Pinboard (earth2marsh) https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/public/ recent bookmarks from earth2marsh Introduction to OST — OOSTKit 2026-06-29T06:47:52+00:00 https://oostkit.com/apps/intro_ost?from=section_theory earth2marshSix criteria for productive work Over decades of action research across dozens of countries, the Emerys identified six conditions that, when present, produce sustained motivation, learning, and genuine engagement at work. When they are absent, no amount of leadership training, culture work, or engagement programming compensates; the problems return. The six have now been measured in enough organisations, across enough cultures, that they appear to be a consistent feature of how human beings respond to work, not a product of any particular industry or context. The first three concern the content of the work itself, and must be optimal for each person: neither too little nor too much. Too little and the work becomes stifling; too much and it becomes overwhelming. The right level varies between people and shifts over time. Elbow room. People make real decisions about how their own work gets done. Not micromanaged, not left entirely at sea. Continual learning. People set goals and get honest, timely feedback on whether they've been met. They can see themselves getting better. Variety. The work has enough range to stay interesting and to call on different capabilities. Not so much that it fragments into chaos. The second three concern the climate of the workplace. These have no upper limit; there is no such thing as too much of any of them. Mutual support and respect. People help each other out without being asked, and can rely on the same in return. Nobody is left isolated when the work gets hard. Meaningfulness. The work connects to something that matters beyond the immediate task. People can see the whole product or service they're contributing to, and feel it's worth having in the world. A desirable future. The role leads somewhere. People are developing skills and taking on more responsibility over time, not repeating the same tasks indefinitely. The critical point for practitioners is this: none of these six conditions can be reliably installed through training, coaching, or engagement programmes. They are produced (or destroyed) by the structure of the work itself. DP1 removes them, one by one. Elbow room disappears when a manager makes the decisions. Continual learning stalls when jobs are simplified and feedback routes to the top. Mutual support erodes when people compete for promotion. Meaningfulness gets lost when nobody sees the whole. A desirable future becomes a management career path that most people can't access.]]> systems management organization OST https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:29acac2e4c5a/ Package Management is a Wicked Problem | Andrew Nesbitt 2026-06-20T03:00:34+00:00 https://nesbitt.io/2026/01/23/package-management-is-a-wicked-problem.html earth2marshRittel and Webber’s answer to wicked problems was participatory planning: bring stakeholders together early, iterate continuously, accept that you’re managing tradeoffs rather than finding solutions. If we accept that these problems are wicked, we stop looking for a perfect tool and start looking for better ways to communicate across tools. That shift from tools to interfaces is what led me to think about what a shared protocol for package management might look like.]]> systems package management problems https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:d9d4db607e0b/ The Most Predictable Edit in History | by Jake Orlowitz | Jun, 2026 | Medium 2026-06-06T04:17:21+00:00 https://medium.com/@jakeorlowitz/the-most-predictable-edit-in-history-967956076b11 earth2marshThe recurring failure of centralized power is not that it cannot think. It is that it keeps mistaking the people who can see for the people who must be managed. The eyes are at the edge. They always have been.]]> wikipedia community Management mistakes https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:6d729a9de3a3/ Bookmarked toot from lrhodes 2026-02-18T08:41:55+00:00 https://merveilles.town/@lrhodes/116087470498684306 earth2marsh masto-bmarks leadership management appeal LLMs assistants https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:d1222dd21237/ John Cutler - OKRs were never meant to solve all problems - Feed | LinkedIn 2025-07-08T23:43:49+00:00 https://www.linkedin.com/posts/johnpcutler_okrs-were-never-meant-to-solve-all-problems-activity-7347758036578390017-iL6r earth2marshOKRs were never meant to solve all problems. Each one of these "weaknesses" is an opportunity to mix in other tools/methods to supercharge OKRs. A quarter is an arbitrary duration A quarter is an odd duration: too long to promote small, iterative work and too short for deep strategic focus. No way to express uncertainty There's no good way to express uncertainty, assumptions, or the need to learn. Teams feel pressure to sound confident. “Good” OKRs turn out overly certain and definitive. OKRs emphasize vertical alignment, ignore horizontal progressions The dominant linking model is vertical (e.g., supporting a higher-level OKR). This misses how one goal is a stepping stone in a broader progression. No mechanism to reset goals mid-cycle Many companies lack a process for revisiting and adjusting OKRs when conditions change. Teams try to force-fit progress to outdated plans. Teams set goals against untested metrics Many key metrics are poorly instrumented, poorly understood, or newly created. Setting goals against them can be premature and misleading without baseline understanding. OKRs ignore how outcomes are achieved The systems, habits, and approaches used to reach goals often matter as much as the outcomes themselves. OKRs don’t express or guide relative prioritization While you can try to infer what matters most, OKRs don’t explicitly convey relative importance or trade-offs between goals. They lack built-in prioritization logic. OKRs ignore KTLO and BAU work Keep-the-lights-on and business-as-usual work often isn’t reflected in OKRs. This creates confusion about where time went and can lead to unrealistic expectations around capacity. OKRs structured by org chart mask real dependencies When OKRs mirror the org chart, they create a false sense of independence. Teams may appear accountable in isolation, but in reality, progress depends on other groups (and those links often go unacknowledged). OKRs create a double burden alongside actual work tracking Teams still need to track and coordinate the work (tasks, deliverables, timelines, etc.) OKRs often live in a separate layer, leading to redundant effort and disconnects between goals and day-to-day work. OKRs are tacked onto existing work Rather than shaping priorities, OKRs are often retrofitted to projects teams already planned to do. This creates the illusion of focus without actually changing behavior or decision-making. OKRs strip away context and narrative OKRs are meant to be concise, but in doing so they often lose the story behind the work (why it matters, how it connects to other efforts, and what trade-offs are involved, etc.)]]