CTO School Meetup - Jan 2013 Becoming Better Technical Leader
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The document summarizes a meetup about becoming a better technical leader. It discusses the role of a CTO and how that role changes as a company grows. It outlines three key skill areas for technical leaders - technical skills, process skills, and leadership/management skills. For each skill area, it provides examples and suggestions for how to improve and resources to consult.
CTO School Meetup - Jan 2013 Becoming Better Technical Leader
- 1. CTO School Meetup January 2013 Becoming a Better Technical Leader by Jean Barmash
- 2. Agenda • Role of the CTO / VPE / Tech Lead • Three Skill Areas Technical Process Managerial
- 3. About Me: • CTO / Head of Product / Only Developer @ 5 O'Clock Records – Service for Doctor's & Hospitals to manage medical records requests – Technology: Ruby on Rails / Heroku/ PostgreSQL • Previously: – Technical Consulting - many projects, technologies, and business needs. – Managed teams up to 20 people – Trainer / Teacher – Software Architect – Developer on a Product Team – Public Speaker & Writer – Project & Product Management
- 4. CTO vs. VP Eng Support the business strategy of your business by formulating and executing technical strategy. CTO - Technical Vision • “Great CTO’s usually can’t manage their way out of a paper bag, but have huge vision, the ability to pull an all-nighter and crank out a rough prototype of the thing they are thinking about, have the unique ability to translate complex / abstract thoughts into simple English that a non-technical end- user can understand, and a willingness (or even desire) to get up in front of 1,000 people and talk about the latest greatest thing they are working on / thinking about. They are also perfectly happy to work collaboratively with the VP Eng while leaving the engineering team completely alone” • VP Engineering – Technical Execution • Process / management gods and goddesses – totally focused on building and shipping products. Most of them are “medium technical” – strong enough to stand up to the engineers they manage, but not necessarily the best coders on the team. A few were rock star developers; a few were non-programmers (i.e. “anymore”) • Source: Brad Feld http://www.feld.com/wp/archives/2007/10/cto-vs-vp-engineering.html
- 5. • http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2010/04/19/want-to-know-the-difference-between-a-cto-and-a-vp-engineering/
- 6. CTO Role in Different Organizations Infrastructure Manager – IT in a support function • External Facing Technologist – Technology is used to provide products & services to customers / partners – Customer-Focused Technologist – Market research & key customer focus • Big Thinker – Evaluate how technology can be used to create new business models / products – Advanced technology, competitive assessments, prototyping
- 7. CTO Focus as Company Grows http://www.socalcto.com/2007/12/acting-cto-role-in-start-up.html
- 8. Technical Role, But! • Responsible for success of the company, not just technology – Strategy, Technical & Business – Participate in Sales – Partnership Discussions – Fund Raising – Build vs. Buy Decisions
- 9. General Leveling Up • Build a network. Learn from others • Self-assessment. Do you have any significant flaws? • Have somebody more senior assess you • Any gaps that are relevant to your company? • Mitigate knowledge gaps • Get involved in community • Get mentors / advisors • Performance is a discussion with co-workers
- 10. Three Key Skill Areas • Technical • Process / Operational • Leadership / Management / Executive • Note – at CTO School Meetup, we strive to balance these out over time.
- 11. 1. Technical Skills • T-Shaped ● Broad in many areas, and ● Deep in a few • Expert-Level - Deep –CS 101 – Data Structures, Algorithms –Chosen field of technology (Ruby, .NET, Java, Python, PHP, JavaScript) –OO / Functional Design –UI Technologies (HTML, CSS, Ajax Libraries) –Design & Software Architecture •
- 12. 1. Technical Skills - Broad Security Persistence Options Cloud Architectures / Hosting Scalability Code Quality Integration Options & Architectures Infrastructure & Systems Operations Etc.
- 13. Even More Broad • UX & Usability • Design • Product Marketing • Metrics • System Administration • Other subject areas, i.e. marketing, sales, finance, etc.
