This episode introduces a valuable meta-tool for understanding the generic shapes of models, focusing specifically on the concept of logarithmic relationships and how they manifest as diminishing returns in various aspects of our lives and work. Understanding these patterns can help us make more informed decisions about where to invest our time and resources.

• Uncover a meta-tool for understanding generic model shapes, specifically focusing on the concept of logarithmic relationships, which operates at a layer above specific mental models.
• Learn about logarithmic complexity as a concept often encountered in algorithmic analysis and graphing math, characterised by a curve where the slope continuously decreases.
• Discover how diminishing returns serve as a colloquial way to understand logarithmic relationships, where each unit of input effort yields progressively smaller returns in value or output.
• Explore examples of where diminishing returns are evident, such as increasing the reliability of a system through quality improvements, estimation efforts, and the value gained from time spent in meetings.
• Understand how learning processes often follow a logarithmic curve, with rapid initial gains that gradually diminish with experience.
• Grasp the connection between logarithmic returns and the Pareto principle (80/20 rule), where a small percentage of effort often produces a large percentage of the value.
• Recognise the importance of identifying the threshold on a logarithmic curve where the returns on further investment become minimal, aiding in more effective resource allocation.
• Consider how our natural perception might not align with logarithmic realities, potentially leading us to overvalue continued effort beyond the point of significant return.
• Learn how understanding these fundamental input-output relationships can empower you to make better decisions about where to focus your time, effort, and resources.

This episode introduces the concept of dimensional reframing as a tool to gain new perspectives on problems and facilitate decision-making by considering a new dimension.

• Learn how adding a new dimension to a problem can overcome limited perception and lead to new insights.
• Discover how applying the dimension of time to bug management can help prioritise and address a manageable number of bugs within a specific period.
• Explore how considering your energy levels can inform your approach to personal tasks, matching tasks to your available energy.
• Understand how frameworks like Getting Things Done (GTD) use the dimension of context to make tasks more actionable.
• Learn how the KonMari method employs the dimension of joy to fundamentally change how you decide what items to keep.
• Understand that the key to effective dimensional reframing is choosing a dimension that you care about and that helps you make decisions.
• Discover that dimensional reframing can be applied to both individual items and lists of items.

If you enjoyed this episode and would like me to discuss a question that you have on the show, drop it over at: developertea.com.

If you want to be a part of a supportive community of engineers (non-engineers welcome!) working to improve their lives and careers, join us on the Developer Tea Discord community by visiting https://developertea.com/discord today!

If you're enjoying the show and want to support the content head over to iTunes and leave a review! It helps other developers discover the show and keep us focused on what matters to you.

This episode explores the concept of Chesterton's fence, a principle that advises against removing or altering something without first understanding its original purpose.

• Understand the core message of Chesterton's fence: before getting rid of an existing system, process, or code, take the time to understand why it was put there in the first place.
• Learn about the common thought process that leads to wanting to remove things without understanding them ("Why on earth would anyone ever do it this way?").
• Discover the parable of Chesterton's fence: the more intelligent reformer questions the removal of a fence until its use is understood.
• See an analogy in code review where a senior engineer might question the removal of code or tests without understanding their purpose.
• Understand the cognitive bias of illusory superiority and the Dunning-Kruger effect, which can lead to overestimating one's own abilities and underestimating the reasoning behind existing systems.
• Recognise the mistake of assuming that predecessors were incompetent and that their work was done in error.
• Appreciate the importance of adopting a curious mindset and trying to understand the original reasons behind existing practices.
• Understand that Chesterton's fence is not a justification for never changing anything, but a caution against recklessness and the importance of being informed.
• Learn that even when deciding to remove something, understanding its purpose can lead to better decisions and improvements in the future (e.g., replacing an old test with a better one).
• Realise the value of learning from the experiences and reasoning of those who came before.

If you enjoyed this episode and would like me to discuss a question that you have on the show, drop it over at: developertea.com.

If you want to be a part of a supportive community of engineers (non-engineers welcome!) working to improve their lives and careers, join us on the Developer Tea Discord community by visiting https://developertea.com/discord today!

If you're enjoying the show and want to support the content head over to iTunes and leave a review! It helps other developers discover the show and keep us focused on what matters to you.

This episode discusses how to reframe areas of growth identified in performance reviews with your manager, turning potential weaknesses into strategic strengths. It emphasizes focusing on excelling in your existing strengths rather than spreading efforts thinly across all areas of improvement.

• Understand why it's misguided to immediately convert a list of growth areas into a to-do list and the importance of collaborating with your manager on this.
• Learn to identify the growth areas you are interested in and determine what has kept you from excelling in them, such as time, opportunity, or self-confidence.
• Discover why focusing on becoming extraordinarily good in your already strong areas can lead to unique opportunities for you and your company.
• Explore how to strategically discuss your growth areas with your manager, focusing on a limited set of areas for improvement and suggesting compromises or delegation for others.
• Challenge the conventional wisdom of balancing skills and instead consider how to become a top performer (top 2%) in your areas of strength.
• Realise that a team composed of individuals excelling at different things, will probably be more effective than a team of well-rounded individuals.

