Simon Tomes

The secrets of how experienced engineering leaders accelerating growth of new Tech Leads... 𝘔𝘪𝘯𝘥𝘴𝘦𝘵 + 𝘗𝘦𝘳𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 + 𝘚𝘶𝘱𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘵 + 𝘍𝘦𝘦𝘥𝘣𝘢𝘤𝘬 = 𝗦𝘂𝗰𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗠𝗶𝗻𝗱𝘀𝗲𝘁 Individual focus → 𝗧𝗲𝗮𝗺 𝗳𝗼𝗰𝘂𝘀 𝗣𝗲𝗿𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗘𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 I love Andy Grove's definition 𝘓𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘫𝘶𝘥𝘨𝘦𝘥 𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘰𝘶𝘵𝘱𝘶𝘵𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 𝘵𝘦𝘢𝘮𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘦𝘢𝘮𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘪𝘯𝘧𝘭𝘶𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦. Although I prefer to use the term 𝗼𝘂𝘁𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘀. It's possible for a team to product a lot of output but not much value! 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗶𝘀 𝗮 𝗧𝗲𝗰𝗵 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗱? A team scoped Tech Lead can have many flavours. Is team leadership included? What about line management? What about delivery? Clarity is key 𝗦𝘂𝗽𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁 Engineer → Tech Lead is a tricky transition. Holding more frequent 1:1's initially Seek feedback from team Stay close 𝗙𝗲𝗲𝗱𝗯𝗮𝗰𝗸 We all make mistakes when taking on new responsibilities  Provide both reenforcing and corrective feedback Observations + Impact = Actionable feedback Learn from mistakes Celebrate the wins P.S How do you support new Tech Leads?

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🌏You might've seen the hype last month when we ran our first "AI for Agile Practitioners" course. Due to the huge success, we're opening round #2️⃣ 🎙 Our course, suited for all levels and industries, provides insights into how you can use AI, and break down the barriers/fears of using AI to help you and your business thrive. 🚀 Ready to take the next step in your career & business? Join Jason Cameron 🧠and Marina Ritchie ✨ on Tuesday, January 14th at 6pm ACDT and kick start your journey towards becoming an Augmented AI Agile Practitioner, and reap the productivity benefits! What do you need to know: 🧠Course runs 2 nights a week for 3 weeks 🧠Collaboratively identify pain points and match them with AI powered solutions 🧠Develop a strong understanding of how Generative AI enhance agile project delivery 🧠Implement selected AI use cases, delivering immediate value 🧠Understand & Practice how prompting effectively gives you the best results from AI 🧠Credentials and badge for AI Agile Practitioner 🧠Friendly and perfect for anyone 🧠No prerequisites required 🧠Build some new connections with like-minded individuals along the way Act Now on this #BlackFriday special price, only until Monday - secure your spot before they run out & make it your New Years resolution to get Future-Ready! Want to know more? DM Thomas Rullmann Download the Course overview and register for the course in the link below 👇 #AI #LearningAI #agileAI #agile #scrum #scruminc #scalingagile #agileeducation #internationalregistryofagileprofessionals #personaldevelopment #agilesoftwaredevelopment #digitaltransformation #coaching #careerdevelopment #learninganddevelopment #businesstransformation #agileleadership #scrummaster #agilecoaching #agiletransformation #productowner #agility #agilemindset #businessagility

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Had a realisation about Product People and why we are good at both taking and mitigating risks – we don't have a specialism, so we're great at saying "So What"? This allows product people to be experts at "comparing apples and pears", even when there is incomplete data (which is always the case). This sounds obvious (and maybe it already was to others, apologies if so), but it only just dawned on me. Some examples: 1) A peer in payments has come to you, as they are really worried that PSD2 isn't turned on and they think this is a big risk as it's legally mandated – they want you to make it a top priority to fix it. For them it's top priority as they are accountable for payments, but as a product person who is agnostic, you ask "how much is the fine and how many companies have been fined so far"? They are flabbergasted that you aren't taking it more seriously, but they don't realise you are taking it as seriously as every other risk, but you just aren't as close to it as they are. 2) Technology want to borrow engineers from all the product teams to upgrade the ecommerce platform the company uses, as it's out of service soon and is therefore a "burning platform". For them it's a top priority, as they accountable for service reliability, but as a product person who is agnostic, you ask "what happens if we don't do anything"? The answer is "nothing", but over time the risk of something going wrong and being easily fixable increases. 3) The Brand team want to refresh the look of a product that has performed well at MVP stage, to make it more in line with other parts of the portfolio, but this would slow down the build and scale of the product. For them it's a top priority, as they accountable for the companies brand salience, but as a product person who is agnostic, you ask "what happens if we ship the MVP branding and do you have any data to suggest the new brand would improve our metrics"? And I could go on, it's the same with UX design, engineering, marketing, sales and everything else – all have needs, but none are created more important by default. All will be greeted by product people with a polite "So what", as they are balancing the needs of everyone (including the customer).

