2022#09 Readings 🇺🇦🌻
5 minutes read | 911 words by Ruben BerenguelThis turned out a long one
Twenty-one days without collecting readings makes for a hefty list today (also several books finished). This has been due to a combination of too much work, cutting on my reading time and having written something last week (first link here).
📯 Winning stakeholders' trust
Piece I wrote on a whim last weekend.
🔊 The Storyteller
Dave Grohl’s (Nirvana, The Foo Fighters…) autobiography, narrated by himself. It is a very good book. The day I finished it, Taylor Hawkins, Foo Fighters drummer and best friend of Grohl passed away. RIP.
📚 Managing Humans
Fourth edition (the one without a pencil in the cover). Excellent. I meant to read it a long time ago and I’m glad I didn’t: this edition covers remote pain points as well.
Blue Ocean Strategy
This is a classic HBR article, and what’s in it is obvious but in strategy-land, obvious things are repeated over and over and everybody keeps doing the opposite. A quote I liked:
In overcrowded industries, differentiating brands becomes harder both in economic upturns and in downturns.
Making Time To Act Deliberately
The title is more interesting than the premise described. Classic Eisenhower matrix + take some time off.
Low Process Culture, High Process Culture
Processes are usually some form of Chesterton fence for humans. It’s usually better to follow them, figure out why they are there and adapt to them. Of course, sometimes you need to totally say “screw this” and do it your way. You eventually get it.
Scala 3 and Spark?
I’m extremely surprised that this actually works at all. A minimal example of running Spark (3.2 in particular) compiled with Scala 3 (with a couple hacks, but still).
Growing Data Teams from Reactive to Influential
As a team lead of a data team (a Data Platform one) I can fully like and subscribe this. This problem cuts across all “brands” of Data Teams (Science, Analytics, Infrastructure, Platform,…) no matter how you slice and dice them.
🐦 thread about managing up
It is important to know what to say, how much, and when to keep your manager in the loop.
Doing it All is Not a Good Strategy
Excerpt from DeGrandis’s Making Work Visible, 2nd edition. Who whould have guessed?
Enhancing the efficiency of remote team communication
A model for handling inter-team communications (using something like Slack) based on the Team Topologies framework. Actually based on their latest book, Remote Team Interactions Workbook.
🍿 Type hints, protocols, and good sense
Slides from a presentation late last year by Luciano Ramalho, author of Fluent Python (recently got a 2nd,updated edition). It covers a good deal of the good and bad parts of Python typing and why it is good to have it there. Reads well as slides.
7 Mental Models For Great Engineering Leadership
I’m not sure mental model is the right fit for this. It offers 7 thought areas an engineering leader must be in, and then for each offers a continuum of possibilities. For example, are you tech-focused, process-focused or people-focused? Ideally you’d balance all three, but as a starter leader you will very likely be either tech or process focused (if you come from an IC background).
🐦 Thread about the connection between graphs and matrices
A neat thread, particularly for the mathematically inclined. If you have ever wondered how PageRank (Brin-Page original invention that spawned Google search) works, it’s technically explained here indirectly.
Single-Loop Knots
A kind of online book with the best knots for usual day-to-day. I don’t tie that many things (except for shoes, where I have used a double slipknot for 15+ years since finding it out here, heavily recommended), but it’s always a fun thing to play with.
🐦 thread about North Star metrics at Lyft, built with dbt
What it says on the tin.
Leadership journal: become an inspiring leader
I didn’t have such a pompous name for it, but at the end of every day I write down more or less what is suggested here, collected from my handwritten notes of the day. As well as adding any relevant info to any open projects, or creating new tasks or appointments.
Voice Lessons
I would have titled this The Voices Within. It is about the impact coaches have on elite athletes, and in particular how athletes hear their coaches in their head, even long after having stopped competing. An excerpt:
When athletes discussed the helpful aspects of the coach’s voice, they spoke about technical specifics: how to get over a hurdle or into a loop jump. When they described its harmful ones, they spoke of general traits that defined their character: You’re no good. You’re lazy. You’ll never win. They heard the words again and again.
