One on ones can be both the most frightening and the highest value meeting for a team member and manager. Done well, they can be the best way to dive into specific issues, provide guidance, help with personal and career growth, and give feedback, all in a short time. Used poorly, they just become status update meetings with no lessons learned or action items to take as next steps. Though it can be terrifying, especially for introverted by nature engineers turned manager, being open, honest, and candid is the only way to get the best value from these meetings.

You might not think that April would be considered winter, but in parts of Yosemite, it can continue snowing through May. Many of the trails and roads throughout the park, especially those above 6,000 feet or so, don’t open back up until the summer, so it’s important to have a good plan. Don’t be discouraged though, there’s still plenty to see and do in the park in the spring including pretty much all of the most famous sights.

Since I graduated from college in 2007, actually even before that during my internships, I had only ever worked in an open office with varying styles of cubes. But in moving to Amazon NYC, I switched to an office with actual rooms. My team isn’t jammed into a row of trading style benches. It’s spread out across three team rooms with actual walls, windows, and doors. And having this has completely changed how I work.

It’s tapering time for the next three weeks before the London Marathon and that means it’s time to reflect on training and get ready for the race. The London Marathon will be my sixth marathon, 4/6 of the world major marathons, and my third international one. Though I’m still not completely sure they’ll actually let me in the country as there is still no deal for Brexit, I’m very excited for the race and to spend some time in one of my favorite cities.

Weekend days with twins in the midst of terrible twos is never easy. Staying at home for two whole days tends to be a recipe for stress, anxiety, and tears; sometimes even from the children. Getting out of the house is a good way to stay entertained and limit tantrums and fights over weekends that should be time for families. Finding the right way to spend a weekend with the kids can make or break a weekend for parents, so when we discovered how perfect New York’s Museum of Natural History was for our kids, we were thrilled.

I’m a huge proponent of Continuous Integration and Deployments. I believe that the fast feedback cycle these processes enable is hugely beneficial to a software development team, and allows teams to get beneficial features out to customers faster. However, it is far from a silver bullet, and there are many steps teams need to take before they can be successful in leveraging Continuous Deployments. This is the story of how I learned this lesson the hard way and had to give up on CD.

Can you really travel the world all without hoping on a plane? Well if that world is the world of coffee, it’s certainly possible to circumnavigate the globe all within a few blocks in New York City. From Italy to Australia and everywhere between, some of the world’s best coffee styles and shops are all easy to find between Port Authority and Penn Station. There’s no substitute to actually going around the world to experience different cultures and cuisines, but if time is short, sampling some top quality specialty coffee from around the world can be a good substitute.

My first time in Berlin, I left thinking, “it’s alright, but it’s not Germany.” My second time, knowing a bit more of what to expect, I liked it more, but still didn’t love it, maybe because I visited in the depth of winter and during a cold streak. The third time though, during the marathon in the fall, I absolutely loved it. It may be different than the more traditional towns and villages around the country, but when it isn’t snowing, Berlin has some great biergardens too.

Should a new team focus on moving as fast as possible to get features out to their customers or start with the best practices and processes they know they’ll eventually need? Is it better to move fast and learn from users through a short feedback loop? If so, is a team doomed to suffer poor architectural decisions and accumulate massive tech debt until eventually someone decides to stop features and blow up the system?

Last year I made a resolution to read more non-fiction and seek out books to expand my knowledge for business and leadership. Ready with my library card, Kindle, and of course Audible account, I read an astonishing 80 books in 2018. Many of them focused on business and leadership. I wanted to share some of my favorites from the year here. Some of the best books I read and the ones that stuck with me focused on leading effective teams and inspiring teams to perform their best.