All posts filed under: Leadership

Rituals of modern product teams

January 26, 2024
by Michael
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Leadership

In case your podcast queue is running low, I highly recommend queuing up this presentation from Figma’s Config 2023 conference: Rituals of modern product teams - Yuhki Yamashita, Shishir Mehrotra (Config 2023) - YouTube The basic premise is that effective teams have established a number of rituals over time, and Yamashita and Mehrotra give a quick rundown of some of those rituals (screenshot below). I am fascinated by the organizing framework they use to categorize […]

Getting things done

July 29, 2023
by Michael
Leadership

More than twenty years ago a book came out by David Allen called Getting Things Done. For a while it garnered quite a cult following and it resonated with me as well. The framework was accessible as it had lots of helpful. tactical advice that was easy to implement, but it also had a lot of depth. Similar to the old PacMan arcade game: "A minute to learn, a lifetime to master". Recently it re-entered […]

The plateau of meh

June 1, 2023
by Michael
Leadership

Most successful careers contain actually quite a few plateaus once observed up close. Wikipedia entries of famous people fascinate me, because they show that their paths are not as clean as one might remember. There is a variant of the hero's journey that is often overlooked, because it is far less dramatic and more mundane. One where the hero does not fight the fierce monster or rises up to the insurmountable challenge. Rather, one where […]

Companies are not families

February 19, 2022
by Michael
Leadership / Opinion

Good New York Times interview with the new Peloton CEO Barry McCarthy. Near the end he dropped a nice nugget: And I say you’ll never hear me say we’re a family. We’re a sports team, and we’re trying to win the Super Bowl. And so we’re going to put the best players on the field we can. And if you go down the field, and we throw you the ball, and you drop it a […]

The dogs won’t eat it – Choosing OKRs well

October 4, 2020
by Michael
Leadership

The concept of Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) is deceptively easy. Objectives are ambitious, qualitative and time bound goals of a team. Each objective is typically supported by ~3-4 key results. Key Results are measurable achievements that contribute to those goals. They are business outcomes and typically expressed in terms of adoption, engagement, cost, performance or quality. An OKR describes both what a team wants to achieve and how it is going to measure its […]

Less is more … difficult – writing summaries

May 17, 2020
by Michael
Leadership

Writing is hard and writing a summary is no exception. If you are working on proposals, general research or strategies, at some point you have to summarize your idea. As Pascal once said "I have made this longer than usual because I have not had time to make it shorter." A summary takes time to get right. The investment does pay off as it makes your work easier to digest, improves structure and highlights your […]

Dear Library, Thank You!

December 27, 2019
by Michael
Leadership

The end of the year is an opportunity to look back and be grateful. When we moved here, the local libraries of King County and Seattle welcomed us with open arms. No credit history or social security number required, not even a monthly fee. We've been continuously surprised by the local libraries and their commitment to excellence. Their dense network of locations for pick ups and drop offs, the amazing collection of books and their […]