- 14. Special Tech Skills • Enterprise Architecture • Facebook, Web, Mobile Platforms • Payments / Subscriptions Technologies • Content Management • SEO • Ad Platforms • Special Algorithms & Technologies • Hardware
- 15. Self Assessment • What key technology areas are you good at? • What are you OK at? • What do you not know that is a potential liability? Want to have good working understanding of key areas, such as performance, scaling, monitoring, infrastructure, security, maintainability. • What technologies have relevance to what you do?
- 16. How do you improve? • Do you know how you learn best? • Read a lot, experiment • Prototypes, Spikes • Meetups, Conferences (attend, speak, or volunteer) • Contribute to Open Source, Blog • Get a brain trust group going, esp similar technologies • Get a Technical Advisor or Mentor • If you manage a team, you can focus learning as a team by assigning research topics to your reports. • Personal technology radar ( http://www.thoughtworks.com/radar) • Make a plan for things you should learn over the next six months •
- 17. Some Resources - Books • Highscalability.com • Pragmatic Programmer • Solving Enterprise Applications Performance Puzzles: Queuing Models to the Rescue • SOA with REST: Principles, Patterns & Constraints for Building Enterprise Solutions with REST by Thomas Erl • Seven language in seven weeks • Seven databases in seven weeks • The Art of Scalability by Martin L Abbott and Michael T Fisher • Enterprise Software Delivery by Alan W. Brown • Scalable Internet Architecture by Theo Schlossangle • Managing Software Debt by Chris Sterling • The Datacenter as a Computer by Luiz Barroso and Urs Holzle (available online for free)
- 18. 2. Process Skills • Software Development Life Cycle • Agile, Kanban, Lean, Scrum • Source Control & Build Tools • Issue Tracking • Quality Assurance • Security Processes • Project Management • Estimation • Usability / UX • Product Management
- 19. Improving Process Skills This is where interacting with other people becomes hugely important • Agile Meetups / Conferences • Certifications (i.e. Scrum) • Continuing Education Courses (i.e. Project Management) • Self-learning - books (“Code Complete”), Podcasts • Have you been part of a full SDLC? • Experiment & Learn
- 20. Process Changes with Team Size As team size or composition changes, the process will change correspondingly. Detecting inflection points when a process that worked before stops working is very important. It's always a balancing act.
- 21. Resources http://www.randsinrepose.com/archives/2013/01/01/the_process_myth.html Kanban - David Anderson Principles of Product development flow - Don Reinertsen Continuous Delivery by Jez Humble and Dave Farley Extreme Programming The Goal Article:Facebook Release Process Http://Www.Businessweek.Com/ Articles/2012-10-04/Facebook-The-Making-Of-1-Billion-Users The lean startup - Eric Ries Running Lean - Ash Maurya Agile Estimating & Planning by Mike Cohn Product Strategy for High Technology Companies by Michael E Mcgrath Inspired by Marty Cagan Agile Software Requirements by Dean Leffingwell Software Product Management and Pricing by Hans-Bernd Kittlaus and Peter N Clough Subject to Change by Peter Merholz and Brandon Schauer Release It! Design and Deploy Production-Ready Software by Michael T Nygard Growing Software by Louis Testa
- 22. 3. Leadership / Management Skills • Depend on Company Stage / Size – Lead Through Doing / Example – Lead Through Others – Lead By Vision • Setting Technical Direction • Recruiting & Growing Teams • Managing People, including Remote • Mentoring & Growing People • Motivating • Public Speaking • Writing
- 23. Your role • Your role becomes supporting, mentoring • The job is to make sure the team is effective, and to remove roadblocks to productivity • Have a relationship with your report, know what they care about, where they want to go • Help them grow into where they want to go. • A lot of it has to do with focus, but there are specific techniques and skills you need to develop
- 24. Being Part of Executive Team • Think in terms of the company, not technology • Offer Technical Options • Resource Planning • Educate the other executives about technology capabilities, processes, etc. • Input on short and long-term business vision, strategies and plans; • Help define business priorities
- 25. Improving as Manager • Focus starts shifting on people skills and emotional intelligence • Your concern is the team, and growing individuals • Can you leave for a week without major disruption?
