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Feedback, in systems terms, is a loop that feeds outputs from a system or process back upstream as an input. As it’s more commonly used, “feedback” is information about behaviors, performance, or results1 (e.g., “don’t hit your brother”, “good hustle out there”, “our defense was almost always out of position and couldn’t get a stop”). Feedback is generally a good thing. Without feedback, it’s difficult or impossible to respond to the world around you—as an individual or as a company. However, feedback comes with at least one drawback. Carter Baxter recently wrote an article entitled Feedback Doesn’t Scale. It’s insightful… …read more…
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The exceptional Aurooba Ahmed has written a series of articles on her Working Notes blog covering what she calls Marketing Platform Engineering: In this series, she digs into the particular craft “of building the systems and workflows that enable marketing teams to work at their best.” We worked together at WP Engine, doing exactly this sort of stuff—though without the name for it. So I’m really glad she’s worked through this and written these articles. If you are building a platform for marketing teams, but don’t think of yourself as a marketer—or if your organization includes that sort of people,… …read more…
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Once upon a time, to practice Ruby on Rails, I wrote a little web-based chore list program. I needed a way for my kids to know who had to sweep, who had to put away dishes, and who needed to help me rake leaves.1 And a way to mark chores off when they were done. I built the program around the idea of a daily chore list. That was exactly how I’d made chore lists by hand. Each day, I’d write a chore list on a fresh sheet of paper. And if someone hadn’t swept the dining room the day… …read more…
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When I joined WP Engine in 2022, I was asked to write a Manager README. This is a lightly-edited version of that README. …read more…
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I often ask a simple, unreasonably useful question: “how do you know?” I will ask that question of myself (“how do I know?”), a team (“how do we know?”), or another person (usually “how do we know?”, because “how do you know?” can sound aggressively challenging). Credit where credit is due: I learned the depth and usefulness of this question up from my friend Ian when he was my boss at Home Instead. He’s incredible at asking this question at exactly the right time to make things better. There are two applications of the question that I’m going to cover,… …read more…
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It was about 10PM that Thursday night when I got back to my apartment. After a full day of work, I’d helped haul a bunch of sound equipment, set it up, run sound, hauled the equipment back, and spent some time unwinding with friends.1 I was tired. The light on my answering machine was blinking.2 “You have one new message. Message one. Hi Matt, this is Barry3 from work. Hey, we need to make some changes to the track data4 before the release tomorrow morning…” So I headed back to work to make the changes. I recall there being only… …read more…
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This post began as a WordCamp US talk proposal. The core ideas are worth sharing, so I adapted it from a talk to an article. Enjoy! Technical experts in a company know things, understand things thoroughly, in a way that someone, somewhere higher on the org chart, doesn’t. CEOs that have software engineering skills are rare. The Vice President of Engineering isn’t in the code every day, and no longer knows the minute details of the implementation. Even the principal engineer overseeing a junior’s work might not have all the details in their head. But there’s a special frustration technical… …read more…
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The YMCA in Marion, Iowa knows more about getting work done than many professional managers. Recently, this sign went up near the weight machines.1 This sign was posted because, every so often, people will sit at the weight machines for several minutes, not working out. Sometimes they’re resting between sets. But every so often, what started out as a quick phone check during a rest turned into something more absorbing, and five minutes have passed without their realizing.2 Obviously, this gets frustrating for people who want to use the machines to work out. At times, it’s possible to use a… …read more…
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This is the third and most useful article in the series about the Involvement x Affinity framework I developed for a coaching client. It might be useful to others beyond that one client. The first installment was about Involvement Levels, or OSCDaB.1 How much “skin in the game” each person has. The second installment was about Affinity. How much someone enjoys the work.2 Each individually is a helpful model. Combining the model is even more helpful. The combined model will let you make predictions about the energy, enthusiasm, sustainability, and potential personnel risks of a project.3 For lack of a… …read more…
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Last article, I started writing about a framework I’d created for a coaching client. The first part of the framework is Involvement Levels.1 Today, I’ll get into the next part of the framework: affinity for the task or project. This part of the framework is pretty simple. Unless you overthink it. (Don’t overthink it.) I’ll cover the Affinity Level model, give a few examples, give you a caution about overthinking, wrap up, and you’ll be on your way! The Affinity Level Model This model labels the affinity a person has for a task or project. Or maybe even a role.… …read more…