If you only read one thingCommunication Structures in a Growing Organization (18 minute read) Most startups I have seen or have been with, have had bad communication structures. In the way that they canāt answer how information flows from the top to the bottom, leading to all-hands as the only way of communication - which, of course, fails, and they are boring on top (think about the audience not you!). And what about the 10% of employees being sick or on holiday? How do they hear from you? What about feedback? PLUS bad communication structures in the way that they donāt lead to the right kind of action. Setting up a communication structure for top-down, and bottom-up information flow is what most startups miss. Have 1:1s, ask employees what they think about what the CEO said in the all hands. Or is going to say in the upcoming one. As a CTO have a management team and team meetings, and your middle-management has those too. Make sure everyone gets the information they need, make sure they have understood it, take their opinions, their feedback, donāt surprise people and explain explain explain. This is not possible with an ad-hoc, random-go-lucky communication structure. https://jessitron.com/2024/11/24/communication-structures-in-a-growing-organization/
Stories Iāve enjoyed this weekFailure Costs (26 minute read) The Trillion-Dollar question: āCan the EU build a trillion dollar company?ā The article focuses on restructuring costs. In the US, for a company, betting on something is much easier, if it fails, restructuring is cheap. When you restructure you survive. Interesting, but the article would need to show that Apple, Amazon, Meta went through restructurings to become that big. But these three companies have something in common. Founded by engineers. And this to me seems the biggest difference between the EU and the US. In the US startups are founded by engineers. In the EU, especially in Germany, startups are founded by business people. The companies, German (and EU) politicians are proud of, Siemens, Bosch, Mercedes, Renault? What do they have in common? Founded by engineers. That is what Europe lost. My take: When the EU wants trillion-dollar companies and successful startups, FUND MORE ENGINEERS! https://www.siliconcontinent.com/p/failure-costs Modern Staff Engineering at a Startup (28 minute read) What I did like about that article it is going into more details, not only throwing around names. I have been a proponent on more staff engineers in startups, today I wonder though, if staff engineers was the result of āwe have too much money, what roles should we create?ā and with the AI layoff wave, staff engineers will go? Or, contrary, with AI the staff engineer is the only one who will remain? How to cope with technology FOMO (34 minute read) There is always a new technology, every year, all the time. But companies move slower than technologies do. Developers fear of missing out on that new trend, that new hype. As CTO you need to find a solution for the FOMO of your engineers. How can their CV stay relevant? But without tech-hopping from framework to framework, from migration to migration. Hackathons, MVPs, R&D, Prototypes, competitions, internal conference talks, there are many possible ways for engineers to stay relevant. How do you manage the FOMO in your department? (My take: I donāt care about the technologies you know, I care about your thinking, that you can get things done and your motivation - not if youāre a the newest Javascript-Svelte ninja). https://avdi.codes/how-to-cope-with-technology-fomo/ Database Schema Linting (13 minute read) Iām a huge fan of linting. My projects run through a lot of linters (govulcheck, staticcheck, nilaway, ā¦) and yours should too. What I donāt use yet a database schema linter. We might still have a blind eye for the database migration files. I will add a database schema linter, so should you. Best find one that warns for destructive or blocking operations, not only naming conventions. Also perhaps a spellchecker, whenever I join a company there are typos in the database schema, no one wants to change because so much code depends on the typo ;-) Do you have a typo in a database field no one wants to fix? https://kristiandupont.medium.com/database-schema-linting-5e83b18dc99a How to Grow Professional Relationships (21 minute read) Professional relationships, inside and outside of a company can help you with everything. Many people in Marketing and Sales understand this. They build relationships left and right. Engineering managers on the contrary often donāt. Having a relationship to the VP of Marketing makes the next board meeting much easier. Having a relationship to the CFO makes getting your budget much easier. Relationships are the key to win decisions. Nearly everything in the article is great, go read it, then build relationships. My simple relationship model: No Relationship, Relationship, Trust, Loyalty. To get to the higher levels, you need to start with a relationship. And for this, you need to interact with people - emails and meetings are not enough to build relationship. Have lunch together, have bi-weekly 1:1s. And read the article. The go ask the VP of Marketing out for lunch. https://tej.as/blog/how-to-grow-professional-relationships-tjs-model 65% Of Employees Bypass Cybersecurity Measures, New Study Finds (50 minute read) ā65% of office workers admit to circumventing company security policies in the name of efficiency.ā Again this week talked to a client, who again thought the problem is, coming up with a plan. And again, sigh, I had to tell someone that the problem is not coming up with a plan, the problem is to roll it out and make it work. Coming up with plan, like a cybersecurity policy, is not the problem. But making the plan successful is the problem. So? Put 80% of your effort into the rollout, and 20% of your effort into creating the plan. Not the usual 0% rollout, 100% planning. Introducing ChatGPT Pro (10 minute read) We now have āChatGPT Pro, a $200 monthly planā. There is always a place at the top of your pricing structure for those with the money and the (perceived) need for a top product. If you donāt have it, add a āChatGPT Proā to your services, 10x the price (!). Donāt just add a āenterpriseā plan without a price tag. https://openai.com/index/introducing-chatgpt-pro/ Broadcom loses another big customer: UK fintech cloud Beeks Group, and most of its 20,000 VMs (10 minute read) I did think it was genius (and evil) to buy VMWare, then raise prices, because people donāt have an alternative. But then it seems people have alternatives to VMWare and just leave. Do people have alternatives to your product? Why? What would you need to do that your product has no alternatives? On VMWare: What I always found funny is how IT told me (-> CTO) how easy it is to move running apps from one server to another, and autobalance, without any impact to the users, and how users told me often how apps on VMWare had slowness spikes that made them unusable for times. After a little chuckling, I made them talk to each other. Overall no fan though. https://www.theregister.com/2024/12/02/beeks_group_vmware_opennebula_migration/ Everyone does documentation wrong. Often itās written for the sake of being written. Always write software for the sake of being read instead. Whom does this document help in which way? What I like about this framework, āDiĆ”taxis identifies four distinct needs, and four corresponding forms of documentation - tutorials, how-to guides, technical reference and explanation.ā Love it ā¤ļø 2024 Was the Year Return to Office Finally Tipped in Real Estateās Favor (10 minute read) The pendulum is swinging. More people are going back to the office and the real estate market is showing this. Still, āoffice buildings across the U.S. are 62 percent as busy as they were in September 2019ā But those who have thought WFH is the resting peace, were wrong, those who see RTO is the resting place of the pendulum, are wrong too. Weāll see where it ends. My prediction: Companies with the power over employees like Amazon with their brand and money will have RTO, everyone else will use WFH as a lever. ā79 percent of CEOs envision the working environment to become entirely in-office over the next three yearsā - yes, because CEOs have 100% meetings, and meetings are nicer in the office, so yes, this is what CEOs want. And people who have 10% meeting and 90% tangible work, work better at home. What happens if an unstoppable force hits an immovable object? https://commercialobserver.com/2024/12/2024-return-to-office-trend/ Join the CTO newsletter! | |
