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Tag: technology organization

  • My Personal and Professional Values: Keys to Collaborative Success

    Shared values and principles are the driving force behind any successful team. I hold certain values dear, not only in my professional life but also in my personal interactions. These are not attributes that I always embody perfectly, but they are principles that I constantly strive to uphold. 5 of My Values Victory Through Unity…

  • 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,…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 3-5-7 Meeting Format for Weekly Staff Meetings

    If you are the manager of a team of people at your job, here is a format we suggest for running your staff meetings. We call it the 3-5-7 format because of its convention of giving 3 to 5 minutes per person to answer 7 questions. This system assumes that you have fewer than ten direct…

  • Maker’s Schedule (For Managers Too)

    The following memo from a department head to staff is an example of how to implement a productive maker’s schedule at your workplace. This approach recommends starting with baby steps, evaluating results and making changes accordingly. Dear Colleagues in the Technology, Project Management and Product Teams, Executive Summary:1 We are implementing a maker’s schedule starting…

  • HR Classification and Discretionary/Business Job Titles for Makers, Managers and Leaders in Technology

    This article presents an organization system and policy for job titles of maker, manager and leader roles in technology staffs. Separate job titles for HR classification and discretionary/business use are used at many technology organizations, ranging from medium-sized, innovative and fast-moving companies to large, established and enterprise technology companies.1 This is a well-established practice that balances HR requirements with the rapid pace of innovation and change in job…

  • Case for a Consistent, Comprehensible & Cost-Effective Vacation Policy

    Case for a Consistent, Comprehensible & Cost-Effective Vacation Policy

    This article makes a case for having a vacation policy that is simple, sane and standard across the organization. Some organizations have unnecessarily complicated vacation policies that require a lot of labor and time to implement, manage and support exceptions for. That is substandard because such vacation policies are costly for the organization, they distract from…

  • Product Maintenance vs. New Development on Web Sites, Mobile Apps and Other Digital Products

    Maintenance of a digital business product (e.g. a Web site, mobile app, or software) refers to the work that includes modifications made after delivery to production to fix bugs, address compliance/security issues, or improve scalability/performance These modifications can be to the product’s software code, configuration, documentation, hardware, or surrounding network. Maintenance is often contrasted with…

  • Organizing a Digital Technology Department in a Media Company By Functional Areas

    This article presents a system to organize your digital technology department in a media company. It is written for a CTO, CIO or EVP Technology looking for suggestions on organizing or reorganizing your Digital (Web, Mobile) technology department. It is best suited for you if your organization has the following characteristics: You manage all aspects…

  • Some Pathways for Career Development in a Product Engineering Organization

    The diagram below illustrates some pathways for career development in an engineering-focussed product development organization. It shows an organization where software engineering is a major discipline. The pathways shown here map out career paths that we have seen work well in a number of organizations. (There are also other pathways that work well that are not…