Developer Tea

What does a feature cost? Your first answer will probably focus on the time to build, or the features needed... Maybe the amount of hiring necessary to deliver. But what about after that?The cost of our decisions is not limited to the short term - usually, a decision has a long term cost curve. Knowing what the cost curve is for any significant investment helps you make better decisions and have clearer anticipation and planning intuition.

There is a spectrum of buy-in for behavior change. In today's episode, I'll give you a thinking model for considering different types of buy-in along this spectrum, and when one might help you make better systems for behavior change in your organization.

What is your learning strategy? If you don't have one, you are implicitly saying that all learning is equal.Learning is an investment of time. Choose what you invest in carefully.

Developer Tea has been around for 8 years. Thank you so much for your incredible support over these years!In today's episode we discuss how it feels to be wrong.

Most resolutions aren't as simple as saying something and then doing it. Instead, focus on breaking apart your resolution by looking at intent, strategy, tactics, and operations.

Make a commitment to determine three requests that could change your life for the better, and the people you need to give those requests. Then, in the new year, make that a part of your resolutions.

Complexity is an asset, but often it depreciates in value over time. Simplification strategies should evaluate what kind of value complexity is providing, and whether that could be replaced or if it doesn't provide sufficient exponential value versus the cost over time.

Opportunity is in front of you every day. But, you may not recognize it at first, because you by default will likely imagine yourself to be an external observer. If you change that mental model, and view yourself as an active participant with the power to influence others, your perception of opportunity will follow.

What will hold you back from achieving what you want to achieve in your future? How do you imagine your future, and what do you assume will keep you from going further? In today's episode, we'll do a visualization exercise to help understand the assumptions we make about our own problems and flaws, and why avoidance isn't helping us grow.

Practical application of psychology can help us understand how to order our days more consciously. In this episode, we talk about priming and regression to the mean, and how they could impact our work as engineers and managers.

AI will change your work... But it's time for us to find the path forward.

AI will change your work... But it's time for us to find the path forward.

Focus on things that provide asymmetrical upside. This is a personalized ROI evaluation. This is how you invest your time wisely.

We imagine others are more interested in our mistakes or self-conscious areas than they are. We also imagine they pay little to no attention to us at most other times. Both of these are errors in judgment.

We adapt to our circumstances. This dampens our capacity for gratitude, as we become less aware of what we are experiencing the longer we have the same experiences. In today's episode, we use a version of an exercise from Julia Galef's excellent book, The Scout Mindset, to help us break out of our status quo thinking and recognize what is in front of us.##

You know how to determine what would be a good decision. You have the tools and the reasoning; if you find yourself still not making the right decision, you may be tempted to focus on the "left side" - increasing the energy, gumption, reasoning, or motivation. Instead, focus on the barriers - the friction.##

Determining your values isn't just about fluff. This is what you personally care about.In this episode, we talk about two ways to use direct observation as a tool for determining your values, and why those values are not just buzzwords.##

Focus on what you can control. Create incentives and language and internal narrative that produces the right actions within your locus of control. Avoid attaching your definition of success to things outside of your control.

Don't buy in to the lie that you have to overwork to succeed. Not only is it not true, it's also dangerous - and the opposite is more accurate.##

In today's episode, I provide a simple coaching tip on improved communication for software engineers. It's simple: always make precision explicit, and layer context. Start with precision, then create meaning on top.##