> okrs productmanagement management https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:2e9b7a21adb8/ </> htmx ~ Vendoring 2025-04-20T21:10:57+00:00 https://htmx.org/essays/vendoring/ earth2marsh“Vendoring” software is a technique where you copy the source of another project directly into your own project. It is an old technique that has been used for time immemorial in software development, but the term “vendoring” to describe it appears to have originated in the ruby community. Vendoring can be and is still used today. You can vendor htmx, for example, quite easily.]]> dependencies management software opensource https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:96a2412f7140/ Vulnerability Avoidant | blog.danielna.com 2025-03-17T03:05:39+00:00 https://blog.danielna.com/vulnerability-avoidant/ earth2marshVulnerability isn’t nice or mean, it’s honest When I use the word “vulnerable,” I don’t mean “meek” or “emotionally demonstrative.” You don’t have to have tears in your eyes to be vulnerable. In this context vulnerability means being willing to do the leg work to be emotionally and intellectually honest when evaluating a situation, and confront the truth when that evaluation diverges from easy outcomes. Confronting the truth takes courage, and it’s easier to make conclusions upstream of details because it spares you the emotional cost of grappling with confounding or unpalatable nuance.
Andy Grove discusses the Peter Principle, or leaders “rising to the level of their incompetence.” A common excuse for managers when promoting someone to a title they underperform in is “oh, it’s fine if they struggle, they’re learning.” Andy’s response: “It’s great that they’re learning, but remember - who’s paying their tuition? The team underneath the person who is flailing.” I think the Peter Principle is often misread as a flippant or cynical observation rather than an objective observation, but it’s absolutely the latter. It’s only natural when promoting someone into a role or scope they’ve never had before that they’ll struggle to adapt, at least for some time.
]]> management vulnerability leadership performance productmanagement https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:3ab727857db9/ A winning mix: High standards, high support - The Washington Post 2025-03-14T18:03:51+00:00 https://archive.ph/2024.12.01-042023/https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2024/11/30/discomfort-grit-womens-soccer-coaching/ earth2marshWhat if we could reframe our attitude and see discomfort as a sign of progress? Researchers from Cornell University and the University of Chicago instructed 557 improv students to embrace discomfort as an indicator of learning and skill development. Students who were told to seek discomfort took more risks, persisted longer in the exercises and reported a greater sense of achievement. Comfort might be fine for keeping warm, but when we feel comfortable, “we’re often not advancing,” says Kaitlin Woolley, a marketing professor at Cornell and one of the study’s researchers.]]> psychology behavior discomfort support standards growth excellence management parenting productmanagement https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:360f3074d984/ Welcome to the WIP | Figma Blog 2025-03-10T16:29:46+00:00 https://www.figma.com/blog/welcome-to-the-wip/ earth2marsha way for company leaders to indicate the importance of their feedback. It’s essentially a hashtag they put at the end of their feedback to indicate how much they care, or as the saying goes, to what degree they’re willing “to die on that hill.” For example: #fyi means there’s no hill to die on. #suggestion means they’ve seen the hill but don’t feel strongly enough to commit the energy to climb it. Take it or leave it. #recommendation means the hill was climbed. They thought about dying on it, but walked back down. And finally, #plea means that they do, in fact, want to die on the hill. So if you see this flashtag, you better make sure it’s prioritized!]]> feedback reviews management patterns communication figma hashtags comments productmanagement https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:a8015cf4b580/ Psychological Safety vs. High Standards: A Misunderstood Dynamic 2025-02-16T04:18:19+00:00 https://www.leadingsapiens.com/psychological-safety-vs-high-standards/ earth2marshThe term “psychological safety” is often misleading. When managers hear safety, many dismiss it as a soft style that implies complacency. Meanwhile, psychology implies too much mumbo jumbo. High-profile figures like Elon Musk advocating for a “hardcore” style perpetuate this misconception. But this is a fundamental misunderstanding of the relationship between high standards and psychological safety. In this piece, I unpack the confusion surrounding psychological safety and why you need both psychological safety and high standards to achieve high performance.]]> psychology safety management teams culture https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:359a6e790604/ What is API Rate Limiting? | Zuplo Blog 2025-01-31T05:38:08+00:00 https://zuplo.com/blog/2025/01/24/api-rate-limiting earth2marshapis ratelimiting rates management https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:41a11f6b5405/ Why hiring the ‘best’ people produces the least creative results | Aeon Ideas 2025-01-08T04:40:08+00:00 https://aeon.co/ideas/why-hiring-the-best-people-produces-the-least-creative-results earth2marshcharacter of complex problems also undermines the principle of meritocracy: the idea that the ‘best person’ should be hired. There is no best person. When putting together an oncological research team, a biotech company such as Gilead or Genentech would not construct a multiple-choice test and hire the top scorers, or hire people whose resumes score highest according to some performance criteria. Instead, they would seek diversity. They would build a team of people who bring diverse knowledge bases, tools and analytic skills. That team would more likely than not include mathematicians (though not logicians such as Griffeath). And the mathematicians would likely study dynamical systems and differential equations.]]