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We already have some possible improvements via Debbie Blanchard & Jonathan Waldheim-Ross: 1. Safe leaps of faith 2. Invest wisely 3. Thunk value, at scale What do you think?

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What if you could measure what really matters to your customer? 🎯 I’ve just posted our ninth episode of Talking Product https://lnkd.in/eMe6AWvU In this episode, Collin Lyons and I chat with Alex Hidalgo — author of the O’Reilly book Implementing Service Level Objectives https://lnkd.in/eZE5RVMu Alex shares how Service Level Objectives (SLOs) can help teams zero in on customer priorities and bring people across the organisation together to define what really matters to your customers. SLOs are powerful, but they can also be tricky to implement. I’ve struggled with them myself, so it was great to have the chance to explore this topic in depth with Alex and learn from his expertise. In this session, we cover: - Practical steps to get started with Service Level Indicators (SLIs), the foundation of SLOs. - How to start small and iterate as you refine your SLOs over time. - The cultural challenges of implementing SLOs — and how to navigate them. If you’re just starting out or looking to improve your approach, I hope you find this episode full of insights to help you on your SLO journey. Alex’s book is an excellent resource for making SLOs meaningful and achievable in your organisation. I highly recommend it. I hope you enjoy listening to this session as much as we enjoyed recording it. Reminder that we are on all the hosting platforms where the cool kids hang out: Podbean | Spotify | Apple | Google If you liked the episode, please give us a rating or go all out and write us a nice review. It makes a big difference! A huge thank you to Alex for making the time to share his insights with us.

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Does anyone in the business even care about the latest framework that world of IT is obsessing about? Does anyone care about SAFe/ Scrum/ Kanban or anything else? For over 20 years agile has been lots of noise, minimal impact, and lots of blame games. Why can’t IT align to business strategy and goals and be aligned to and deliver on that? Why is there a desperate need to build product strategies and new roles, and approaches, and tools and templates, only to then blame leadership mindset for not adopting JIRA? Reality is: - If any approach delivers the business strategy and business goals, it is good and will be accepted - If it is a fluffy, trivial change that solves only non-issues, it will not work. - If it is unnecessary bureaucracy and the cost of the change is too much, who will adopt it? - If implementing any change requires business to change everything, adopt new ways of working so that bounce rate will be reduced, then it is a waste of time, isn't it? I increasingly have this feeling that IT is in a hole they have dug for themselves and are digging it even more to come out of it. There are no answers in JIRA. There are no answers in any framework. There are no answers in new kinds of roles. There are no answers in product roles and development value streams. The only place to look for answers is in the business. Rest is all BS. If SAFe, Scrum, Kanban, Agile, could have delivered business value, they would have They can’t, that’s why they don’t By and of itself, IT doesn’t matter #ceo #leadership #agile #SAFE #scrum #value #valuestream #valuestreammanagement #transformation #change #digitaltransformation

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Thinking about implementing an internal developer platform? We think about this a lot (obviously), so we wrote a blog about what to think about when you're thinking about IDPs. Before you take the leap and commit, it’s worth asking what problems you’re really trying to solve. Is it service discoverability? Friction with provisioning environments? Or maybe too many dashboards slowing your team down? Our latest blog blog (link in comments) explores how to identify these core challenges first, then focus on solutions that actually make a difference. It’s not about checking a box—it’s about creating a platform teams genuinely want to use. 👩‍💻

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3 Discovery blindspots from 50 Discos: 1. It's not a real Discovery! 2. Ignoring crucial context 3. Lack of value https://lnkd.in/e3U4tde2 What've you spotted? #discovery #productdiscovery #continuousdiscovery #disco #discoinferno

