Category: Leadership and Management

  • Management & Technical Career Growth Tracks (v3)

    In follow-up to earlier work on a) versions one and two of these technical and related career tracks, b) pathways for career development in product engineering, c) job titles, and d)  employee evaluation & career development, here is an updated version three of the career growth tracks. This version 3 includes software engineering & architecture,…

  • Reflections on the Yale CEO Summit 2016: Disruption and Leadership in Focus

    Yesterday, I attended the Yale CEO Summit for the second time. The summit, held at the Waldorf Astoria in New York City, brought together some of the world’s most influential leaders across various sectors. The theme of this year’s summit was “Delight and Despair Over Disruption, Part II: The Post-Election Story.” This Summit, hosted by…

  • How to be an effective CTO

    How to be an effective CTO

    A CTO’s job combines Culture, Technology, and Operations. Each of the three is necessary; a field of knowledge, experimentation, and learning in itself; and interdependent with the other two. To be successful as a CTO, you need to work on and continually master all three areas. If you’d like to see the responsibilities of a…

  • 90 Day Plan for a CTO in a New Job

    90 Day Plan for a CTO in a New Job

    This is a checklist for a new CTO, head of Product, or leader in a similar role starting in a new job. It is meant to kickstart continuous improvement in your product engineering organization. I encourage you to take a scientific test and learn approach to everything you do. You should customize this template based…

  • My Interview in TheMarker Magazine

    During my recent visit to Tel Aviv, I was interviewed by the well-respected Israeli business and technology journalist Inbal Orpaz for TheMarker Magazine. Our conversation was an engaging and insightful exploration of the future of media and journalism in the digital age. Although the article was published in Hebrew, in this blog post, I discuss…

  • 7 minus 1 reasons why technology/engineering teams should work on projects

    Here are 6 reasons that should be used to justify, prioritize and classify projects engineering teams work on. The 7th item is not a valid reason to be used. Deliver products, features and services as driven by business priorities (#product) Improve time to market (#speed) Improve quality of experience (#quality) Improve efficiencies and reduce costs…

  • Why Data Breaches Don’t Hurt Stock Prices (Harvard Business Review)

    If you are a CEO, CFO, corporate board member or investor, the article Why Data Breaches Don’t Hurt Stock Prices published on Harvard Business Review by Elena Kvochko and Rajiv Pant may be of interest to you.

  • CTO Mind Map: Culture, Technology, Operations

    In the role of chief technology officer, you have to be concerned with many topics. Some relate to functions you have direct supervisory responsibility for and some in areas that are managed by others but you still need to share responsibility for. To keep all of a CTO’s concerns organized, I created this mind map using XMind. The items are classified under…

  • Reflecting on the Yale CEO Summit 2014: A Confluence of Global Leadership and Local Sensitivities

    I recently attended the Yale CEO Summit, a gathering of some of the world’s most influential leaders across various sectors. The summit, held at the Waldorf Astoria in New York City on December 17 & 18, was centered around the theme: “The Global CEO and Local Sensitivities: Leading at Once as Diplomat, Patriot, Entrepreneur, Financier,…

  • Dear Makers, On Fridays My Office is Yours — An Experiment

    Dear Makers, On Fridays My Office is Yours — An Experiment

    Some senior leaders choose to work alongside their teams in cubicles, eschewing private office rooms. New York City’s former mayor Michael Bloomberg is an example. Facebook’s founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg is another. Intel’s former CEO Andy Grove is often credited for setting this example. As I’ve worked at various news media companies, I have…

  • 3 Dimensions of a Technology Team

    Organizing Software Engineering Teams to Balance Products, Partners & Professions This organizational design for a technology department aims to optimally blend the need for the technology team to be an engine of innovation, a customer-service organization and technically excellent. It views the staff, roles and responsibilities in three dimensions: products, partnerships, and professions. Organization by…

  • 3 Roles of a CTO: Culture. Technology. Operations.

    This is a guide for CTOs, VPs of Software Engineering and other technology managers responsible for a software engineering organization. The purpose of this checklist is to help the CTO cover the areas of culture, technology and operations in their teams. It is presented in the form of a memo to direct reports. Dear Tech…