Category: Season 1

Show Notes A new project comes down the pike and Engineering asks for more heads to ship said project. Is this a reasonable request or are there other tactics we can use to “do more with less”? Mon-Chaio and Andy explore this common situation from both sides and offer specific diagnostic techniques to move the…

Show Notes Can you measure developer productivity? Prompted by an article by McKinsey and already reacted to by many, we ask if McKinsey is telling us to measure something that is at all useful, how to think about the problem McKinsey raises, and what you, as a technical leader, can do to address that problem…

Show Notes Mon-Chaio gives a rundown of leadership books he’s read in the past few months and pulls out interesting nuggets from each selection. References: Transcript Mon-Chaio: Welcome to a vacation cast episode of the TTL Podcast. Andy is on vacation this week, so I’ll be your host through a much shorter episode. Today I’m…

Show Notes From stodgy corporate boardrooms to glacial civil-service offices, fast-moving technical organizations have long thumbed their noses at bureaucracies in their quest for speed and innovation. In this episode, Mon-Chaio and Andy unearth the forgotten power of bureaucracies and discover how they are still surprisingly relevant and impactful for software companies today. Opening quote…

Show Notes Is your feedback counterproductive? Mon-Chaio and Andy discuss a thought provoking article that says we’ve been giving feedback wrong. They tease out some truths, some tactics, and some insights into what it means to give useful feedback. References: Transcript Mon-Chaio: thank you for joining us for another episode of the TTL podcast. Today…

Show Notes Andy introduces you to a paper on socio technical systems and muses about how it connects to the early days of software development. This is our first try at a quick format for when one of us is away on vacation. Please, tell us what you think! A Socio-Technical Critique of Scientific Management:…

Show Notes In the final part of this three-part series on Culture, Mon-Chaio and Andy delve into the forces that promote as well as resist cultural change. They share one of their own failed cultural change initiatives and uncover what Egyptian pharaohs and Spanish fire walkers can teach us about creating long-lasting cultural change. Opening…

Show Notes In part two of this three-part series on Culture, Andy and Mon-Chaio wrangle with the question “Is there ‘better culture’ to aim for?” Along the way they delve into bad culture, focusing on values or on outcomes, differences between what people say and what people do, burnout, and pillars of a good tech…

Show Notes  In part one of this three-part series, Andy and Mon-Chaio attempt to provide a research-supported answer on whether culture is important for your tech organization. They also dig into the details of whether a company should hire for cultural fit. Opening quote from “A Review Paper on Organizational Culture and Organizational Performance”. References:…

Show Notes Goals. We all have them, but should we? Mon-Chaio and Andy examine the literature on goal setting and discuss how to set good, challenging goals. Opening quote from “Building a practically useful theory of goal setting and task motivation: A 35-year odyssey”. References: Transcript Microphone-1: In short, when people are asked to do…