The 5-Minute Startup CTO #41
Deployments, Announcing layoffs, Productivity myths
Here are your picks for this week:
⌨️ If it ain’t code, don’t fix it
A very neat write-up on how deployments are managed at Slack. The key ingredients being release branches, mostly-automated tests and tiered rollout. All pretty sensible really!
No mention of whether branches are used during development too. Something not to take for granted - as this interesting read makes an decent case for trunk-based development, as a sign of team health.
👭 It’s all about People
Two very contrasting reports on companies having to go through layoffs.
First, from Carta, who seem to have handled this pretty well. Next, from Bird, as a good example on how NOT to do it.
Letting go of employees is one of the hardest parts of the job of CTO. Lay-offs won’t stop once the current crisis is resolved. It’s all about openness and caring for people. So lots of valuable lessons there.
🔄 Process makes perfect
Finally from the X-team, a short list of productivity myths. Can be used as a quick exercise in criticism - which ones do you agree / disagree with?
Surely there’s useful tools out there (Slack, IDEs, Calendly, automation/CD apps), and genuine multitasking, such as working on several features at once, is a hindrance.
I hope you enjoyed this, have a good week and stay safe!
Fabrice
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Hand-picked by Fabrice, a UK-based consulting CTO. Let me know if you need help with your startup!