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When we hear "Agile" we always hear about... Frameworks like Scrum and Kanban that seem to get a lot of the attention. Graeme and Nick discuss how they like a lot of what "Agile" has to offer, but neither are tied to any single implementation of Agile. Graeme shares how Basecamp has an approach to Agile called "Shape Up" that doesn't seem to get as much attention, but is a great example of a company focusing on Agile principles that they found works for them. What other "Agile" frameworks have you seen success with? ---- 👀 Check out the full video on our channel! 🗣️ Share with your network! #SoftwareEngineering #EngineeringManager #Scrum #Kanban #Agile

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When we hear "Agile" we always hear about... Frameworks like Scrum and Kanban that seem to get a lot of the attention. Graeme and Nick discuss how they like a lot of what "Agile" has to offer, but neither are tied to any single implementation of Agile. Graeme shares how Basecamp has an approach to Agile called "Shape Up" that doesn't seem to get as much attention, but is a great example of a company focusing on Agile principles that they found works for them. What other "Agile" frameworks have you seen success with? ---- 👀 Check out the full video on our channel! 🗣️ Share with your network! #SoftwareEngineering #EngineeringManager #Scrum #Kanban #Agile

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When we hear "Agile" we always hear about... Frameworks like Scrum and Kanban that seem to get a lot of the attention. Graeme and Nick discuss how they like a lot of what "Agile" has to offer, but neither are tied to any single implementation of Agile. Graeme shares how Basecamp has an approach to Agile called "Shape Up" that doesn't seem to get as much attention, but is a great example of a company focusing on Agile principles that they found works for them. What other "Agile" frameworks have you seen success with? ---- 👀 Check out the full video on our channel! 🗣️ Share with your network! #SoftwareEngineering #EngineeringManager #Scrum #Kanban #Agile

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When we hear "Agile" we always hear about... Frameworks like Scrum and Kanban that seem to get a lot of the attention. Graeme and Nick discuss how they like a lot of what "Agile" has to offer, but neither are tied to any single implementation of Agile. Graeme shares how Basecamp has an approach to Agile called "Shape Up" that doesn't seem to get as much attention, but is a great example of a company focusing on Agile principles that they found works for them. What other "Agile" frameworks have you seen success with? ---- 👀 Check out the full video on our channel! 🗣️ Share with your network! #SoftwareEngineering #EngineeringManager #Scrum #Kanban #Agile

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Have you ever felt uneasy when a developer agrees to everything you ask for? 🚩 It might feel reassuring at first, but it’s often a warning sign that something isn’t quite right.  When I work with development teams, one of the biggest warning signs I look for is a partner who agrees to everything without asking deeper questions. On the surface, it seems like a dream—someone who will deliver exactly what you want, no pushback, no delays. But here’s the thing: if they aren’t challenging your ideas or identifying potential roadblocks, they might not be thinking critically about your project’s success. 😬 So how do you spot the signs of a poor approach before it's too late? 🎯 - No questions asked: If the team isn’t digging deeper into your requirements, they’re probably not fully understanding them—or worse, not caring about the long-term outcomes.   - Agreeing to unrealistic timelines: A team that promises tight deadlines without hesitation could be sacrificing quality for speed.   - No discussion of risks: Every project has limitations, but if your developers never mention risks or trade-offs, something’s off.   - Too eager to lower the price: Watch out for developers who are quick to offer discounts—quality often comes at a price, and cutting corners usually means trouble down the line.  Choosing the wrong development partner can be an expensive lesson, both in time and money. Recognizing these red flags early can save you from a lot of headaches later. 💡 What’s been your experience with developers? Have you ever spotted these warning signs? Let’s discuss! 💬

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In this podcast, Kate Megaw and Ryan Smith discuss that sometimes the product manager and product owner end up being the same person. But at companies where they aren’t, the biggest difference is that the product manager tends to be more strategic. They tend to look further down the line. The product owner is more tactical. They work with the team on mid- and short-term focuses. Listen to learn more. #ProductOwner #ProductManager

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I totally get this is self-serving but... If you haven’t watched our podcast series on the Stages of Development, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Here’s a link to our latest podcast: On Stage 5. My colleagues and I at Ninety wish every founder achieves at least Stage 5. Better yet, we wish every visionary leader leaves their company confidently sitting at at least Stage 5, if not higher. PS it’s not “founder mode”, it’s “visionary mode”. More to come. https://lnkd.in/gf62Jmnk

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