The 200th issue! It is another significant milestone for me. I sent out my first letter on November 25, 2018. A lot has changed since then. I moved back to the Bay Area from Korea, switched my role from an engineer to a manager, and changed the domain from frontend engineering to backend engineering. And oh, the changes the world has gone through! The pandemic, the first war in Europe since the Second World War, more extreme climate events, global supply chain issues, and so on.
I thank all of you, my readers, for being a part of this journey. Even when I feel too tired to write the issue, my commitment to you helps me power through. For this issue, I picked the evergreen ideas from past issues I go back to from time to time. Enjoy!
Software Engineering ⚙️
Product Goal & Sprint Goals – A Simple Example
Sprints are central to my team’s day-to-day work. I learned to be better at setting sprint goals, but I still want to make them more on top of my team’s mind.
The Away Team Model at Amazon
My team just went through a reorg that added two teams to the domain my team initially owned. Figuring out how to collaborate with them is more important than ever.
Reliability Tech Tree
Our system reliability issues continue to challenge my team. When I am looking for ideas on the levers we can pull, this tech tree provides some great ideas, such as eliminating toils.
People ❤️
Stop Overcomplicating It: The Simple Guidebook to Upping Your Management Game
There are enough management ideas for me to spend all my time reading and learning and not doing. This article taught me to focus on a few key jobs. The article lists vision setting, coaching, and career conversation as the core jobs. But I would also add process management to the list.
Core Needs: BICEPS
This framework has let me understand my reports’ and my needs in a more structured way. For example, I like to see that I am a valued part of a team (Significance) and continue to improve my management craft (Improvement). When one of them is at risk, I feel stressed.
The weekly CEO e-mail
I continue to send out bi-weekly emails to my team to keep everyone informed. The suggested format in this article has been a great starting point.
Kirkpatrick Model: Four Levels of Learning Evaluation
Before learning about this model, I found it difficult to measure the effectiveness of the meetings I run. The model suggests that measuring how the participants liked is a good starting point, which has provided good enough feedback for me.
youngk.im 