> diversity creativity management dimensions thinking https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:57c16b21a3ae/ wrttn:04af1a 2024-12-24T08:30:14+00:00 https://landley.net/history/mirror/institutional_memory.html earth2marshInstitutional memory comes in two forms: people and documentation. People remember how things work and why. Sometimes they write it down and store that information somewhere. Institutional amnesia works similarly. The people leave and the documents disappear, rot, or just become forgotten (as it were). I worked for several decades at a large petrochemical company. In the early 1980s, we designed and built a plant that refines some hydrocarbon type stuff into other hydrocarbon type stuff. Over the next thirty years, institutional memory of this plant faded to a dim recollection. Oh, it still operates, and still makes money for the firm. Day to day maintenance is performed, and the skilled local crew is familiar with the controls, valves, safety systems, and other such.]]> memory docs management history company documentation https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:132b33d1864e/ Parkinson's law - Wikipedia 2024-12-20T17:33:09+00:00 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_law earth2marshThe first-referenced meaning of the law – "Work expands to fill the available time" – has sprouted several corollaries, the best known being the Stock-Sanford corollary to Parkinson's law: If you wait until the last minute, it only takes a minute to do.[2] Other corollaries include Horstman's corollary to Parkinson's law, coined by Mark Horstman of website manager-tools.com:[3] Work contracts to fit in the time we give it.]]> work laws deadlines psychology management https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:140a5a36eeba/ An extended subtweet on power — Cat Swetel 2024-12-04T05:39:22+00:00 https://catswetel.com/blog/2021/5/4/an-extended-subtweet-on-power earth2marshthe three types of power commonly discussed in management theory: power-over, power-with, and power-to. These three types of power were first identified by the Mother of Modern Management, Mary Parker Follett. You may also recognize her as the person who coined the term “win-win.” Here are the three types of power: Power-over is extractive. Power-over is extracted from other people, the natural world, etc. Power-over means getting more of the pie. Power-with is gained when we work together, i.e, collective action. Power-with means making the pie bigger as a result of all of us making pie together. Power-to is productive and generative. Power-to is the power we have to create new things. Power-to means making the pie bigger in some new way or even making a new and different pie. ]]> power management leadership https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:1e85610b5550/ reports | Catharsis Consulting 2024-11-25T04:35:39+00:00 https://www.catharsisinsight.com/reports earth2marshThemes from these interviews revealed an important learning tension: the work that code writers needed to do to understand code often did not feel like what was rewarded in the evaluation of their work. Code review often did not recognize code writers’ effort when it did not result in lines of code. Despite stated ideals about knowledge sharing (e.g., documentation and collaboration), this work was often contradicted with negative cues from colleagues about what was “truly” valued. This tension was exacerbated by code writers’ fears about “not looking like an engineer,” and their desire to perform to the expectations of their environments. Code writers navigated this by divesting from their own learning and from the “invisible” work of knowledge transfer, leaving future collaborators without guidance in their own ramp-up to unfamiliar code. As a result, code writers frequently expressed a poignant loneliness, even in highly resourced teams. This maladaptive cycle can be understood as Learning Debt. Research from learning science describes how environments that discourage sharing mistakes and valuing “in-draft” effort lead to long-term costs in people’s motivation, wellbeing, and learning. Under this discouragement, even formal processes which are ostensibly meant to maintain productivity and provide support (e.g., code review, conversations with senior code authors) can reinforce these negative norms]]> management programming learning culture incentives https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:ef8f5cf01019/ The Seven Deadly Sins of Psychological Safety - Psych Safety 2024-11-25T03:41:38+00:00 https://psychsafety.co.uk/the-seven-deadly-sins-of-psychological-safety/ earth2marsh“That’s a terrible idea.” “You should know that by now.” “Whose fault is this?” “Everyone is replaceable.” “Don’t bring me problems, bring me solutions.” “Just get it done.” “Not now, I’m too busy.”]]> safety psychological culture management https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:6f0277220b7a/ OKRs aren't the only way. How to identify the right types of goals for your team. 2024-09-24T05:14:04+00:00 https://waysofworkingcollection.substack.com/p/okrs-arent-the-only-way-how-to-identify?triedRedirect=true earth2marshnot enough time on deciding if the type of goals they have chosen are the right ones in the first place. What are the different types of goals? Below I’ve identified 5 types of goals, which fall into 3 categories: Doing something new: Discovery and Zero-to-One type goals. Building on the existing: Iterate and Scale type goals. Business as usual: The day-to-day work that is often overlooked and not classified as goals, but requires your team's bandwidth]]> okrs goals management productmanagement criticism https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:7a5efd2cb36c/ Founders Create Managers. There’s a new pg article making the… | by Camille Fournier | Sep, 2024 | Medium 2024-09-03T06:10:12+00:00 https://skamille.medium.com/founders-create-managers-aba3c88981ba earth2marshMy assertion is that “founder mode”, naively applied, creates the very conditions that lead to those nefarious professional managers. I’ve seen it happen at companies big and small with founder-type leaders. The process goes something like this:]]> management founders scaling https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:d2395e5f3314/ Boomi Dismembers The TIBCO Frankenstein Through Acquisitions 2024-07-19T05:58:26+00:00 https://www.forrester.com/blogs/boomi-dismembers-the-tibco-frankenstein/ earth2marshtibco apis management vendors https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:d6ace4965bd0/ Designer's Digest - Steve Jobs on the role of product and marketing people. - YouTube 2024-05-02T20:59:11+00:00 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4VBqTViEx4 earth2marsh business management videos steve_jobs xerox https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:138e37e24a5a/ The 7 Levels of Delegation. Empowerment with Boundaries and Clarity | by Jurgen Appelo | Medium 2024-04-10T01:47:59+00:00 https://medium.com/@jurgenappelo/the-7-levels-of-delegation-672ec2a48103 earth2marshThat’s why a person wanting to delegate work to someone else can benefit from the use of the seven levels of delegation. 