Last year I wrote a few words about the “Time to Value” metric mentioned by Adrian Cockcroft in his “Innovation at Speed” talk at Re:Invent last year. This talk is about how to get better at software-based innovation (obviously, this involves using the cloud heavily — that’s why AWS is talking about it). Since in OLXContinue reading “Making Sense of “Time to Value””
Category Archives: General
Launching a Rebranded OLX: Why Now?
“The world is burning, let’s respond with a new logo and nicer fonts!” — nobody, ever Let me spend a quick couple of paragraphs on what happens behind the scenes when a large company deeply invests in a rebranding, and then, unexpectedly, is faced with a completely new reality. I thought it would be worthContinue reading “Launching a Rebranded OLX: Why Now?”
The Great Decision Purge
Sorry for the link bait title. It was either this or “27 ideas on how to make better decisions,” and I’ve developed a spam filter in my brain that filters out titles with numbers in them. Ok, let’s go on topic. A while ago I wrote about well-considered decisions. I argued documenting decisions in aContinue reading “The Great Decision Purge”
Your Essence
In a previous post I wrote about the “No More Feedback” book. I’m not done with this topic yet. In fact, I skipped a concept Carol Sanford focuses on quite a bit in the book: your essence. I realize how hippie this may sound, but as usual: bear with me. So, dear reader, let’s continueContinue reading “Your Essence”
Dude, another site!?
TL;DR: I’m deprecating Zef.me but it’s somewhat stuck on Medium with annoying to migrate links. The 100x Engineer content may move here too in time. I know. I launched The 100x Engineer a while ago, and I’ve had Zef.me (previously under a different domain) for over 15 years. But actually, Zef’s Musings isn’t something newContinue reading “Dude, another site!?”
Zef’s Book Club: No More Feedback
At OLX I send out a weekly update email every Friday. It is an attempt to be transparent about what I’ve been working on that week and helps me reflect. Sometimes I also muse a bit on more broader topics I’ve been thinking about, or books I’ve read. This is an excerpt of this Friday’sContinue reading “Zef’s Book Club: No More Feedback”
Is this the right problem?
I sometimes joke that one half of my job is approving things, the other half is asking questions. Of course, asking any question isn’t all that hard, asking the right question is a skill. However, there are a few tricks. There are a couple of questions that prove valuable over and over. Let’s do someContinue reading “Is this the right problem?”
Time to Value: The One Metric to Optimize
Re:Invent happened two weeks ago, and usual there was a lot of good content there. One talk I would recommend to this audience is “Innovation at speed” by Adrian Crockford, which gives some insight into various aspects of cloud-enabled innovation, but also explains a bit how AWS is structured internally. However, the key message is about the Time toContinue reading “Time to Value: The One Metric to Optimize”
Engineering Manager Essential Reads (2019)
“I’d like to become an engineering manager one day, what books should I read?” — Anonymous I have three recommendations, and they’re ordered on purpose: The Manager’s Path: A Guide for Tech Leaders Navigating Growth and Change by Camille Fournier This is the book to start with. It’s the book I wish existed when IContinue reading “Engineering Manager Essential Reads (2019)”
Writing for Busy People
A few years ago I wrote Reading for Busy People. Last week somebody asked if I cannot write something similar, but about writing. While it may not be visible online, I actually have been writing a lot recently, but most of it is internally focused (we use Facebook’s Workplace, where I have a space IContinue reading “Writing for Busy People”
