communication
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🧱 The hardest things
The magic of product development appears to live in the complex things: the clever circuit design, the brilliant algorithm, the integration of many technologies. Observation suggests the opposite. Success is grounded in doing the simple thi…
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🚧 Gatekeepers are ineffective
In the context of complex systems, gatekeepers are ineffective. In product development, a gatekeeper is often a middle manager who relays information from one person to another. As an example, we have been struggling for the past year to ge…
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✉️ Drafting emails in Markdown
As developers, we use Markdown all the time: in documentation, GitHub issues, etc. Pretty much every tool supports it now, except email. With email, we are still stuck with a 2005 MS Word experience. Why Markdown? Once you know the simple s…
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📥 Email is not a workflow
A recent meeting surfaced a problem: BOM changes in the engineering systems were not reliably reaching the production systems. “I told ’em” is how we had been doing things. We told manufacturing about the changes and handed over links to th…
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📧 How to solve the email problem?
How many hours go into just processing email? One reason it’s so consuming: when a message hits the inbox, it feels like it needs a response. It feels like real work. There are several ways to handle the “too much email” problem: Ignore it…
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📝 You can't improve an email
I’ve been moving discussions out of email and into versioned Markdown files. Here’s what I’m noticing. Email has a structural problem: the only options are reply and quote. The original message can never be improved. When someone joins a pr…
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🏞️ Communicating Status Without Demanding Attention
One precept of “managing up” is that over-communicating tends to work better than under-communicating. This is where releasing “often” comes in. Releases offer a natural way to communicate status because they don’t feel like something requi…
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🤝 How to manage up
The concept of “managing up” can be a valuable practice for developers and middle managers. It seems counter-intuitive that we need to manage the people over us. But, simply put, managing up is intentionally improving the relationship with …
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👥 The release is a language everyone understands
A release is a good way for developers to communicate with everyone else: What got done What changed How to use or build the latest version Where to get support or provide feedback A regular cadence for communication A standard format ever…
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💡 A Simple Example
The Release First mindset starts with how you handle reasonably complex information (a procedure, technical details, etc). There are two approaches: Email or message the information. Put it in Git and send a link or PR. The first is trans…
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📦 The bare minimum to call something a release
What is the bare minimum to call something a release? Consider the following: A version that increments with every release. A changelog that describes what has changed for every version and why it matters. A clear identification of any ass…
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✍️ Why writing is important
Some people are wildly successful without writing. So, if the goal is only to make a lot of money or have a lot of power, this advice may not apply. However, for those who want to: Think better Scale ideas beyond direct personal contact Ca…
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💬 The importance of effective communication
Recently, effective communication has been discussed. But let’s step back – why is communication so important? As developers, isn’t coding what we do? Think for a minute – how much time gets spent coding/designing vs. everything else? For m…
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🧠 Context is everything
In conversation, I find myself saying: “what is the context of your comment?” At times we find ourselves responding before we really understand something. AI does the same thing – it just spouts off, even if it does not understand your cont…
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📝 Document "why" not "how"
Be kind to others (and your future self) and document why you did something. AI is pretty good at generating the “how” any time you need it, but only you know the “why” because you have that context.
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🔄 Closed-loop humans
What are some ways we as humans can close the loop? Listen Reflect Write Without these, we operate in a largely open-loop mode without the feedback we need to improve or correct our course. Action bias is good, but it helps to know we are…
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🗂️ Git has an unfortunate name
Git, which was created 20 years, and various hosting platforms, has revolutionized software development workflow and collaboration. The name Git was chosen by its creator, Linus Torvalds, and has a humorous backstory rooted in both practica…
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✏️ Effective Communication (Sketching)
Sketching is kind of like writing cursive—it engages a dynamic in our brains that inspires creativity. As we mostly use computers, it takes extra effort to pick up pen or pencil, but surprising things happen when we do. It engages broader a…
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🎨 Effective Communication (Drawing)
We’ve already explored 4 modes of communication (audio, written, images, video). Drawings are another, and today it is even easier to do with tools like Excalidraw and Draw.io. It is easy to copy drawings from both into other applications. …
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📹 Effective Communication (Video)
Video is now an important way to communicate. The most obvious type is Zoom calls. But there are other ways we can use video such as screencasting, recording demos, etc. Position a decent camera at a good angle. Shooting up your nose probab…
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📸 Effective Communication (Images)
“A picture is worth a thousand words.” There are many times when a screenshot or a photograph can drastically improve the rate of communication. Therefore, figure out ways to do this efficiently. Make sure your computer system has an effic…
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✍️ Effective communication (Written)
For starters, consider Michael Lynch’s “Underused Techniques for Effective Emails”. A few points in summary: Put the most important information first. Use headings, code blocks, and other formatting. Be succinct. Provide context by quoting…
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🎧 Effective communication (Audio)
Effective communication requires that those receiving information from us can easily process it. I’ve been on way too many calls where you can barely hear the speaker due to echo, background noise, or other audio problems. Some things I’ve …
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📧 Top vs bottom posting in email
I was thinking about computing history this morning, and I wonder how many young people even know that bottom posting in email is even a thing? Some of the older OSS projects still have this culture, but I suspect that most emails sent toda…