Unpopular Defaults for High-Performing Tech Organizations

Popular management approaches often lead to mediocrity

Author

Jakub Chodounsky
February 03, 2025

This article challenges conventional tech leadership practices by proposing six counterintuitive principles. Aviv argues against common practices like nano teams, hackathons, and dedicated engineering time for tech debt, while advocating for healthy turnover, cross-functional exposure for engineers, and breaking over-specialization. The main message is that popular management approaches often lead to mediocrity, and leaders should focus on building resilient, innovative teams even if it means making unpopular decisions.

Curious about AI coding tools? Jellyfish analyzed data from 14,000+ engineers using GitHub Copilot. The results are mixed: 12.6% faster work, but more bugs created. On the bright side, bug backlogs dropped 27.4%. Get the full scoop when you download "The State of AI Coding Assistants" ebook - covering adoption trends, productivity gains, and future predictions for engineering.

Bureaulogy
12 minutes by Grant Slatton

This article introduces bureaulogy—the study of bureaucracies—and examines the factors that lead to their formation, evolution, and inevitable decline within organizations. Grant explores several key reasons why bureaucracies emerge, the psychological impacts of loss aversion, and the social dynamics of blame-assignment hesitance and inclusivity impulses. Drawing on examples from companies like Tesla and SpaceX, Grant illustrates how strong leadership can prevent bureaucratic stagnation.

In this article James describes a comprehensive information management system he uses at Shopify, centered around a "gather-decide-execute" loop. He uses Logseq, a second-brain software, to maintain daily notes, tasks, and permanent references, combining it with strategic tagging and LLM assistance. The system emphasizes active note-taking, critical thinking, and separating discrete tasks from ongoing monitoring items, adapting to a remote work environment while maintaining fundamental principles of effective information management.

Is engineering strategy useful?
16 minutes by Will Larson

There’s always a strategy. In this article Will argues that every engineering organization has a strategy, whether documented or not. Written engineering strategies drive organizational learning, ensure consistency across teams, and prevent misinterpretation of decisions. He emphasizes that documenting strategy serves both organizational needs and personal development.

This article discusses the importance of accountability in scaling organizations and common ways managers undermine it. The key issues include failing to follow up on tasks, frequent strategy changes, setting incorrect incentives, and creating organizational structures with overlapping responsibilities or too many management layers. To maintain strong accountability, SaaSy recommends regular project check-ins, stable strategic planning, well-designed incentives, clear organizational structures, and a consistent reward system that encourages high performance while addressing underperformance.

Efficiency is key for tech leaders, but alert management shouldn't divert your team's attention from P0 coding duties. Deploy MoEngage Inform to handle critical alerts at scale and slash dev dependency by 95%. Trusted by industry giants like JPMC, Panasonic, Citibank, and Chuck E Cheese to send millions of critical alerts a day, this single-API solution cuts costs and facilitates faster go-live time.

industry

security

And a highlight from the last issue:

how did you like this issue?

Login or Subscribe to participate in polls.

newsletters

Would you like to become a sponsor and advertise in one of the issues? Check out our media kit and get in touch.