Posts from Awesome Folks #25

Author

Emily Webber
August 26, 2022

Hello,

It's a slightly unusual Friday for me today; my husband and I are about to move from the south to the north of England. As this newsletter goes out, I will be in the car driving 4 hours to my new home on the beautiful coast, overlooking the Irish sea. If you are in the Liverpool area and fancy a chat, let me know. It's also my birthday today, so lots of new beginnings.

I have been mostly offline this week, aside from keeping up on reading these posts. Themes this week include handoffs and multidisciplinary teams, remote working, innovation vs hierarchy, onboarding, offboarding and feedback loops.

Happy Friday.

Emily

People and culture

3 Types of Burnout and How to Overcome Them

By Melody Wilding

Take a moment to bring to mind a person who’s burned out. You’re likely picturing someone who is overbooked and overwhelmed, drowning in multiple demands and competing priorities. But, burnout is far more nuanced than simply being busy and tired.

What folks are noticing about *long-term* remote working (Twitter thread)

By Elizabeth Ayer

Asked a question at @AgileInTheEther today about what folks are noticing about *long-term* remote working (🧵 of the answers) [1/?]

Survey: Have You Experienced Incivility at Work?

By Christine Porath

“The customer is always right.” But what if the customer is rude, angry, or even hostile? How does that affect those who witness or experience it?

How to successfully onboard remote engineering staff in four weeks

By James Stanier

Because of my long tenure at my previous company – which included being there in the early start-up days – I had the luxury of knowing the ins and outs of everything, from the technology stack to the people.

How to create an effective offboarding plan when you’re leaving your job

By Arjit Srivastava

Let me paint you a picture: you’ve been with your organization for some time, you like your role, you love your team, and you enjoy the work. You care about the organization and the people involved. But a new, unforeseen opportunity comes your way with a lot more challenges to learn from.

Managers, use this toolkit to prepare for the first 1–1 meeting for a lasting impression

By Ruchi Parchur

You’ve either been promoted or hired a new person in your team. And now, you’re preparing to conduct your first 1–1 with your new team member for a lasting impression. Worry not; this article will help you with the resources to prepare for the most valuable meeting.

Organisations and systems

FAQ: Is handing off to a tech team agile?

By Jeff Gothelf

We’ve talked about the many benefits of cross-functional teams often on this blog. We make a big assumption though that your company is structured in such a way that building a team consisting of product management, design and software engineering is possible.

Don’t Let Hierarchy Stifle Innovation

By Timothy R. Clark

In the team sport of innovation, the quality of interaction between teammates regulates the speed of discovery. If a team is healthy, the pattern of exchange will be free-flowing, candid, and energized.

In Uncertain Times, the Best Strategy Is Adaptability

By Michael Mankins

Senior executives often lament, “If we only had better forecasts, we could devise better plans.

Setting and measuring goals

Lead better customer interviews with this downloadable guide

By Jackie Colburn

Customer interviews are an opportunity to put a prototype in front of real people to learn what is and isn’t working so you can adjust accordingly. In other words, this step helps make sure your team is building the right thing.

Tools and approaches for teams

Shorten Team Feedback Loops with These Three Questions to Increase Throughput

By Johanna Rothman

The longer the work takes, the more pressure managers exert on the team and the product leader. (Teams and product leaders might exert pressure on themselves, too. But I mostly see external pressure.)

Other things

The mail never stops

By Laura Yarrow

Some days, I sit down at my desk with the best intentions of using a nice clear stretch of time to get one of the Big tasks™ done. Ah, plenty of time, I’ll say to myself. Look at all that time.

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