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FOREWORD

A leader does not operate in a vacuum. (S)He is surrounded by people, up-and-down the corporate hierarchy, ranging from domain novices to experts, supportive to hostile, passionate to indifferent. Some of them are highly driven while others are just coasting through the day, looking forward to Thursday, as of Friday they are already mentally checked out.  A technology leader is also dealing with diverse technology stacks, ranging from mainframe Cobol to Big Data to Open Source projects to AWS/GCP serverless architecture. The rate of change in HiTech is accelerating and is much higher than that of any other industry. To add to this complexity, there are also market trends to consider, new opportunities to pursue, budgetary constraints, project timelines, competitive actions, regulatory and legal distractions. A sheer permutation of all these factors is dizzying.

Forget about successful leadership - without ground rules and a leadership framework that defines you as a leader, it is neigh to impossible to simply manage a modern technology organization. Each leadership framework is subjective and personal, although some baselines are universal.  My Leadership Tenets is my lighthouse in the raging sea of organic, quant, and binary matter that defines today’s corporate world.  It has been developed during my career, based on my observations of what works and what does not, sourcing insight from US, EMEA, and Japan, diverse technology and business domains, companies of various sizes, and operational maturity. It is constantly being refined and updated – the work is never over.

AWARENESS

  1. Arrogance + Ignorance = Irrelevance. Consider reality, be aware of your limitations and strengths. SWOT applies not only to products, it also applies to individuals and teams;

  2. Precision! Enforce it. People are normally like to operate in the realm of "not-well-defined". Stop that! Avoid characterization such as “more”, “large”, “in a future”, “less”, “a large portion of", “significant”. These are cop-outs and "safety harbors". Statements that X quantity is deprecated or that 12% of Y is reduced are meaningless. Always provide context: what is the total of Y? Timeline? Velocity expressed as # of Story points/Sprint, etc.  Quantity as much as possible: timelines, velocity, burndowns.
    If it can’t be quantified, question whether it is important or adds insight. Probably not...

  3. By-and-large is often a sufficient form of quantification. Use shortcuts, be pragmatic;

  4. Apply Logic, Reason, Common Sense to everything! Don’t’ forget about Blink Consciousness - apply instinct, passion and gut feel. Immediate perception could be, and often is, the right one; Read Malcolm Gladwell's "Blink". 

  5. Learn, Learn, Learn – from your team, from other team, from external sources; The industry is moving at an incredible pace - keep up!

  6. In 21st Century, EVERY business, in order to be successful in the long run, has to act and think like a Software Company. This is an inoculation against obsolescence and ossification. 

  7. Hope for the Best. Prepare for the Worst. Capitalize on what Comes. In other words, Optimize for Failure, not for Success!

  8. Achieve Intra-team or cross-team Alignment, keeping in mind the following 3 methods: Debate, Discussion, and Training. These are all governed by one principle of Meritocracy which implies that you assign different weights or confidence to opinions expressed by people with different level of subject matter credibility / understanding. 

    1. Debate: exchange of opinions between people of similar credibility or expertise. Do not confuse debate with a referendum or consensus building exercise. Debate is a technique designed to provide decision-maker with valid explorations of various alternatives leading to a better decision making;

    2. Discussion: information exchange between people of various backgrounds and different understanding of the domain. It is often unproductive insofar as alignment, but it is a natural way to brainstorm, to create new features, to solve complex and chaotic problems. 

    3. Training: information exchange between people of vastly different level of familiarity with the subject matter. A natural and quick way to get the team up-to-speed and to a baseline level of understanding. 

  9. Do regular Deep Dives;​

  10. Own Responsibility;

  11. Avoid PowerPoint for insight. Use MS Word. Conduct regular assessment, WBR and MBRs (when teams are mature enough or due to a lack of time to stay intimately involved)

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