Almost everyone agrees that you should read good books. Few people do. And even less are able to recall important lessons of the book after some time.
How to remember the content from good books? The usual approach is to summarize a book and extract its key lessons. Blinkist and many other summary websites splendidly do this.
In my opinion, this approach hinders us from learning from a book. Learning from books is mainly enabled by the exercise of written ideas. We can directly transfer the prescribed methods to our reality, like recipes from a cookbook.
This approach is limited when applied to more abstract topics such as management or thinking. Insights about thinking are difficult to understand and even more cumbersome to use.
In my opinion, the book is only a teacher. It can show you the general rules. But to digest the book, you must apply the rules to your own life. And the quickest way to do that is to write about such occasions. Writing is much more condensed than waiting for the next experience when you can apply the rules. By writing, you tell your own stories and create your own simulator.
The topics that interest me are software development, storytelling, self-improvement, and money.
So let’s talk about Thinking, Fast and Slow. I read the book in 2021, and spend most of the year of 2022 to come up with article ideas. I think it is a fantastic book, which anybody ought to have read, as it deepens your understanding of the human mind. Kahneman, who died this year, got the Nobel prize for his work and this book contains much of his knowledge.
Software development
Programming
As a programmer, it is easy to be dragged into your code. You spent hours in front of it, only to resurface and see that you were solving the wrong issue. Why that is so can be learned in: Experienced engineers stay away from the flow zone.
At some point in your career, you have to decide. Do you want to be an expert or remain a generalist? As a decision help, Look at your industry’s state and then decide if you want to become an expert.
Most engineers dislike PowerPoint and the management presentations that go along with it. There is a reason for it. As engineers, we are fond of small details. Later we wonder why our reporting is not well received. What you should do instead can be learned in Why engineers do not understand stories.
Planning
Planning is everybody’s favorite activity in software development. Plannings are always off.
Want to try something new? Try to establish your next planning predictions on well-defined reference points.
Still, uncertainty is inherent to all software development. If too much complexity exists, tasks can not be well planned. Use risk policies and avoid common planning fallacies in software development
At one point in the planning cycle, we always refer to the experts to provide estimates. The issue is not whether you have good experts at hand, but if you should trust your real experts, Trust me; I am an expert.
Once a plan is done, we vote on it. High uniform confidence reveals a lack of trust. The SAFe confidence vote reveals the state of emotional security in your project.
Failures settle the history of software engineers like skeletons on the trail through a desert.
Thorough planning should come before the pitching. It is never done so but would avoid failures. The perfect way that projects will never be planned.
One important aspect of planning is to control the success of the plan. Control with regard to efficiency of operation: are you doing all plan tasks. As well as control of effectivity: are the plan tasks doing the right thing. The last aspect is certainly the most challenging in planning and management. Many business books are successfully selling recipes how to deal with both challenges. Most of the time such recipes are biased by survivorship biased and overconfidence. Taylorism in complex environments deals with the second aspect. Personal confidence does not replace a statistical analysis. Yet we often use KPIs to give our opinions a statistical backing.
Management
Many articles are trying to create a fissure between software developers and management. Some aspects might be accurate, but what also remains true? No software industry without leadership.
I have three articles, one for the managers:
Good managers are immune to survivorship bias. I wrote these articles in the post covid phase in 2022. At this time the back to office debate started.
You should go back to the office, to help your boss understand you
My last article is details why we will not all return to the office. The story of Covid and Plato’s cave allegory
Storytelling
I started my journey to learn about storytelling and how understanding the mind helps us be better storytellers.
First, start your story from the listener’s memory The good storyteller is a travel guide through the listener’s memories.
If you need to give an engineering or science presentation and have bad news, learn Providing fake reliability with statistics.
In addition, do not focus on the 100 % correct picture: Why engineers do not understand stories. This is certainly I, as an engineer struggle the most with.
Last but not least, try to keep a happy face, because “Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain – and most fools do”.
Self Improvement
The topic of rhetoric and storytelling is a reoccurring theme in the big cluster of self-improvement.
I read my fair share of articles.
To keep yourself energized, Avoid spending mental energy, as if would be limitless. If you find yourself in a tricky situation, try to Use mental anchors to determine the start position of high-stakes discussions.
Do you sometimes wonder why we remember certain things and others do not? That is because Regression to the mean reshapes our memories.
And why is your holiday always more memorable than your breakfast. If there are no extremes, bad/good, we can not make lasting memories: Sticking in a shitty job, deprives you of rich experiences.
Money
Money is undoubtedly the hottest topic out there in the blogosphere, web. 2.0, and web 3.0. We all want to be millionaires, but Investors are living from the greatest of all treasures, which is Hope. Inspired by an opening of Terry Pratchetts books.
If you are not raffling millions on the stock market, you might try to get into your own business and learn, There are no losses; just costs for profits.
On the other hand, it is always good to be frugal. And one aspect of being frugal is not buying everything special deal, including insurance.
Not all insurance costs are transparent; if you are too careful, you forgo good opportunities, You are most likely overinsured.
Inflation was the topic of 2022, therefore last but not least, you maybe wonder why, Everybody wants more money and thinks inflation is unfair.