Month: December 2020

My Notes on Deep Work Book

I decided to spend year-end holiday time reading a couple of books. I like to read books that in some way help me solve problems that I face in professional and personal life. At work because of my title and circumstances I have to play three different roles – maker, manager, multiplier. 

  • Maker: Create stuff (software, powerpoint, design document, etc).
  • Manager: Talk to people about their concerns and hopefully resolve them or at least guide them in the direction that takes them on the resolution path. Keep the stuff moving.
  • Multiplier. Enabling people by helping them in software design, code reviews, estimates, hiring right people, etc.

I am fortunate that I get to work on many tasks that are cognitively demanding. At the same time, I also have to work on tasks that don’t demand such cognitive skills.

Continue reading “My Notes on Deep Work Book”

Defining Your Engineering Team Principles

In my current role as Chief Technology Officer (CTO), I am responsible for the engineering quality of our software delivery teams. We are an IT service organization where every now and then, we get to work with different kinds of customers in different domains and each at a different maturity level in software delivery. 

One thing that I often struggle with is how to unite the individual engineering teams working for different customers with a common shared belief system that is actionable, pragmatic, and less abstract.

You may ask, isn’t that what organization values stand for? Before we answer, let’s define the three common terms: Values, Principles, and Practices.

Continue reading “Defining Your Engineering Team Principles”