Scarlet Ink

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Day 1 Is About Doing What’s Right. Day 2 Is About Getting Promoted.
The shift from customer obsession to career obsession happens quietly, usually through the hiring process. But as your original leadership team…
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Dave Anderson
2
Blockers Are Urgent, While Friction Endures
Blockers trigger fire drills, but friction quietly shapes customer and employee behavior every single day. (Additional bonus included - The Toilet Paper…
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Dave Anderson
6
Customer Obsession Means Listening Harder—Not Measuring Harder
Large businesses use metrics to handle millions of customers. Yet a single customer story can reveal more than a mountain of metrics—if you’re willing…
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Dave Anderson
4
More Engineers = Less Output? The Costs of Growth.
Growing quickly is lauded as a great thing in the news. But is it always a great thing?
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Dave Anderson
6
Wishing for a Better Outcome Isn't a Mechanism. The COE Approach to Continual Improvement and Avoiding Blame.
Focus on what you can control, and move past your narrow focus on outcomes. When mistakes happen, the right question is: Why did your system allow it…
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Dave Anderson
The Hidden Cost of Process: A Guide for Tech Leaders
Building processes is a mechanism for resolving issues fully. But they're also bottlenecks which slow your organization down. How do you navigate this…
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Dave Anderson
11
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.
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Dave Anderson
4
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.
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Dave Anderson
3
4 Common But Insidious Patterns That Derail Software Projects
With experience, you can recognize the less obvious patterns which lead to costly disasters.
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Dave Anderson
8
How I Transformed Amazon's Internal Transfer Process
Anecdotes, ranting, and some personal philosophy.
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Dave Anderson
12
4 (More) Good Things and 2 (More) Bad Things and 2 Misunderstandings About Working at Amazon: From 12+ Years in Management
A continuation of my previous article about my experiences at Amazon. What they do well, what they don't do well, and in this article, I also mention a…
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Dave Anderson
15
3 Good Things and 3 Bad Things About Working at Amazon: From 12+ Years in Management
Line manager to Senior Manager to Director. It was a great place to work, but I have a pretty balanced view of what Amazon does well, and what it…
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Dave Anderson
6
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