Developer Tea

"What actions can I take to get better from here?"This seems like a simple concept, but in practice we often are more interested in protecting our ego. In this episode we try to practice this self-accountability through an exercise.

In this episode we continue our discussion about the most overused statistical measurement. We'll talk about a few more counterintuitive properties of the average, and how you might be underserving your colleagues as a result of thinking in averages.

On average, you're probably overusing this specific type of statistic. In today's episode, we discuss the king of all misleading numbers: averages!There's so much to talk about with averages that we're splitting this into two parts. Disclaimer: I am not a mathematician. But we will talk about some of the interesting properties of averages and why they are so addictive to use for humans, but more practically what counterintuitive ways we might be using them incorrectly.If you're using your sprint velocity to forecast work, this episode is for you!

Today we explore the idea of treating your time as a product. Start with a wishlist: what do you wish was true about your week? What are your "if-only" statements?Next, put on your product owner hat. How would you improve the situation, if you knew the "consumer"'s requests?This exercise should provide unique insight and a new lens to view your time and agency through.

The Von Restorff effect says we remember things that stand out. This is probably mostly intuitive - "that stood out to me" is a common colloquialism. But what isn't intuitive is the implied downside of uniformity, which is often the product of process.In other words, if your process creates perfect uniformity, elevating any one thing, say, in priority, is going to be exceedingly difficult.Additionally, if your "escalation" process is overused, it will once again violate the point of the escalation in the first place. "If everything is urgent, nothing is urgent."

In today's episode, we do a journaling exercise to provide a new lens on developing your own career roadmap.We're going to practice the power of hindsight, finding our wiser selves, and ultimately looking forward and backward...at the same time. It sounds a little odd, but it's all based in solid cognitive science. If you have a notoriously hard time figuring out your career path, I'd invite you to participate!

As you grow your career, you will continuously lean on delegation to scale your efforts and focus on the most important things.True delegation requires ownership, and ownership can be thought of in two critical parts: agency and responsibility.In today's episode, we discuss the fool's errand of delegating only one or the other of these parts.

Little's Law explains, in a given queuing system, what the relationships of throughput within that system are. We can garner insights both for our work, and for our own lives, by recognizing how these relationships work and what we can do to utilize them. In this episode, we talk about when it is useful to use Little's law to your advantage.

Finding leverage is difficult to do, but a lot of the reason for this is that we allow ourselves to fall into well-traveled cognitive pathways. If we reject the solution domain-set that comes to mind immediately, we may be able to consider options for solutions we had never considered. This larger solution set may also include a high-leverage option we had previously ignored.

In today's episode, we discuss turtles, resolutions, and why your beliefs and what you see as fact is probably worth questioning anyway.

Today Marks 9 Years of Developer Tea.Thank you all for your support, and your friendship. I wish you all well on your journey, and may you find clarity, perspective, and purpose. (Don't worry, we aren't going anywhere!)

What characterizes good plans from bad ones? And how can you make your plans better on average? In this episode we discuss how to better organize your intentions and processes to yield better plans.

The "lollapalooza" effect (coined by Charlie Munger) occurs when multiple other effects have a compounded outcome that tends to create an extreme situation.In this episode, we discuss lollapalooza effects and how you might fall victim to them, and more importantly, how you can use them to your advantage.

When you are newly joining a team, you have a huge opportunity to do something that no one on the team has: to find your "weathervane." The pressure pushing against you to adopt the beliefs of the team you are joining. What you do with it is one huge way a team can improve, or otherwise, stay the same.

Most people believe good things will happen by default.Not to be the bearer of bad news, but there's a downside to this endless optimism. You cannot will good things to happen, and when you don't prepare for adverse events, you won't be ready when they inevitably occur.

Your team's process for managing a backlog is probably growing stale because you are running on habit rather than procedure.Break out of procedure and remind yourself why you have a process to begin with: orient yourself to the outcomes!

What is it about our present situation that changes our perspective? In today's episode we talk about the availability bias and why our present reality looms so large in our decisionmaking.

What do you expect of yourself? Are you spending your time in ways that align with those expectations?In this episode, I provide you a simple framework as a starting lens for getting a better idea of how you are spending your time in relation to who cares the most about those investments. You'll walk away with a new lens on how to evaluate your most precious resource: time.

Almost every conversation you have will start with a question.Have you stopped to listen closely? Questions are extremely meaningful and deeply human. Paying close attention to questions is a skill that will put you head and shoulders above the average engineer or manager.

How often does reality match your expectations exactly? Sure, you may guess in the ball park, but usually there are errors in our expectations.In today's episode, I talk about a simple shift in thinking that will help improve your expectations for your work.