If you enjoyed this episode and would like me to discuss a question that you have on the show, drop it over at: developertea.com.

If you want to be a part of a supportive community of engineers (non-engineers welcome!) working to improve their lives and careers, join us on the Developer Tea Discord community by visiting https://developertea.com/discord today!

If you're enjoying the show and want to support the content head over to iTunes and leave a review!

This episode provides a tactical question to elicit useful feedback by taking responsibility for seeking it out and framing the request in a way that encourages advice rather than judgment.

• Understand that your manager giving you feedback is your responsibility, which means you should actively seek it out rather than waiting.
• Discover how a simple question can shift the dynamic with your manager to get better feedback, focusing on advice for the future rather than dwelling on past behaviours.
• Learn the tactical question to ask your manager: "What do you think will hold me back from growing?" or a modified version like, "What do you think will hold me back from getting X promotion?".
• Explore why framing your feedback request as seeking advice is more effective because managers generally enjoy giving advice and it focuses on future improvement.
• Understand that the intent is not to analyze past behavior but to identify potential roadblocks to future success and growth.

If you want to be a part of a supportive community of engineers (non-engineers welcome!) working to improve their lives and careers, join us on the Developer Tea Discord community by visiting https://developertea.com/discord today!.

This episode introduces a simple quadrant tool to visualise different working modes that a team or individual task might be in, based on levels of autonomy and definition.

• Understand how the quadrant is built using the X-axis of dependency (high to low) and the Y-axis of definition (high to low) to visualise different work modes.
• Explore how the bottom left quadrant represents work that is highly exploratory and highly dependent, often requiring collaboration across multiple departments.
• Learn how a "spike" usually fits into the bottom right quadrant, signifying autonomous exploration.
• Discover how the top left quadrant is for work that is highly dependent but highly defined, such as a migration project or adopting a new tool.
• Understand how the top right quadrant represents work that is the most defined and the most autonomous, typically a singular task assigned to an individual.
• Recognise that many development frameworks focus on optimising work to fit in the top right quadrant to improve flow by reducing dependencies.
• Consider that the top left quadrant is often the lowest value production due to high dependencies without creative thinking.
• Realise that exploratory work, if unguided, can be a liability, and it may be useful to involve more people in the exploration or ensure the individual has significant experience.
• Be aware that processes are often optimised for tasks in the top right quadrant, potentially leading to the avoidance of work in other quadrants.

If you enjoyed this episode and would like me to discuss a question that you have on the show, drop it over at: developertea.com.

If you want to be a part of a supportive community of engineers (non-engineers welcome!) working to improve their lives and careers, join us on the Developer Tea Discord community by visiting https://developertea.com/discord today!

If you're enjoying the show and want to support the content head over to iTunes and leave a review! It helps other developers discover the show and keep us focused on what matters to you.

This episode introduces product lifecycle governance, offering practical techniques for engineering managers to tackle challenges like backlog prioritisation and leadership misunderstandings, helping turn potential problems into strategic advantages.

• Uncover how to use product lifecycle governance to expose vulnerabilities in your product development process, by understanding where decisions are made and who makes them.
• Learn how to move beyond simply managing a product to governing its lifecycle, turning unexpected issues into opportunities for better alignment and strategic advantage.
• Discover why understanding your governance model is crucial for ensuring that everyone is working on the most important tasks, and how to iterate on it for better clarity and effectiveness.
• Explore why focusing on a clear governance model and identifying decision points can be more useful than simply executing processes without understanding the bigger picture.
• Learn why surfacing tech debt and integrating it into your backlog is essential for a healthy product lifecycle.
• Understand that documenting and sharing your governance model can lead to better collaboration and alignment within the organisation.

This episode provides language and a mental model around product lifecycle governance to help navigate challenges, especially when transitioning to a new role or company. It emphasises understanding where decisions are being made, what your power is as a manager, and how to collaborate to develop a better governance model. The goal is to ensure everyone is working on the right thing at the right time, optimising decision-making and processes.

If you enjoyed this episode and would like me to discuss a question that you have on the show, drop it over at: developertea.com.

If you want to be a part of a supportive community of engineers (non-engineers welcome!) working to improve their lives and careers, join us on the Developer Tea Discord community by visiting https://developertea.com/discord today!

If you're enjoying the show and want to support the content head over to iTunes and leave a review! It helps other developers discover the show and keep us focused on what matters to you.

This episode explores philosophical frameworks—ontology, teleology, and dynamism—to inform decision-making in uncertain situations, providing practical advice for applying these concepts in your professional and personal life.