1. Tell: You make a decision for others and you may explain your motivation. A discussion about it is neither desired nor assumed. 2. Sell: You make a decision for others but try to convince them that you made the right choice, and you help them feel involved. 3. Consult: You ask for input first, which you take it into consideration before making a decision that respects people’s opinions. 4. Agree: You enter into a discussion with everyone involved, and as a group you reach consensus about the decision. 5. Advise: You will offer others your opinion and hope they listen to your wise words, but it will be their decision, not yours. 6. Inquire: You first leave it to the others to decide, and afterwards, you ask them to convince you of the wisdom of their decision. 7. Delegate: You leave the decision to them and you don’t even want to know about details that would just clutter your brain.]]> decisions framework leadership management https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:c85592838ba8/ OKRs are Bullshit - by drmorr 2024-04-06T14:39:21+00:00 https://blog.appliedcomputing.io/p/okrs-are-bullshit earth2marshthe biggest problem with OKR's laser focus on measurement, though, is that not everything should be measured, even if you can! Being "data-driven" is a huge buzzword in the industry. We want to improve, we want to see how much we improved by, and then we want to tell the world how much we improved by so our stock price goes up.]]> metrics business management process planning okrs criticism https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:ae16fbb4ef10/ Raw Signal Group 2024-03-16T20:59:50+00:00 https://www.rawsignal.ca/ earth2marshManagement and leadership training for leaders in growing organizations. No trust falls. No personality tests. Just the concrete skills you need to do hard things.]]> management training leadership https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:e0b359f17ff2/ Being Glue — No Idea Blog 2024-03-02T19:37:53+00:00 https://noidea.dog/glue earth2marshcareer leadership management glue https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:7d391317f6bd/ Shields Down – Rands in Repose 2024-02-22T21:26:09+00:00 https://randsinrepose.com/archives/shields-down/ earth2marshYour shields drop the moment you let a glimpse of a potential different future into your mind. It seems like a unconsidered off-the-cuff thought sans consequence, but the thought opens you to possibilities that did not exist the moment before the thought existed. What is incredibly slippery about this moment is the complex, nuanced, and instant mental math performed that precedes the shields-down situation. When you are indirectly asked to lower your shields, you immediately parse, place a value, and aggregate your opinions on the following: Am I happy with my job? Do I like my manager? My team? Is this project I’m working on fulfilling? Am I learning? Am I respected? Am I growing? Do I feel fairly compensated? Is this company/team going anywhere? Do I believe in the vision? Do I trust the leaders?]]> career management culture jobs switching leadership https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:193adb58541f/ A Framework for Thinking About Systems Change · Intense Minimalism 2024-01-27T06:34:16+00:00 https://intenseminimalism.com/2015/a-framework-for-thinking-about-systems-change/ earth2marshConfusion → lack of Vision: note that this can be a proper lack of vision, or the lack of understanding of that vision, often due to poor communication and syncrhonization of the people involved. Anxiety → lack of Skills: this means that the people involved need to have the ability to do the transformation itself and even more importantly to be skilled enough to thrive once the transformation is completed. Resistance → lack of Incentives: incentives are important as people tend to have a big inertia to change, not just for fear generated by the unknown, but also because changing takes energy and as such there needs to be a way to offset that effort. Frustration → lack of Resources: sometimes change requires very little in terms of practical resources, but a lot in terms of time of the individuals involved (i.e. to learn a new way to do things), lacking resources will make progress very slow and it’s very frustrating to see that everything is aligned and ready, but doesn’t progress. False Starts → lack of Action Plan: action plans don’t have to be too complicated, as small transformative changes can be done with little structure, yet, structure has to be there. For example it’s very useful to have one person to lead the charge, and everyone else agreeing they are the right person to make things happen.]]> change frameworks leadership management systems https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:b469814c24aa/ So you CAN manage what you can't measure? | Marketing Research, Science of Business 2024-01-21T07:19:21+00:00 https://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/mhsu/blog/files/deming_measurement.html earth2marshLittle did I know that in fact: (i) Drucker didn't say it, (ii) Deming didn't say it, (iii) Deming said something similar, but meant something completely the opposite. The actual quote, by Deming, is, "It is wrong to suppose that if you can’t measure it, you can't manage it—a costly myth".]]> quotes measurement management https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:25cde3685f54/ RFC processes are a poor fit for most organizations - Jacob Kaplan-Moss 2023-12-03T02:15:30+00:00 https://jacobian.org/2023/dec/1/against-rfcs/ earth2marshThe IETF’s RFC home page holds a key hint to why they tend to work poorly outside of standards bodies: Software developers, hardware manufacturers, and network operators around the world voluntarily implement and adopt the technical specifications described by RFCs. Did you catch the problem? It’s these two words: “voluntarily implement.” Why RFCs fail in corporate settings The crux of the problem with RFC processes in corporate settings is that the process, as designed, doesn’t include any sort of decision-making framework. They are, as the person whose quote opened this piece described, a “document and discuss” framework – and not a decision-making framework. RFCs are written and discussed, but there’s no mechanism by which they’re formally adopted or rejected. Organizations choose to implement them (or don’t); they become standards through widespread voluntary adoption.]]