This post from Jack Lindamood has a format I loved. The decisions and his reflections are interesting, but I think less interesting than the format itself. What I love:
- You keep track of all the big decisions you’ve made during your tenure in a particular company / role
- You engage in self reflection on if they were good or bad choices, after you’ve had time and benefit from hindsight
- You share knowledge with the community (I was exposed to tech I’ve never heard of, and had new takes on tech I use every week)
- If we had one of these for Culture Amp, it would go a long way to clarifying not just why we use a certain tech, but if we still like it, separate from the decision of if we’re still using it.
At Culture Amp we do use a tech radar that mimic’s the format from Thoughtworks. But the “radar” UI doesn’t lend itself to reading as a whole.
I also like that he’s captured the decisions he’s been accountable for as an engineering leader. That’s fascinating when thinking about recruiting – how do you convince a new company that you’re going to be a leader with good judgement? And how does the new company evaluate if the way you make decisions – and learn from mistakes – is the right fit for them?