Elon Musk sent an email to the staff at Tesla with his 6 rules for productivity. Unsurprisingly, it leaked. Here they are: …

The how, where, why, and when we communicate. Long form asynchronous? Real-time chat? In-person? Video? Verbal? Written? Via email? In Basecamp? How do we keep everyone in the loop without everyone getting tangled in everyone else’s business? It’s all in here.

In the realm of technology, where the only constant is change, the ability to navigate uncertainty is not just an asset; it's a necessity. As a software engineer turned leader, I've witnessed firsthand the transition from dealing with code's binary certainty to the multifaceted uncertainty of leading teams and projects.

Software development slows down over time. I wrote a whole book to help leaders reverse this slowdown and the central point of the book is a process any engineering leader can apply. I call this process Technical Coherence and you can mostly achieve it in a single meeting with your leaders. You can implement it in your org gradually or all at once. The central idea is this: We identify the necessary user experience domains for our products We identify the shared product domains that underpin multiple user experience domains We organize engineering into three layers, the top two correspond to the above domains and the third provides infrastructure.