Brian Holt

🏎️💨 Making of a Ridiculously Fast™ API client in R. Why my package is **~17x faster** than the community alternatives that call the **exact same API endpoints**. 👇🏽**design choices matter** ✨ https://lnkd.in/ggi_2XyQ

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Dear leaders, are you feeling a little called out? 🫢 Actually, you're not alone - the Product Ops death spiral is one of the top reasons companies decide to work with me. I've said this before, but Product Operations work isn't rocket science. You don't need an advanced degree or multiple decades of experience to do it well. What you do need is time and focus - and these are two things that most Product and Tech leaders lack in their day to day. Most of my clients know what's wrong - or at the very least have a decent hypothesis of where to start looking. And if they were freed of their responsibilities for a quarter or so they'd probably do a really good job of addressing their organisation's deficiencies. But very few people have the luxury of hitting the brakes that resolutely. And with the rise of combination roles, leaders are faced with having to do MORE across the board: More responsibility over bigger parts of the business, more reports, and more things to answer for. Where does that leave Product Ops work? By the wayside, usually, or in the hands of PMs who are struggling with their workload, too. I know this death spiral because I was in it. I know what the intense frustration feels like when you know exactly what needs to get done, but you simply can't justify making it a priority. It sucks! If you're a leader who feels like they're continuously stuck between a rock and a hard place, I feel you. I know what it's like to not live up to your own expectations - and I don't wish it on anybody. ➡️ If you can't make the spiral your priority, let me make it MY priority. And I promise I will get you and your team out of it - and back to performing the way you're supposed to.

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A lead engineer once asked me, “What makes you want to come into work each day? I can’t imagine why anyone would want to be a manager. It seems like a thankless role.” I answered it with a question: “You lead a backend team that’s four systems away from the customer. At best, the customer isn’t going to notice a thing. At worst, their experience sucks. It seems thankless too, yet you tap-dance into work. Why?” That got the conversation going. He replied “For me it’s the prospect of working with some of the smartest people around. And making our systems that little bit better each day for our customers. It doesn’t matter if the customers don’t know it, but we know the impact we make.” I said “Exactly. Most of the time, its who you collaborate with, that brings the intangible motivation toward your work goals. The overt optics don’t really matter. What matters is: are your rudders aligned toward a mission that excites you, and are your colleagues and leaders the people you want by your side on that journey.” I continued, “It is the reason I obsess over two core things - the people we hire (driving culture), and the roadmap we craft (driving mission). It is the reason I waltz into work each day.” What does it look like in practice? On the people front, staff your best, diverse, and experienced people in your interview loops. They’re your partners to hire the right talent. Be transparent about the kind of talent you’re looking for in the team. Invest time in ongoing coaching, as well as building coaches in your team. Even the best hires need good guides for ongoing success and to force multiply that success. On the mission front, foster relationships with teams you work with, and your customers (or customer facing teams). Keep a pulse on what matters for the customer and the business. Empower your team members to do that as well. Discuss these insights with your team on an ongoing basis. And when it comes to building your roadmap, leverage your team and your network to balance ideas for the business as well as your team. I go into more detail on the mission-front in this post https://lnkd.in/geSPQUyB There are many more factors that come into play while managing high performance teams. But get the people and the mission aspects right, and your team’s rudders will be set on a course toward long-term success.

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The best teams I've worked with have removed all friction to deploy and release software. Let me know if this sounds familiar: - Your team does not release on a Friday - Your team needs someone's approval to deploy - You can't show this new feature to a customer because it's on DEV - You can't play around with this new feature if you don't know how to run it yourself on your machine I've recently helped a fractional CTO friend do an audit on a startup. Their deployment process required approval and manually transferring files via FTP and restart the server. This is nothing to be ashamed of, but it can severely impact your ability to move fast! Obviously, they didn't release very often. Making it easy to deploy is not simple and the gains are perhaps unintuitive. The ideal goal would be to deploy automatically every time code changes. This also means deploying work in progress on feature branches. As you get there, results start showing up: 1. Code quality goes up 2. New work gets to users daily 3. Feedback is consequently faster 4. Deploying stops being someone's burden 5. Issues can be quickly fixed by deploying again, faster 6. Ability to experiment, validate with real users and discard prototypes 7. New changes can be demoed or tested before they land on the main branch Is there a reason why you're not doing it yet?

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When you swing small the two outcomes are win or lose. Very rarely will you learn something. When you swing big the two outcomes are win or learn. Very rarely will you lose. By taking big swings we have been able to grow our web AOV 30%+ with no impact to CVR.

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