 Week Year: 2021 round 1
The 12WY is a framework that helps me spend time each week working towards my life goals. In the spirit of The Year of Courage, I’m going to start posting my 12WY plans here on the blog.
2021: The Year Of Courage
Yearly themes are like the agile version of New Year’s resolutions. A good one has a firm “what” and “why” but a flexible “how”. My theme for 2021 is The Year of Courage.
Death to private chats
I see you serial DM’ers, defaulting to 1-on-1 chats instead of team chat rooms. You may mean well, but you’re a thief.
Goodhart’s law, perverse incentives, and rats with no tails
What does the Great Hanoi Rat Massacre of 1902 have in common with automated testing? Well boy howdy, I’m glad you asked.
Just start a dang blog already
I’m talking to you, Mr. or Mrs. Person who keeps saying “I should really start a blog.” Yes, you should. So do it!
2020: My year of mantras
It’s been a year full of life rules for me. These are the ones that have stuck.
“The tragedy of the commons” in software development
One of the many things coding and fishing have in common.
Lessons learned on an Engineering Manager job search
Learn from my mistakes so you don’t have to make them.
We become what we are told we are
On breaking the cycles that aren’t working with the people driving you crazy
That coworker who just wants to code
🎵 What do we do with a one-track coder, ear-ly in the mooooorning? 🎶
Intense intervention or acceptance. Pick one.
Dear future me, So you’ve got a problem, yeah? If it’s really a problem, then attack it with the force of a thousand suns. If you’re not willing to do that, then it’s not a problem. Intense intervention or acceptance, those are your options. Pick one, right now. Sincerely, past me.
The 2 responsibilities of a manager
(According to the book “The Effective Manager” by Mark Horstman)
Be the trampoline
“I’ve found that whenever you ask a question, the first response you get is usually not the answer—it’s just the first response.”
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