• Understand how ontology, teleology, and dynamism can help you navigate conversations about future actions for teams, companies, families, or yourself. Ontology focuses on a thing's intrinsic characteristics, teleology on its purpose or outcome, and dynamism on the changing environment.
• Learn how these philosophical frameworks address the uncertainty of the future and provide tools for making intentional decisions. The episode connects these concepts to practical advice, especially for engineering managers, demonstrating their relevance to your career.
• Explore how ontology identifies a thing's characteristics in isolation, while teleology considers its purpose or outcome. Discover how dynamism identifies changes in the environment and intent, providing a contextual understanding.
• Consider how dynamism can recognize the need to change a team's role due to external factors, like AI, which contrasts with the potentially static views of ontology and teleology.
• Understand that 'should' implies value in decision-making, with choices leaning towards desirable or undesirable outcomes. The episode explores how to define the criteria for 'should' in various contexts.
• Realise the importance of adapting your thinking to new realities, which is crucial in decision-making.

Wix Studio's developer-first ecosystem allows you to focus on crucial functionalities by reducing time spent on tedious tasks.

• Develop online in a VS Code-based IDE or locally via GitHub.
• Extend and replace a suite of powerful business solutions.
• Use Wix Studio’s AI code assistant to ship faster.

Work within a developer-first ecosystem by visiting wixstudio.com.

If you enjoyed this episode and would like me to discuss a question that you have on the show, drop it over at: developertea.com.

To join a supportive community of engineers, visit the Developer Tea Discord community at https://developertea.com/discord.

Support the show by leaving a review on iTunes to help other developers discover the podcast.

This episode includes practical techniques to prepare for the unexpected by identifying vulnerabilities and building resilience, using the "curse question" and the "assumption audit" to help you turn potential problems into strategic advantages.

• Uncover how to use a "curse question" to expose vulnerabilities you didn't know you had, by imagining realistic negative scenarios and what could go wrong.
• Learn how to move beyond resilience to antifragility, turning unexpected events into opportunities for growth and strategic advantage, by making them benefitial rather than harmful.
• Discover why your medium-confidence assumptions might be the most dangerous and how an "assumption audit" can help you rate them and their potential impact if they are wrong, to help you better understand your weaknesses.
• Explore why preparing for a range of possibilities, including black swan events, is more effective than trying to predict specific outcomes, and how to spot opportunities in the unexpected.
• Learn why focusing on areas of fragility and identifying risks can be more useful than focusing on trying to avoid negative events altogether.
• Understand that counterfactuals can help you challenge your assumptions and create more robust plans.

Devs, if you think website builders mean limited control—think again.
With Wix Studio’s developer-first ecosystem you can spend less time on tedious tasks and
more on the functionalities that matters most:
● Develop online in a VS Code-based IDE or locally via GitHub.
● Extend and replace a suite of powerful business solutions
● And ship faster with Wix Studio’s AI code assistant
All of that, wrapped up in auto-maintained infrastructure for total peace of mind.
Work in a developer-first ecosystem. Go to wixstudio.com

If you enjoyed this episode and would like me to discuss a question that you have on the show, drop it over at: developertea.com.

If you want to be a part of a supportive community of engineers (non-engineers welcome!) working to improve their lives and careers, join us on the Developer Tea Discord community by visiting https://developertea.com/discord today!

If you're enjoying the show and want to support the content head over to iTunes and leave a review! It helps other developers discover the show and keep us focused on what matters to you.

In this episode, we discuss how invisible inertia can cause us to misinterpret our reality in work scenarios.
• Discover why common misconceptions about behaviour are so difficult to spot.
• Explore why your "unique" situation might be a common trap, a "uniqueness bias".
• Learn how exceptional states can become the norm and impact your life.
• Uncover how people's values shape company culture, and how to evaluate this.
• Why might expecting a culture to change in the direction you want be unrealistic?
• Learn why you should evaluate situations for what they are right now, instead of expecting future change.

Devs, if you think website builders mean limited control—think again.
With Wix Studio’s developer-first ecosystem you can spend less time on tedious tasks and
more on the functionalities that matters most:
● Develop online in a VS Code-based IDE or locally via GitHub.
● Extend and replace a suite of powerful business solutions
● And ship faster with Wix Studio’s AI code assistant
All of that, wrapped up in auto-maintained infrastructure for total peace of mind.
Work in a developer-first ecosystem. Go to wixstudio.com

If you enjoyed this episode and would like me to discuss a question that you have on the show, drop it over at: developertea.com.

If you want to be a part of a supportive community of engineers (non-engineers welcome!) working to improve their lives and careers, join us on the Developer Tea Discord community by visiting https://developertea.com/discord today!

If you're enjoying the show and want to support the content head over to iTunes and leave a review! It helps other developers discover the show and keep us focused on what matters to you.