> decisions management rfcs work culture standards https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:1bb530ee7c38/ Your Small Imprecise Ask Is a Big Waste of Their Time | Stay SaaSy 2023-11-27T18:24:46+00:00 https://staysaasy.com/startups/2023/11/10/imprecise-asks.html earth2marshDo not, DO NOT, assume they are too busy to answer clarifying questions as you work on the ask. Dollars are flushed down the drain every day because people incorrectly assume leaders don’t have time to clarify their asks. Rooms full of people analyze emails and instant messages from the leader like ancient artifacts. Ask the leader for clarification - if they have time to ask you to do something, they have time to clarify that ask.]]> leadership management productmanagement costs https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:51981572b399/ A Leader’s Framework for Decision Making 2023-10-25T04:13:02+00:00 https://hbr.org/2007/11/a-leaders-framework-for-decision-making earth2marsh The term "Cynefin" (pronounced ku-nev-in) is a Welsh word that roughly translates to "habitat" or "place." It was popularized by Dave Snowden as a framework to help decision-makers understand the complexity of different types of problems and situations. The term was chosen to evoke a sense of the complexities around the different environments in which decisions are made. It categorizes problems into five domains: Simple (or Clear), Complicated, Complex, Chaotic, and Aporetic (or Confused). Think of Cynefin as a map: just as a topographical map helps you understand landscapes, the Cynefin framework helps you navigate the terrain of decision-making by showing you the nature of the problem at hand. Cynefin doesn't offer solutions but provides a way to understand the context so that you can apply appropriate problem-solving methods. ]]> complexity leadership management frameworks productmanagement decisions https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:07e359b4a26c/ Energy makes time | everything changes 2023-09-14T00:16:15+00:00 https://everythingchanges.us/blog/energy-makes-time/ earth2marshThen one day they say fuck it all. They eat leftover pasta over the sink, drop mom off at her mahjongg game, and go sit in the park to draw. They draw for hours, until the sun goes down and they’re squinting under the street lights. And, lo and behold, the next day they plow through all those lingering to-dos. They see clearly that half of them were unnecessary when before they all seemed critical. They recognize a few others as things better handed off to their peers. They suddenly find time for attending to that one project they’d been procrastinating on for weeks. They sleep better. Their skin looks great. (Okay I might be exaggerating on that last one, but only mildly.) It turns out, not doing their art was costing them time, was draining it away, little by little, like a slow but steady leak. They had assumed, wrongly, that there wasn’t enough time in the day to do their art, because they assumed (because we’re conditioned to assume) that every thing we do costs time. But that math doesn’t take energy into account, doesn’t grok that doing things that energize you gives you time back. By doing their art, a whole lot of time suddenly returned. Their art didn’t need more time; their time needed their art.]]> creativity productivity time energy management https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:a0962f2a0d2f/ Skip-level meetings: What they are, and exactly how to run them - Know Your Team | Blog 2023-09-06T00:14:32+00:00 https://knowyourteam.com/blog/2019/10/03/skip-level-meetings-what-they-are-and-exactly-how-to-run-them/ earth2marshBefore your skip-level meeting, take 15 minutes to do the two following things: #1: Get up-to-speed. Your skip-level meeting should not be spent getting caught up on the employee’s latest project. You can read about that in Slack, Basecamp, Trello, etc. So any time you spend asking “What’s the latest on X?” you’ve wasted invaluable time in your skip-level meeting. Instead, review status updates ahead of time. #2: Co-create an agenda. Spend time brainstorming 5–7 questions that you want to ask the employee — and then send the agenda over to the employee to get their input and have them add any questions they’d like. On your end, at least one of the agenda questions should be something that helps establish trust or rapport in the beginning, to help your employees feel more comfortable before diving into the conversation. The rest of the questions should be focused on either feedback, issues/concerns in the company, and/or career direction. Lastly, you’ll then want to leave 10 or so minutes at the end of the agenda to discuss the next steps and takeaways. Here’s an example of a skip-level meeting agenda: Personal connection (10 minutes) Concerns/Issues (20 minutes) As a company, do you think we’re behind the curve on anything in particular? When have you been disappointed with a decision or the direction that the company has gone in the past quarter? What rumors are you hearing that you think I should know about? Feedback (20 minutes) When have you felt most proud of being a part of the company this past year? Could I be doing a better job outlining the vision and direction for where we’re headed? Takeaways / next steps (10 minutes)]]> management skip meetings preparation https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:63dcdbd8cc39/ One of my all time favorites. Can’t remember where I first read it (Quora?), but... | Hacker News 2023-06-15T16:29:10+00:00 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25855303 earth2marsh jokes programming development engineers projects management https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:4ce0b6d3e677/ Manage stakeholders more effectively with AAI, not RACI | by Joshua McLaughlin | Medium 2023-05-08T06:18:38+00:00 https://joshmcla.medium.com/manage-stakeholders-more-effectively-with-aai-not-raci-7982c79c8ba6 earth2marshKey components of the AAI framework The three components of Awareness, Alignment, and Inclusion that make up the AAI framework are defined as: Awareness: This refers to anyone who is impacted by, or has the ability to affect the outcome of a task or