- 26. How do you grow your people? Is your team good enough to function without you? Have a growth plan for everybody (even if informal) Setup internal mentoring program Code reviews – great way to pass on technology knowledge.
- 27. Improving as a Leader • Non-technical skills become more and more important Communication Mentoring Networking Emotional Intelligence Persuasion Motivation Public Speaking Writing
- 28. Resources • LifeLabsNewYork.com Various classes that improve Emotional Intelligence • Center for Creative Leadership http://www.ccl.org/Leadership/ • Manager Tools Podcast http://www.manager-tools.com/podcasts/manager-tools http://www.manager-tools.com/downloadable-forms • Joel Spolsky – 3 Management Methods http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/08/07. html
- 29. Resources - Books Managing Humans The Mythical man month" is a must read - if only for historical context Presentation Zen Design by Garr Reynolds Culture - http://www.slideshare.net/reed2001/culture-1798664 newcdn.flamehaus.com/Valve_Handbook_LowRes.pdf * Managing Humans http://www.amazon.com/Managing-Humans-Humorous-Software- Engineering/dp/1430243147 * Mythical Man-Month http://www.amazon.com/Mythical-Man-Month-Software-Engineering- Anniversary/dp/0201835959 * Leading Lean Software Development http://www.amazon.com/Leading-Lean-Software- Development-Results/dp/0321620704 * Peopleware: productive projects and teams http://www.amazon.com/Peopleware-Productive- Projects-Teams-Second/dp/0932633439 * Why Managing Sucks and How to Fix it http://www.gorowe.com/ Apprenticeship patterns Management 3.0 - http://www.amazon.com/Management-3-0-Developers-Developing- Addison-Wesley/dp/0321712471 Interviewing - Http://Www.Joelonsoftware.Com/Articles/GuerrillaInterviewing3.Html Book - 5 Dysfunctions of a Team REWORK - http://www.amazon.com/Rework-ebook/dp/B002MUAJ2A/
- 30. More on Executive Skills • Review and influence the product road map, • Review / provide input on some investor presentation materials, business proposals • Participate in new business, partnership or investor meetings on a limited basis, • Business practices that will help to derive greatest short-term and long-term value from the technical team and other resources. • http://socalcto.blogspot.com/2007/12/acting-cto- role-in-start-up.html
- 31. Skills Conclusion • Make a plan for your own growth, esp important to you and your company Start with what's both important to you and to your company • Different priorities compete with each other. – ALL are important – Difficult to make short-term vs. long-term tradeoffs – Effective Time Management is essential • Make sure you know what’s most important for you right now
- 32. Resources • http://www.feld.com/wp/archives/2007/10/cto-vs-vp-engineering.html • http://www.startuplessonslearned.com/2008/09/what-does-startup-cto-actually-do.html • http://pmarca-archive.posterous.com/the-pmarca-guide-to-startups-part-8-hiring-ma • http://www.joelonsoftware.com • http://mitchellashley.typepad.com/the_converging_network/2007/10/cto-and-vp-engi.html • http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2010/04/19/want-to-know-the-difference-between-a-cto-and-a • http://www.quora.com/Engineering-Management/What-are-the-most-important-qualities-in-a-great- • http://littletutorials.com/2008/07/07/success-as-technical-lead/ • http://stackoverflow.com/questions/833897/what-makes-a-good-technical-team-lead • http://stackoverflow.com/questions/79896/what-else-does-one-need-on-top-of-programming-skills-t • http://stackoverflow.com/questions/465560/most-important-non-technical-skill-youve-acquired • http://stackoverflow.com/questions/246585/what-is-the-most-important-thing-to-do-for-a-new-techn • http://codemonkeyism.com/startup-cto/ • http://www.allthingsdistributed.com/cto/ • http://www.amazon.com/CTO-Job-Manual-Leadership-Technology/dp/1587623676 • http://www.brixtonspa.com/Career/The_Role_of_the_CTO_4Models.pdf • http://www.modelbenders.com/papers/CTOStrategy_SmithR.pdf