Etienne du Bruin goes solo this week as he discusses the complicated nature of a CTO’s role. He talks about the four S’s of a CTO, and describes how systems thinking can be used to understand the role of a leader.CTOs shield their organizations from existential threats internally and externally; stretch out the organization with design thinking and organizational design; speed up technology delivery; and work with the cross functional teams to increase sales, Etienne claims. Complex systems consist of many elements on many different scales, all affecting one another on different levels. Systems thinking can be used to understand how the components of a complex company interact with each other. Levels of complexity within companies necessitate that leaders be able to adapt quickly in order to manage these complexities.Etienne believes the role of a CTO is one of business, with a budget to build teams that deliver technologies to grow revenues. ResourcesEmail Etienne: etienne@7ctos.com See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. Get full access to The CTO Podcast at www.ctopod.com/subscribe

How does the left and right brain differ in decision-making? In this week’s show, Aaron Longwell, a Software Manager at Amazon Web Services, dives deep into this idea. He joins Etienne de Bruin to talk about the importance of context in decision-making, communication, and how pushing management decisions down in an organization can lead to problems.Some ideas you’ll hear them explore are:Throughout history, humans have favored the left-brain model of thinking. "We pay less attention to context and … to emotions, pay less attention to the body and more to the brain," Aaron says. Alternatively, the right side of the brain is more creative.Good communication is a major factor in solving challenges. Code is communication, so being able to communicate effectively will allow you to code more effectively. Getting communication right from the start saves you time. Don't assume that you're being understood, verify that you are. Ask questions that can let you know that the other person is understanding what you are saying and that you're both on the same page. The mentality of reusing what you can is flawed. The idea that because someone already built in some component of the communication in the software, so it doesn't need to be reworked opens you up for a lot of third-party dependencies and increases complexity.Pushing management decisions lower down in an organization creates redundant decision making.Complexity is a prerequisite to being robust.ResourcesAaron Longwell | LinkedIn Thinking, Fast and SlowThe Master and His Emissary See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. Get full access to The CTO Podcast at www.ctopod.com/subscribe

Have you interviewed and hired someone only to have it not work out soon after? This week’s show discusses the importance of hiring people who will be successful in your company’s culture. Casey Kleindienst, a Management Professor at Cal State Fullerton and a consultant to small and medium enterprises, explores how to identify those individuals. He joins Etienne de Bruin to share how to screen candidates for emotional intelligence and potential risk.Some ideas you’ll hear them explore are:The interview process tries to answer two questions: Does this candidate fulfill the minimum requirements for the job? And will they succeed in the company’s culture? Culture and potential are the two most important variables to consider, Casey says.Don't hire resumes. Rather than the resume, look at the character. The character will give you a prediction of future performance. Hire people that have the potential to deliver value to your company in the long run. Seventy percent of jobs come from the hidden job market, meaning they don’t get posted. Employers call people in their network and ask if they know suitable candidates.Being able to teach people and bring them into learning is a skill that demonstrates that someone has actually mastered the craft that they've learned.Decision making is a singular activity. If you assign decision making to more than one person, despite whatever discussion they have, they will eventually reach an impasse. They're not going to be able to go forward because there are two opposing views and they both have equal merit in the eyes of the holders.Instead of running from them and trying to get rid of them, you should work towards your weaknesses. On the other side of them, there are strengths.ResourcesCasey Kleindienst on LinkedInSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. Get full access to The CTO Podcast at www.ctopod.com/subscribe

Just how easy is DevOps? In this week’s show, Phil Borlin and Ken Cone, co-founders of SleepTight, share the answer. They join Etienne de Bruin to talk about the challenges that come with navigating a company's DevOps, and what developers should keep in mind. Some ideas you’ll hear them explore are:DevOps is the idea that developers need to be in charge of their own destiny. Therefore, somebody needs to be able to help them get to that point. "What we're trying to do is change the way people do computer science," Ken says. You don't have to flip the ones and zeros on the machines anymore because transistors do that. It's high time DevOps is that way for people who want to create value.Your business should be unique in your market, but not in your ops nor your tech. Developers should understand their tools, but that doesn't mean they have to write their tools.Continuous integration simply means that all the code that is being written is grouped together continuously. Trunk-based development is going back to this ideal and feature flags is wrapping all the code. Trunk based development, terraform and infrastructure are all important in approaches to code. Phil and Ken detail the steps and procedures that go into terraforming and building code infrastructure.ResourcesPhil Borlin | phil@sleeptight.ioKen ConeSleepTightSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. Get full access to The CTO Podcast at www.ctopod.com/subscribe