decision, even if they don’t have direct authority. Alignment: This refers to who has the power to make decisions and take action on a task. Inclusion: This refers to who is responsible for executing a task or making a decision. ]]> projectmanagement project management farmeworks https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:41eb3607bcf0/ Mary Poppendieck’s “The Tyranny of ‘The Plan’” – Chris Gagné 2023-02-09T01:12:06+00:00 https://chrisgagne.com/1255/mary-poppendiecks-the-tyranny-of-the-plan/ earth2marshSo when we have this thing called variance from plan against which basically most project managers happen to be measured from their basic performance, right? Okay, how are we doing with earned value and that sort of thing. Basic project management measurement is variance from plan. So say you vary from plan. What happens? Oh, you’ve got a performance failure, right? Maybe. There is another way to look at performance from schedule. Perhaps it’s not the person who’s trying to manage the schedules fault. Perhaps it’s the schedule’s fault instead. In fact, if the schedule is a hypothesis rolled up from a lot of detail, it’s the schedule’s fault, not the person’s fault and what we really should do is view it as a learning opportunity.
There’s one thing that’s missing that you see in every entrepreneurial company starting up and it’s called “that entrepreneur,” the guy with the big idea that understands the technology and understands the customers. What we don’t have in corporate IT is any concept that even comes close to a product manager or anything like that that you find in every product company. Somebody that has a vision of what the customers really want and what the technology is capable of and can make those tradeoffs. Instead, too much of the IT people are order takers. Go to the business and do whatever they say. That’s not the concept. The concept is to understand well enough what’s needed out there to make aggressive tradeoffs so that you can figure out how to design to fit the constraints. That means there’s got to be somebody there that can make those choices and say “no, we don’t need that. That can be later.” Typically IT departments lack that, but companies that are trying to start new products have only so much money. They’re much more capable of making those tradeoff decisions and you need somebody that’s in a position to make the “yes, we’ve got to have this, no we can do without that,” decisions and they’re tough decisions. There is typically is no role in IT departments to make those tradeoffs.
]]> management planning projectmanagement lean empire https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:3600e99d6b22/ Should management be on your career path? | by Sean Regan | Smells Like Team Spirit | Medium 2023-01-28T01:28:30+00:00 https://medium.com/smells-like-team-spirit/should-management-be-on-your-career-path-a6aa6b7aad0a earth2marshfrom the former head of product marketing at Atlassian to everyone within his team. But it's also great advice, when flipped, for managers. For example, the first point: "1: Managing your career path is your responsibility" - is true for the manager as well. "Managing your reports' career paths is your responsibility, too." Or "9: Get comfortable with being uncomfortable" flipped is "Make it safe for the people on your team to be uncomfortable."]]> management career responsibility advice https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:ea2b664e415f/ 🔮 Future of API Management in 2023 and Beyond | Learn APIs with Kevin 2023-01-12T02:17:46+00:00 https://swiber.dev/future-of-api-management-in-2023-and-beyond earth2marshEven as some components of API Management platforms head toward commodity, we'll continue to see innovations move from their genesis into the product space and into open source projects. In 2023 and beyond, API Management platforms will: Include more than just the runtime Focus on key experiences Measure what matters to all stakeholders Allow a mix-and-match of plug-and-play components Integrate ML/AI capabilities]]> apis management predictions https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:40451928d70b/ How Big Tech Runs Tech Projects and the Curious Absence of Scrum - The Pragmatic Engineer 2022-11-08T19:14:59+00:00 https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/project-management-at-big-tech/ earth2marshAutonomy for software engineers and teams. The expectation of developers at traditional companies is to complete assigned work. At SV-like companies, it's to solve problems that the business has. This is a huge difference. It impacts the day-to-day life of any engineer. Curious problem solvers, not mindless resources. A motivated engineer easily makes multiple times the impact of a "factory worker" who only does what they’re told. For organizations with a factory worker attitude, this approach will bias towards more heavyweight project management approaches that leave little room for interpretation, on purpose. Internal data, code, and documentation transparency]]> process management scrum agile programming comparison https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:467711a58bfa/ OPP (Other People’s Problems). A hard lesson for me over the past… | by Camille Fournier | Medium 2022-11-04T16:36:25+00:00 https://skamille.medium.com/opp-other-peoples-problems-d7eb174724ee earth2marshOPP (Other People’s Problems) A hard lesson for me over the past several years of my career has been figuring out how to pick my battles. I’ve seen many friends and colleagues struggle with this as well: how do you know when to involve yourself in something, and how do you know when to stay out of it? How do you figure out where the line is?]]> culture management people problems productmanagement https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:cd4649e04b8b/ Scatter-Gather 2022-10-20T02:35:33+00:00 https://www.industriallogic.com/blog/scatter-gather/ earth2marshThere is a prevalent way of managing people in a software process that involves a fair amount of work to ensure that each person gets tasks that are appropriate to their talent, knowledge, skill, and experience. For a given feature or modification to a software product, a senior technical person will work out a design that is likely to be successful and fit into the business architecture. This master-maker will then divide the work into tasks that need to be completed by individuals. Often a good master technician will consider their team’s skills and divide the work along individual skill lines. Some will divide the work along component lines and then consider which team member will be given which part to work on based on the components they know best. The work is assigned and then the team members perform the new work when they complete their current task list, asking questions of the senior person as needed, and hopefully (in many but not all organizations) will test their pieces independently.]]