Posts from Awesome Folks #24

Author

Emily Webber
August 19, 2022

Hello and happy Friday,

This week I took part in a random coffee session I run as part of my Agile in the Ether community. I chatted with the lovely Emma Collingridge about many things, including when to structure communities of practice, when to step back to enable self-organisation, and how this affects active participation from members. Sometimes, it makes sense to lead with a clear structure until people are comfortable before stepping back to become a guide if and when needed, much like with new teams. I like to use tools, like my community of practice kick-off canvas, to help facilitate conversations that give communities an initial boost and my review tool to support reflection.

There are lots of awesome posts for you again this week and a lovely new logo for the newsletter.

Enjoy, and give me a little thumbs up if you do.

Emily

People and culture

Feedback, the treasure of millennial growth and performance

By Ruchi Parchur

Liz entered into a 1–1 with her manager during the annual performance review process. Her manager, John, gave her feedback, What do you notice here? If you spot any red flags then let me know in the comments.

Research: The Unintended Consequences of Pay Transparency

By Leon Lam, Bonnie Hayden Cheng, Peter Bamberger, and Man-Nok Wong

Companies around the world have been increasingly adopting pay transparency policies and practices as a means of narrowing the gender pay gap and fostering an engaged and positive working environment that builds trust.

Proof That Positive Work Cultures Are More Productive

By Emma Seppälä and Kim Cameron

Too many companies bet on having a cut-throat, high-pressure, take-no-prisoners culture to drive their financial success.

Organisations and systems

The Product Culture Shift

By Camille Fournier

Adding product management to more traditional software infrastructure organizations, sometimes with a shift towards platform engineering, is all the rage today. As someone who has done both these things, it doesn’t surprise me to see so many people struggling to make it work.

Applying Product Thinking to Slack’s Internal Compute Platform

By Javier Turegano

According to a recent Thoughtworks radar, “the industry is increasingly gaining experience with platform engineering product teams that create and support internal platforms.

A Quick Guide to Inclusive Design

By Suzanne Chapman

Designing for inclusion isn’t just about coding for accessibility or section 508 compliance, it’s about providing equitable and easy-to-use websites and services for diverse populations. Because good design is design that works for everyone.

Setting and measuring goals

North Star Framework Template & Activity Library

By John Cutler

Hello! I finally got around to organizing the templates and resources we use in our North Star Workshops at Amplitude. I apologize for how long this took. Here is the board.

Tools and approaches for teams

This might just be the highest leverage Product Discovery activity that your team can do

By Marcus Castenfors

A fundamental challenge with Product Discovery is that there is no right way, no silver bullet, and no perfect process, which means that teams need to pick the right tool for the right situation. But could there be a technique that could work regardless of the problem that you want to solve?

Two experts dish on how to win at workshops whether you’re remote, in person, or hybrid

By Jackie Colburn

Since that time, we’ve collectively led about 200+ workshops and have gained just as many insights around the remote experience. What makes it good? What makes it bad? What makes it ugly? Well, maybe not ugly, but you get the idea.

Other things

Epson boobytrapped its printers

By Cory Doctorow

“Innovation” has become a curseword, thanks to…innovation. Some of the world’s most imaginative, best-funded sociopaths have spent decades innovating ways to fuck you over. While the whole tech sector likes to get in on this game, no one “innovates” like inkjet printer companies.

Level Up - Issue #157

By Pat Kua 

This week will mark three years of writing this newsletter with the first issue launching on Aug 18, 2019.

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