How do you build and maintain relationships? In this week’s show, Dr. Dan Stoneman, Executive Partner at Gardner and former CIO of the San Diego Unified District, dives deep into this idea. He joins Etienne de Bruin to talk about the role of psychology as a CTO and the importance of relationships. He tells listeners that we should not be so focused on outcomes that we no longer have people in our lives. Some ideas you’ll hear them explore are:When you’re texting the most important people in your life, Dan suggests, asking them what's special about their day instead of how they're doing. If you don't understand psychology and influence, you're not going to get anything done. While persuasion is programming people in a way, you can't do that the way you would program computers. Humans make decisions all on their own, so to be able to persuade them, you have to understand why they make the choices they do.The three pillars of effective leadership are mastery, autonomy, and purpose. The best thing you can do as a leader is to step out of the way so your team can activate and harness their creativity to make the product better. How you interact and relate to your team is what drives productivity.Years of experience will not necessarily translate into effective leadership. It takes communication, empathy, and a desire to transfer knowledge.ResourcesDan Stoneman | LinkedIn Drive by Daniel PinkThe Destructive Hero | The New York TimesNetscape Time by Jim ClarkSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. Get full access to The CTO Podcast at www.ctopod.com/subscribe

What must exist for a community to be vibrant and healthy? In this week’s show, EJ Allen and TJ Taylor, CTO and Staff Engineer at Mobilize, answer this question. They join Etienne de Bruin to dig into trunk-based development, feature flags, and how community and personal connection drive business. Some ideas you’ll hear them explore are:Community is the tide that raises all boats. Building communities of trust and connecting with people can unlock potential for everyone. What it means to be part of a thriving community is the same across professional and personal networks. The key components of creating a vibrant network include trust, empathy, and unlocking potential. In software development, you must be able to take risks and be vulnerable with your team. This means that you essentially eliminate the consequences of making a mistake, allowing your team to experience psychological safety.Building habits is one of the ways to create pits of success. That translates into looking at the habits of the people around you and figuring out how to leverage those habits to get the desired behavior. Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement. Think about how you're adding value to your customer. At the end of the day, your work is not necessarily as important as the work that your team is delivering to the customer.  "Being able to get 1% better a day makes you 37 times better in a year. Try not to worry so much about what can I get done in a day or what can I get done this week… Instead, just focus on how can I deliver the smallest amount of value as consistently as possible?" You need every leg of the stool to be successful. That requires trust, empathy, and connection in your team. ResourcesEJ Allen | LinkedIn TJ Taylor | LinkedIn Mobilize Refactoring by Kent BeckWorking Effectively with Legacy Code by Michael FeathersSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. Get full access to The CTO Podcast at www.ctopod.com/subscribe

Is iterative growth more substantial than revolutionary growth? In this week’s show, Dave Mangot, Principal and founder of Mangoteque, explores this idea in depth. He joins Etienne de Bruin to talk about how companies find benchmarks to compare themselves to, and how his organization is holding up a mirror in this process.Some ideas you’ll hear them explore are:The culture you cultivate at your company will endure for the company’s lifetime. When you’re looking for tools for your company's DevOps, pick the one that fits your company's culture the best. A tool that does most of what you want, and that fits in with your company culture, will have the highest rate of adoption. To have continuous improvement in your company, you need to plan as well as study. Development teams need to have a calendar, they need to study the projects that they are undertaking and decide whether or not they are feasible. As a leader, give yourself and your team permission to fail.Be open to suggestions from your team members, and don't be quick to dismiss them. "That was a thinking, creative human being who spent time coming up with that. To dismiss it out of hand is probably not appropriate and certainly not great for team performance or team cohesion," Dave tells Etienne.  Hiring more people when work isn't getting done is not going to fix anything. Throwing more people into a broken system isn't going to fix the broken system. Instead, look at the work that needs to be done. ResourcesDave Mangot LinkedIn | TwitterMangotequeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. Get full access to The CTO Podcast at www.ctopod.com/subscribe

