Review of An Elegant Puzzle: Systems of Engineering Management

Book Link: https://smile.amazon.com/Elegant-Puzzle-Systems-Engineering-Management-ebook/dp/B07QYCHJ7V/

Great book on engineering management overall. The majority of the focus was at the managers of managers level but there was a fair amount of information that can be applied to any level of engineering management like hiring, document writing, communicating with executives, project management, and a bunch of other stuff.

Some highlights from my reading: 1. The key tools for leading efficient change are systems thinking, metrics, and vision. 2. Delivery lead time is the time from the creation of code to its use in production. Deployment frequency is how often you deploy code. 3. Change fail rate is how frequently changes fail. Time to restore service is the time spent recovering from defects. 4. The best cheap alternative that I’ve found [for modeling] is Insight Maker, which has some UI quirks but features a donation-based payment model. 5. A structure that I’ve found extremely effective is described in Good Strategy/Bad Strategy by Richard Rumelt, and has three sections: diagnosis, policies, and actions. 6. Start with the conclusion. Particularly in written communication, folks skim until they get bored and then stop reading. 7. [In written communication] providing a narrative of where things are, how you got here, and where you’re going now. 8. My general approach to presenting to senior leaders is: * Tie topic to business value * Establish historical narrative * Explicit ask * Data-driven diagnosis * Decision-making principles * What's next and when it'll be done * Return to explicit ask 9. The next time you’re about to dive into fixing a complicated one-off situation, consider taking a step back and documenting the problem but not trying to solve it. Commit to refreshing the policy in a month, and batch all exceptions requests until then. 10. view management as, at its core, a moral profession. We have the opportunity to create an environment for those around us to be their best, in fair surroundings. For me, that’s both an opportunity and an obligation for managers, 11. Finishes is particularly important, as opposed to does, because partial work has no value, 12. I believe that almost every internal problem can be traced back to a missing or poor relationship, 13. “With the right people, any process works, and with the wrong people, no process works.” 14. do the right thing for the company, the right thing for the team, and the right thing for yourself, in that order. 15. Long bones have growth plates at their ends, which is where the growth happens, and the middle doesn’t grow. This is a pretty apt metaphor for rapidly growing companies, 16. Things your manager should know about you: What problems you’re trying solve. How you’re trying to solve each of them. That you’re making progress. (Specifically, that you’re not stuck.) What you prefer to work on. (So that they can staff you properly.) 17. How busy you are. (So that they know if you can take on an opportunity that comes up.) What your professional goals and growth areas are. Where you are between bored and challenged. How you believe you’re being measured. (A rubric, company values, some KPIs, etc.) 18. There is a lot less competition for hard work. 19. The skill that scales the worst is outworking your problems. 20. identify useful programs, and move from anxiety to implementation. 21. Instead of maintaining a general ongoing education budget, make it explicit. 22. Long term, I believe that your career will be largely defined by getting lucky and the rate at which you learn. 23. Peer and team feedback. Collect written feedback from four or five coworkers. 24. [On promoting] A 90-day plan. The applicant writes a 90-day plan of how they’d transition into the role, and what they would focus on. 25. [On promoting] Vision/strategy document. The applicant writes a combined vision/strategy document. It outlines where the new team will be in two to three years, and how they’ll steer the team to get there. 26. [On promoting] Vision/strategy presentation. Have the applicant present their vision/strategy document to a group of three to four peers. 27. [On promoting] Executive presentation. Have the applicant present their strategy document, one-on-one, with an executive. 28. Running the process takes a lot of time, but it’s rewarding time. In fact, this has generated more useful feedback than anything else I’ve done over the past year. It brings an element of intentional practice that’s uncommon in engineering management. 29. Each positive freedom we enforce strips away a negative freedom, and each negative freedom we guarantee eliminates a corresponding positive freedom. This sad state of affairs is often referred to as the Paradox of Positive Liberty. 30. always change exactly one thing. 31. Projects fail all the time, people screw up all the time. Usually it’s by failing to acknowledge missteps that we exacerbate them. If we acknowledge errors quickly, and cut our losses on bad decisions before burning ourselves out, then we can learn 32. even people you aren’t able to work with now are still folks you’re likely to work with next year or next job. 33. The hiring funnel consists of four major steps: identifying candidates, motivating them to apply, evaluating them for your company, and closing them on joining. 34. You want candidates’ motivation to join your company to increase as they’re evaluated, not decrease. 35. Folks often look at new roles as less important, framing them as service roles to absorb work they’re not interested in. Sometimes roles are even explicitly designed this way, intended to reduce work for another role as opposed to having an empowering mission of their own. 36. If you can’t find a sponsor, it’s usually important feedback that leadership doesn’t believe the new role will have a good return on invested energy. 37. You must be able to frame the role’s work without referencing other existing roles in order for it to succeed long-term. 38.