Geeks Who Lead Podcast
Hear the inside stories of the "geeks who lead at scale" - Directors, VPs and CTOs running software engineering orgs at larger companies with 100+ engineers, and interviews with domain experts who can help those leaders to manage their engineering orgs more effectively.
I'm your host - Peter Bell, I've been helping senior engineering leaders to connect with and learn from their peers since 2010!
This podcast is designed for engineering leaders who want to learn the latest good practices from their peers who are way too busy operating to write an article or publish a book!
Running a software engineering org at scale is hard! You need to manage stakeholder expectations, attract and retain top talent, align and structure your org effectively and keep up with the latest processes and tooling. And that's before we even try to make sense of the potential impact of LLMs and GenAI on managing technical teams.
Our podcast and weekly newsletter provide you with access to hard-won wisdom from top engineering leaders and relevant domain experts. Learn more at https://geekswholead.com/
Geeks Who Lead Podcast
Using Engineering Metrics in a Healthy Way with Dalia Havens
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We all want our companies to succeed so it’s easy to get fixated on numbers that we believe will help us judge our efforts. However, according to Dalia Havens of Netlify, metrics need to be optimized to give you a full picture of company or project health.
Today, Dalia talks to Peter about using metrics in a healthy way that can empower and help solve problems. She also discusses why a consistent delivery pattern will give you the most insight into your operation. Listen to her thoughts.
- [01:26] - How Dalia ended up at IBM
- [04:03] - Engineering management at SailPoint Technologies
- [06:39] - Moving into the director role
- [07:54] - Engineering metrics
- [12:46] - Looking for a more consistent delivery pattern
- [14:50] - Understanding cycle time
- [18:37] - Defining the smallest unit of work
- [20:41] - Incentivizing teams
- [23:20] - Gauging quality
- [24:53] - Layering categorization on top of throughput
- [27:18] - Breaking down pull requests
- [28:40] - Educating business stakeholders
- [30:36] - Having foundational metrics in place
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CTO Connection is where you can learn from the experiences of successful engineering leaders at fast-growth tech startups. Whether you want to learn more about hiring, motivating or managing an engineering team, if you're technical and manage engineers, the CTO Connection podcast is a great resource for learning from your peers!
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