“Large open source projects with many developers can sometimes feel like chaotic construction zones.” This week’s show is all about open-source communities. Jesse White, CTO and President of R&D at OpenNMS, joins Etienne de Bruin to define and describe open source communities, what they do, and how they work.Some ideas you’ll hear them explore are:OpenNMS is an open-source network monitoring program intended to monitor large enterprises at scale.How do you nurture a community that has strong feelings about where the product needs to go?“I see my role as being as transparent as possible in painting a picture of where we're going as an organization and what impacts that has on the open source project that we have,” Jesse shares.Sometimes when things go wrong inside an open source community, developers fork projects in different directions or start another community outright. If you’re thinking about contributing to an open-source community, you should start by asking around. You should also advocate for your own work - don’t seclude yourself in a silo and only come out when it’s ready. Let people know what you’re working on, and keep them posted. Even if there’s no response, people will see it and be aware.The key to open source is the openness of code, disposition, and how you approach it. ResourcesJesse White on the Web | LinkedInSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. Get full access to The CTO Podcast at www.ctopod.com/subscribe

Do you dream of more harmony between product and engineering teams when releasing features? This week’s show dives deep into the world of features. Patricio Echague, CTO and co-founder of Split.io, shares how to avoid causing trauma to your engineering teams with pushes to production. He joins Etienne de Bruin to discuss the fundamentals of updating code in a way that empowers teams across your company.Some ideas you’ll hear them explore are:As a CTO, whether you're at a highly scaled organization or just starting, the value you create is through the code you've written. In updating that code, trunk-based development is the way to go. Though you can use other branching techniques to use feature flags, they are more powerful when they are developed with a trunk-based methodology.When using feature flags, you should start by placing them as high in the stack as possible and then moving them down as needed. If a feature flag has at least two conditions, two possible states, it gets exponential. This will create difficulty if you have to change many feature flags.You can try to mitigate the animosity between product and engineering by giving them independence.Any mature feature flag will help you identify when flags are no longer being engaged and used. If you have a monolith code base, you can move towards trunk based by peeling off areas of the monolith that haven't changed often and have a unit of domain, and then putting that into microservice and giving some teams autonomy to iterate on that service alone.ResourcesPatricio Echague on the Web | LinkedIn | TwitterSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. Get full access to The CTO Podcast at www.ctopod.com/subscribe

DEI isn’t just an organizational to-do; it’s about the day-to-day behavior in a company. Inclusion and Equity are the things we put into practice in our daily lives – how are we inclusive of people, and how do we ensure there is equity across the board? Today, Etienne de Bruin is talking to three experts in their fields, and in the leadership of major organizations who are taking DE&I seriously. Erik Enge is the Head of Engineering at Postmark, Active Campaign. Kathy Keating the VP of Technology at Ad Hoc, and Aaron Pina is the founder of Anthropolicy. They discuss what DE and I really means, how to make it an integral part of your company, and why that matters. They discuss:Diversity, Equity and Inclusion isn’t a set of checkboxes to tick off. The number of people of color or members of the LGBTQ community in your company doesn’t mean anything if their day-to-day experience of working in the organization isn’t inclusive. “If you focus on the I, the D will come.”Psychological safety is important, but the idea of it has de-developed equity in North America. It has kept majority culture, particularly whiteness, from fully engaging in the process and practice of inclusion. Real psychological safety is something else.Where do you start having conversations about people’s biases and resistance? Aaron recommends looking at skepticism and resistance as a signal for a story that needs to be told.When you’re part of majority culture, what you find normal, pleasant, easy and conducive to success, it’s hard to imagine that others don’t have the same experience. Eric talks about this realization and how he acted on it.Trust and safety doesn’t come from doing and saying everything perfectly, it comes from creating something new. Cathy shares that she feels safety comes from “that beautiful moment when we move from your needs, my needs and where it’s about us expressing our needs.”Aaron talks about how the whole self doesn’t always belong at work, but spaces where you can be unapologetically yourself are vital. He recommends active bystander training and looking at how it can be applied in the world.Fear is a feeling you can move through – it doesn’t have to be avoided, and it doesn’t have to stop you from making changes and doing the work.What happens when you bring difference into your workplace ‘tribe’? It always creates friction but how you treat and respond to that friction dictates whether you grow and evolve or stagnate and eventually decay. ResourcesThe Culture Code by Daniel Coyle The Culture Map by Erin MeyerAaron Pina on LinkedIn InstagramAnthropolicy ConsultingKathy Keating on LinkedInAd HocErik Enge on LinkedInActive CampaignSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. Get full access to The CTO Podcast at www.ctopod.com/subscribe