You’re reading The Steady Beat, a weekly round-up of hand-picked articles and resources for people who make software products: designers, engineers, product managers, and organizational leaders.
By the Numbers - Disengagement
- 31% - A concerning report reveals that in 2024, employee engagement in the U.S. dropped to just 31%, marking its lowest point in a decade.
- 1.6 million - For perspective, each percentage point gain or drop in engagement represents approximately 1.6 million full- or part-time employees in the U.S.
- 8 million - Since 2020, the decline in engagement reflects about 8 million fewer engaged employees, pointing to a significant issue that businesses need to address.
- 3.2 million - Alarmingly, compared to 2023, there are 3.2 million fewer engaged employees in the U.S. This marks a rapid decline in just one year.
- 10 years - This current engagement slump has brought the U.S. to its lowest point in a decade, signaling a critical vulnerability for businesses and a need for a significant shift in employee engagement strategies.
— Gallup at Work Newsletter, 5m, #employee-engagement, #organizational-leadership, #business-vulnerability
Agile in Decline?
The Agile methodology, once a buzzword in the software development world, is now on the decline. This is no longer a controversial observation, but an accepted reality according to Cliff Berg, as even the Agile Alliance has been acquired by the Project Management Institute. Several factors have led to this decline, including the fact that much of what we consider to be ‘Agile’ is flawed. However, Agile isn’t dead just yet. It maintains momentum, with Scrum or SAFe roles being used in the majority of IT organizations and even in a large percent of engineering organizations. To prevent the Agile ship from sinking completely, we must reassess and reorient ourselves. Agile 2, a team-based initiative, was created to draw attention to the issues with the original Agile framework, but it’s not the only solution. The future of Agile relies on understanding foundational aspects like leadership, group behavior, cognition, and operations research.
— Agility Through Leadership, 8m, #agile, #project-management, #software-development
The Must-Read CS Papers
Dr. Milan Milanović urges software developers to take the time to dive into original computer science research papers. While daunting (at first), these documents are the bedrock upon which our digital world is built. They offer knowledge on everything from the algorithms that power most apps to the databases storing our information. Reading these papers can revolutionize your software development approach, enhancing your understanding of CS and software engineering concepts, and fostering critical thinking. The article gives a detailed list of essential papers, covering System Design and Programming Fundamentals, Distributed Systems, Data Storage and Processing, System Design and Metrics, Modern Infrastructure, and Computer Architecture and Systems Performance.
— Tech World With Milan, 18m, #computer-science, #software-engineering, #research-papers
Agents, Pulitzers, and AI Utopias
Simon Willison dives headfirst into the prediction game, speculating on AI’s trajectory over the next 1, 3, and 6 years. In the near term, so-called “agents” (AI assistants acting autonomously) will continue to disappoint—except for coding and research helpers (that’s us!), which are already proving their worth. Within three years, privacy laws might finally have some bite, and investigative reporting aided by AI could snag a Pulitzer. Looking six years ahead, the fork splits: utopia sees generative AI revolutionizing art and cinema, while the dystopian path imagines AGI wreaking economic havoc and sparking unrest. Willison’s biggest takeaway? Predicting AI’s future is an absurd but irresistible challenge.
— Simon Willison’s Weblog, 7m, #al, #llms, #agents, #predictions
Big Models, Bigger Picture
In this Stanford webinar, Professor Christopher Potts breaks down the buzz around Large Language Models (LLMs) last year and their impressive feats, like answering questions and spitting out code like a pro. But here’s the kicker: Potts argues that LLMs are just the star players in a much bigger game. The real magic happens when these models team up with other systems in compound setups, delivering results no solo act could dream of. It’s a call to think beyond the model and focus on building smarter, safer, and more impactful AI systems in 2025.
— Stanford Online, 60m, #ai, #large-language-models, #compound-systems
Steady’s Latest Upgrades
Steady’s first product update of 2025 brings significant improvements to notification and absence management features. The new update provides rich notifications, showing full content of check-ins, live goal updates, and Echoes just as they appear in Steady’s Daily Digest. This allows users to catch up directly in Slack, Teams, or their inbox. Also, the update introduces individual check-in notifications in Slack, Teams, and email, besides the usual check-in summary notifications. Moreover, Steady has now enabled automatic syncing of absences from Google Calendar, eliminating the need for manual absence entries in Steady. An Outlook integration is also in the pipeline.
— Steady Blog, 5m, #product-update, #continuous-coordination, #software-development, #team-management
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