Mid Career
From One-Way to Two-Way Doors: Rethinking How We Make Big Decisions
How to recognize the differences between one-way and two-way doors. A way to think about risk and decision-making.
Latest
Career Growth
Your Boss Thinks You Suck. Now What?
When your 'areas to improve' sounds like a shopping list. Or more subtly, an afternoon is ruined when you get a little honest feedback on your performance. And what you should do next.
People Managers
Delegate Delegation — An Upgrade to the Common Delegation Practice of Micro Management
Many managers (and individuals) assume that load balancing their team members is the manager's job. That's a pretty bad idea. And I'll explain why.
Personal Dave Posts
You Must Find a Passion Project - AKA How to Avoid Being a Boring Human
I'm absolutely off topic today. Like if being on topic was a road in downtown Seattle, I'd be hiking up Rattlesnake Ledge today. Which, if you don't know, is far away.
Mid Career
Resolve Risk First - Why Complexity and Ambiguity Not Effort Should Dictate Your Focus
Too often we resolve the hardest work first, instead of the riskiest. A walk through of why that's a mistake.
Early Career
How to Both Embrace and Defeat Imposter Syndrome
Our skills aren't perfect. Moving past our weaknesses is how we discover our ways to add value, and improve along the way.
Mid Career
Inside a High-Severity Outage: A Late Night Sev-2 at Amazon
A detailed narrative of how we communicated about, worked on, and resolved a technical mess we created.
Organizations
13 Tech Career Misconceptions — Things I Wish I'd Learned Earlier
Misunderstandings about performance, promotions, influence, and leadership that most people only realize late in their careers.
People Managers
Heard of Design Patterns? How About Behavior Patterns.
Recognize patterns in management to be able to solve issues, and deliver results.
Mid Career
Writing and Speaking Clearly and Concisely - Upgrading Your Communication
Communicating takes practice and skill. Learn the ingredients to high-quality communication.
Late Career
Why You Should Give Feedback — And How to Deliver It Without the Awkward Crying
The why and how to write feedback for others.
Organizations
RTO is a lie, 3rd party misinformation, the source of my anecdotes, and how (not) to make decisions. An article of many topics!
Sometimes writing about one topic just isn't good enough.