CategoryTeam leadership

State of Developer Experience Report 2024

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Atlassian partnered with DX and published a new “State of developer experience report 2024“.It’s an interesting read.Almost 70% of developers lose 20% of their time because of various inefficiencies (tech debt, insufficient documentation, build process, lack of deep work time, etc.). And, according to leaders, many of these inefficiencies may be caused by understaffing.Leaders...

Becoming remote-first organization – Atlassian’s lessons learned

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Atlassian has recently released a report available at  that details their experience with transitioning to a remote-first organization. The report offers valuable insights and is worth reading. What stands out for me is that Atlassian recognized that remote work is not just about hiring new talent or saving on office space. It requires a shift in how the entire organization functions. In my...

Effective delegation

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Effective delegation is a core management skill that every leader should master. In essence, delegation is an act of transferring responsibility for specific tasks to others (teams or individuals). Delegation should result in freeing the manager up for more strategic work, but it goes beyond just getting stuff off the manager's plate. Delegating empowers the teams, builds trust, encourages...

Decision-making velocity and drag

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An insightful article about decision-making velocity and drag: . Many organizations concentrate on making their tooling and delivery processes more effective, yet they overlook or disregard the importance of verifying how they make decisions. Do your teams have the authority to make decisions on their own? Or do they have to involve managers in any issues or changes to a predetermined course of...

Dunbar’s Number

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In the 1990s British anthropologist Robin Dunbar performed an interesting research and suggested that humans can comfortably maintain about 150 contacts. It’s now best known as the Dunbar’s Number and it’s a measurement of the “cognitive limit to the number of individuals with whom any one person can maintain stable relationships”. Stable relationships mean that you know...

Recommended Books

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I am often asked about books I recommend that aspiring leaders should read. Appearances to the contrary, it is not an easy question to answer. I went through what I recall I have read and came up with the following, very narrowed-down list of books I think are mandatory for every software engineering manager.

Team Pulse Check

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One of the software engineering manager’s responsibilities is to understand the team’s dynamics and to know if your direct reports are happy in their jobs. While it sounds easy getting full insights from 1:1s, team meetings, or from your direct collaboration with the team is not always that straightforward. It may happen that your team members wait with raising their concerns or...

Innovation is easy, isn’t it?

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Early this year Harvard Business Review published an interesting article about innovative organizations by Gary P. Pisano. Most organizations perceive innovative culture as a key to their future competitive advantage and therefore something leaders want to establish and invest in. Also, employees value innovative organizations and consider them as a great place to work for. Moreover, it seems...