Executive Engineering: Practical Engineering Theory for Software Leaders

You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed. – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, in The Little Prince

In anything at all, perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away, when a body has been stripped down to its nakedness.

In my last few roles I've used three categories of features: Competitive Advantages, Accelerants, and Table-Stakes with something like 30, 5, and 1 points each, respectively. Competitive Advantages are any features that let this company do something other companies can't Accelerants are any features that allow users to get more value from the produ

Engineering communicates cost (in time) because Engineering knows how to lower this cost.

Product — Identifying, de-risking, and preparing product opportunities for the company Design — Designing and scoping implementations that integrate new opportunities with all historical decisions Engineering — Sequencing, staffing, and implementing product designs in a way that continually accelerates future work

Deciding what gets built in which order isn't just choosing what features get launched. It's also choosing which technical migrations to start, pause, and finish. Some projects are cheaper after a new tool is available or after a key engineer is freed up from other work. Optimal sequencing requires deep knowledge of the technical system, business o

Engineering may not have the ability to make the first pass at reasonable sequencing but they need to have the final say.

Engineering must own technical sequencing decisions.