12 pages

Professional Development

Balancing persistence vs pivoting – is grit a virtue or wasteful?

Being persistent, sticking to a plan and showing up to work every day is generally valued highly across all cultures as virtuous behavior. It is obvious that anything of value and worth achieving is also not easy, but requires significant and recurring effort. Learning a new language, winning a sports competition or building a successful business are all typical scenarios where grit plays a central role above everything else. However, sometimes the virtue of tenacity can result in just a waste of energy.

Mentoring Mondays for aspiring Debian contributors

I mentor several people in Debian, and have been repeatedly asked to offer an opportunity to ask questions on a live call. I have now started a recurring video call for exactly that, which I call Mentoring Mondays, and it is open for anyone aspiring to contribute to Debian, one of the oldest and most widely used Linux distributions.

Managing procrastination and distractions

I’ve noticed that procrastination and inability to be consistently productive at work have become quite common in recent years. This is clearly visible in younger people who have grown up with an endless stream of entertainment literally at their fingertips, on their mobile phone. It is, however, a trap one can escape from with a little bit of help.

The simple art of effective decision-making for managers

A large part of a manager’s role is to make decisions and be responsible for their outcomes. While there is ample advice on how to be successful in many other managerial core areas, such as growing your people, the domain of high-quality decision-making seems less crowded. In this post, I summarize what I have found during my 20+ years as a manager to be a simple and effective way to approach decision-making.

Should developers always just write code and never design documents?

In software engineering, most ideas can be implemented without writing any design document at all. This is particularly prominent in open source communities. For example, the Linux kernel has 35 million lines of code that have been written and rewritten many times over alongside 30 years of mailing list discussions. Linux wasn’t created as a result of a grandiose design document by Linus Torvalds, but it evolved organically in small increments of actual running code.

Communication is the key to efficiency in a software engineering organization

For a software engineering organization to be efficient, it is key that everyone is an efficient communicator. Everybody needs to be calibrated in what to communicate, to whom and how to ensure information spreads properly in the organization. Having smart people with a lot of knowledge results in progress only if information flows well in the veins of the organization.

8 writing tips for software professionals

People usually associate advanced software engineering with gray-bearded experts with vast knowledge of how computers and things like compiler internals work. However, having technical knowledge is just the base requirement to work in the field. In my experience, the greatest minds in the field are not just experts in knowledge, but also extremely efficient communicators, particularly in writing.

Make habits, not goals

First we make our habits, and then they make us ― John Dryden, poet and literary critic

How to conduct an effective code review

In software development, the code review process stands as a crucial checkpoint for ensuring code quality, fostering collaboration, and promoting knowledge sharing among team members. Despite the importance, many engineers lack a clear mental map of how effective reviews work. This is my attempt to help code reviews and reviewers improve.

My 5 tips for efficient meetings

While large organisations scale best by emphasizing asynchronous communications, in-person or video meetings also have their place. As a manager who is involved in a lot of planning and coordination work I’ve noticed that I’ve spent the majority of my working time in meetings in past years. These are my 5 tips to make meetings as efficient as possible.

How to code 10x faster than an average programmer

What is the key to being an efficient programmer? Well, the answer is surprisingly simple. Having a setup where you can write and test your code over and over in an uninterrupted flow will dramatically increase your productivity.

Resist the urge of the first solution

This is the biggest and most common mistake I see that prevents people from thinking clearly, and it is also the most difficult one to unlearn.