> leadership agile management processes software https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:6245f1a9027c/ Coaching Tools - The Assessment - Silicon Valley Product Group : Silicon Valley Product Group 2022-09-16T16:54:11+00:00 https://www.svpg.com/coaching-tools-the-assessment/ earth2marshYour cross-functional product teams depend on competent product managers, and if you don’t develop your people and provide growth opportunities, there are usually other companies that will.  I have always been a big believer in the old adage that “people join a company, but leave their manager.” This article discusses the technique that I use and advocate for assessing a product manager. It is the foundation for then coaching the person to success. This skills assessment is structured in the form of a gap analysis.  The purpose is to assess the product manager’s current level of competence along each of several necessary dimensions, and then compare that with the level of competence that’s required for this particular team and company. This format acknowledges that not all skills are equally important, not all gaps are equally significant, and expectations change with the level of responsibility.  This tool is intended to help focus the attention where it is most needed.]]> productmanagement management coaching product assessment framework https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:e7c3340e5cc3/ Systems design explains the world: volume 1 - apenwarr 2022-08-31T23:17:24+00:00 https://apenwarr.ca/log/20201227 earth2marshThe trick is to determine whether you actually have one of these exact "disruption" things. They're rare. And as an early startup, you don't yet have a historical plot like the one above that makes it clear; you have to convince yourself that you'll realistically be able to improve your thing faster than the incumbent can improve theirs, over a long period of time. Or, if your innovation only depends on an existing trend - like in the software-based packet processing example above - then you can try to time it so that your software product is ready to mature at the same time as the hardware trend crosses over.]]> systems thinking culture innovation dilemma architecture design management https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:60865ad11038/ 20 Things I've Learned as a Systems (Over) Thinker 2022-08-23T05:37:58+00:00 https://cutlefish.substack.com/p/20-things-ive-learned-as-a-systems?s=r earth2marshTake care of yourself. Your brain is working overtime—all the time. Practice “radical” recovery. You may spend a lot longer thinking about things than most people. Pace your delivery. If you go deep first, and then simplify…keep in mind that you don’t need to show all of your work. Your default description of (almost) any problem will be too threatening/overwhelming. Do your deepest thinking with co-conspirators (not the people you’re trying to influence). Informal influence is often not formally recognized. Prepare mentally for this. The people you’re trying to influence spend 98% of their day overwhelmed by business as usual. Remember to also do the job you were hired to do (if you don’t you’ll be easier to discount). Seek “quick wins”, but know that most meaningful things will take a while. Some things take ages to materialize. It is discontinuous, not continuous. Make sure to celebrate your wins. They will be few and far between, so savor the moment. The people who support you in private may not be able to support you in public. Accept that. Hack existing power structures—it’s much easier than trying to change them. Consider becoming a formal leader. It’s harder in many ways, but you’ll have more leverage. What’s stopping you? In lieu of being a formal leader, make sure to partner with people who actually “own” the area of change. Watch out for imposing your worldview on people. Have you asked about what people care about?. You’ll need a support network. And not just a venting network. Real support. “Know when to fold ‘em”. Listen to Kenny Rogers The Gambler. Leave on your own terms. Don’t confuse being able to sense/see system dynamics, with being about to “control” them. You can’t. Grapple with your demons, and make sure not to wrap up too much of your identity in change]]> management systems productmanagement thinker https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:d12e3f6edde3/ dscout + HmntyCntrd: Challenging Company Playbooks to Workplace Trauma 2022-08-23T05:04:58+00:00 https://dscout.com/people-nerds/organizational-trauma earth2marshbusiness productivity psychology work management covid trauma culture responses https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:1f389423dc64/ 2012 International Conference Videos Goldratt, Rami - Management Attention - Achieving results dealing with complexity, uncertainty and conflicts 2022-05-31T15:47:10+00:00 https://cdn.ymaws.com/www.tocico.org/resource/resmgr/2012_conf_pdfs/goldratt,_rami_management_at.pdf earth2marsh driving to dissect the system to sub-systems and bringing damaging local optima.  The fear of Unknown-> driving to manage by finer and finer detail resolution, optimizing within the noise.  The fear of tug of war -> struggling with unacceptable compromises. see video: https://www.tocico.org/page/12ConfVid17]]> management attention conflicts organization culture slides https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:abcf2e350705/ How Apple Is Organized for Innovation 2022-04-20T15:29:08+00:00 https://hbr.org/2020/11/how-apple-is-organized-for-innovation earth2marsh management innovation apple productmanagement culture https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:d197dfe0b9d2/ Idevnews | API Management vs. Service Mesh: The Choice Doesn’t Have to Be Yours 2022-04-16T15:22:41+00:00 https://www.idevnews.com/stories/7509/API-Management-vs-Service-Mesh-The-Choice-Doesnt-Have-to-Be-Yours earth2marsh apis services mesh comparison management https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:eb3f4a79d702/ Onboarding a new PM - by Umang Jaipuria 2022-04-11T16:04:42+00:00 https://forcemultipliers.substack.com/p/setting-up-your-new-pm-hire-to-win?s=r earth2marsh productmanagement management onboarding process https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:dc4e92521aab/ Conversations That Build Psychological Safety | QAspire 