Software, Team and Strategy

A software manager must be able to balance creative independence, strong technical opinions, staff turnover and business continuity.  Personnel factors such as work/life balance, diversity and personal growth also add complexity to this mix.  When navigating all of this becomes tough, my advice is to get back to focusing on the work. When I was re-reading Instructions to the Tenzo – an ancient Zen text for the monastery cooks - this paragraph seemed to be applicable to the modern day software development: “Do not just leave washing the rice or preparing the vegetables to others but use your own hands, your own eyes, your own sincerity. Do not fragment your attention but see what each moment calls for; if you take care of just one thing then you will be careless of the other. Do not miss the opportunity of offering even a single drop into the ocean of merit or a grain atop the mountain of the roots of beneficial activity.” These instructions that have lasted centuries contain

Thank you Twilio for inviting me to speak at the Signal conference.  Here is a recording of the session I presented.