2022-03-11T02:14:31+00:00 https://qaspire.com/2022/01/10/conversations-that-build-psychological-safety/ earth2marshGrowth in today’s world is driven by how talented people bring their best ideas on the table, work with each other in a conducive environment and choose to deliver their best effort in order to achieve the desired outcome. Companies often do great at recruiting the most talented people but fail at providing them a […]]]> management leadership safety trust tanmay_vora amy_edmondson communication via:mreinbold teams https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:8c0ff6863d6a/ Individuals matter 2021-11-19T03:05:10+00:00 https://danluu.com/people-matter/ earth2marsh people complexity management gale work fungible headcount compensation https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:33fff9969673/ Shape Up: Stop Running in Circles and Ship Work that Matters 2021-08-13T18:32:08+00:00 https://basecamp.com/shapeup/webbook earth2marsh software development books management culture teams velocity productmanagement https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:69691b31c853/ GitHub - athensresearch/athens: Free self-hosted desktop app: https://github.com/athensresearch/athens/releases; Paid tiers available through https://opencollective.com/athens; Try the demo at https://athensresearch.github.io/athens; Docs viewable at http 2021-07-28T01:59:50+00:00 https://github.com/athensresearch/athens earth2marsh opensource knowledge graph management notes https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:f130c2577fcf/ Are you a giver or a taker? | Adam Grant - YouTube 2021-07-02T21:52:11+00:00 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyXRYgjQXX0 earth2marsh psychology management advice culture givers takers ted videos collaboration helping https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:4294da9da108/ An incomplete list of skills senior engineers need, beyond coding | by Camille Fournier | Jun, 2021 | Medium 2021-06-18T21:09:41+00:00 https://skamille.medium.com/an-incomplete-list-of-skills-senior-engineers-need-beyond-coding-8ed4a521b29f earth2marsh management programming engineering career skills productmanagement https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:a833506c0a6e/ Marginal Gains: This Coach Improved Every Tiny Thing by 1 Percent 2021-06-18T15:36:09+00:00 https://jamesclear.com/marginal-gains earth2marsh productivity coaching cycling management improvements betterment https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:e7f73cd4f6d3/ The MBA Pathology | Silicon Valley Product Group 2021-06-15T15:24:46+00:00 https://svpg.com/the-mba-pathology/ earth2marsh management leadership mbas productmanagement https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:e67f7d8251af/ The Trident Model of Career Development - patkua@work 2021-06-09T18:15:36+00:00 https://www.thekua.com/atwork/2019/02/the-trident-model-of-career-development/ earth2marsh ladders career business management https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:885c979e4583/ It’s Time to Fight for a Dual Product Management Career Path - Bring the Donuts Newsletter 2021-06-09T16:54:46+00:00 https://newsletter.bringthedonuts.com/p/dual-product-management-career-path earth2marsh career management people product productmanagement ladders https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:7373ad5ef5f3/ An ode to managers. 2021-06-05T00:49:17+00:00 https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2002/04/an-ode-to-managers.html earth2marsh managers management culture https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:7c430883f693/ Reaching Peak Meeting Efficiency. Meetings are undeniably the most… | by Steven Sinofsky | Learning By Shipping 2021-06-05T00:47:15+00:00 https://medium.learningbyshipping.com/reaching-peak-meeting-efficiency-f8e47c93317a earth2marsh management meetings productivity work culture process https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:5c3c1cc4850f/ Mutual Knowledge 2021-06-05T00:29:11+00:00 https://boz.com/articles/mutual-knowledge earth2marsh culture process management vision alignment teams knowledge meetings https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:18065a2d6d47/ The Silent Meeting Manifesto v1: Making meeting suck a little less | by David Gasca | The Startup | Medium 2021-06-05T00:22:39+00:00 https://medium.com/swlh/the-silent-meeting-manifesto-v1-189e9e3487eb earth2marsh collaboration management meetings documentation silent processes culture https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:ef05cc233677/ “Yes, And…” versus “Yes, But…” – Can Dialog be this Simple? | The Piras Group 2021-05-24T18:24:38+00:00 https://www.thepirasgroup.com/blog/yes-and-versus-yes-but-can-dialog-be-this-simple earth2marsh videos yes but speaking collaboration conflict behavior management productmanagement https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:c376f3f6d77d/ The SPACE of Developer Productivity - ACM Queue 2021-04-06T02:31:36+00:00 https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=3454124 earth2marsh research programming productivity development management work developers https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:771833e0fad3/ The Forgotten Dimension of Diversity 2021-02-23T19:40:08+00:00 https://hbr.org/2021/01/the-forgotten-dimension-of-diversity?s=09 earth2marshclass socioeconomics society management economics https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:53173dc4de50/ Porter's 5 Forces Definition 2021-02-09T01:45:58+00:00 https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/porter.asp earth2marsh management strategy competition forces business https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:e33f8cec7a63/ Productivity Isn’t About Time Management. It’s About Attention Management. - The New York Times 2021-02-08T18:32:58+00:00 https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/28/smarter-living/productivity-isnt-about-time-management-its-about-attention-management.html earth2marsh management productivity time https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:368d39ecabae/ HiPPO – ExP Platform 2020-10-08T00:12:24+00:00 https://exp-platform.com/hippo/ earth2marsh management opinions data quotes https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:ccec62609467/ 21 characteristics of great teams :: Zengestrom 2020-05-20T18:07:31+00:00 http://www.zengestrom.com/blog/2012/09/21-characteristics-of-great-teams.html earth2marsh collaboration management leadership teams culture https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:earth2marsh/b:514719913b26/