You’re reading The Steady Beat, a weekly round-up of hand-picked articles for people who coordinate teams and work, like engineering managers, design directors, product managers, project leaders, team facilitators, and department heads. Brought to you by the team at Steady.
Goals and rhythm
Forget your 17-page strategic plans and color-coded dashboards that nobody reads. Atlassian has cracked the code on what most organizations bungle spectacularly: goal-setting that actually drives results. According to Molly Sands, Atlassian’s Head of Teamwork Lab, their magic formula combines ruthless prioritization (just 3-5 goals per team, per quarter) with company-wide transparency where anyone can see and subscribe to any team’s goals and progress. Their system normalizes honest reporting of challenges instead of hiding problems until deadline day. The result? A culture where teams spend just 15-20 minutes monthly updating goals, yet maintain crystal-clear accountability across their global organization. As Sands puts it, “Setting goals is actually the easiest part. The hard part is tracking progress, making it visible, and creating a rhythm where discussions about goals happen naturally.”
— Work Forward, 11m, #teamwork, #goal-setting, #accountability
Autonomy amplification
In the midst of dissecting AI’s long-term impact on product development, Marty Cagan cuts through the confusion between two critical but distinct concepts: empowerment (the freedom to discover solutions) versus autonomy (the ability to build without dependencies). While teams today might be empowered to solve problems, they’re frequently hamstrung by dependencies on other teams, legacy systems, and specialized knowledge—turning what should be quick wins into weeks-long frustration fests. But here’s where AI enters as the potential game-changer: beyond just generating code, these tools promise to democratize the ability to understand, navigate, and modify vast code bases regardless of their age or complexity. Imagine engineers confidently fixing weekend emergencies in unfamiliar systems or teams finally tackling technical debt without months of reverse engineering. This unheralded dimension of AI doesn’t just speed up work—it fundamentally reshapes team autonomy, potentially eliminating the dependencies that have bottlenecked product teams for decades.
— SVPG, 5m, #ai, #team-autonomy, #product-teams
Remote trust
A Spotify engineer spills on life in hybrid work, where he’s often the lone wolf in the office. He finds working in person crucial for focus, grabbing free coffee, separating work and home life (hello, gaming desk!), and connecting with colleagues he wouldn’t otherwise talk to. But the real challenge in the distributed world? Building trust and team cohesion. Without those casual chats by the coffee machine, it takes longer to feel comfortable enough to be vulnerable with coworkers. He recounts a time when his team felt like disjointed robots just moving tickets, leading to context switching fatigue and a lack of belonging. Their fixes include dedicating time for non-work icebreaker questions, embracing the Swedish tradition of Fika (coffee/social breaks, sometimes with games), and adopting collective work practices like mob programming which helped boost productivity and knowledge sharing while building camaraderie. They even use a structured diagramming method called Architecture Golf to collaborate on designs or understand systems. Ultimately, building trust and empathy in remote/hybrid settings requires intentional effort from everyone.
— Tuple, 40m, #hybrid-work, #team-cohesion, #engineering-practices
Uncool boss
In the high-stakes game of management, being the “cool boss” might be the most uncool move you can make. Kim Scott explains that when managers prioritize likability over accountability, they fall into what she calls “Ruinous Empathy”—where nobody wins. The real power move? Being genuinely kind while holding people to high standards. Scott argues that accountability isn’t mean; it’s actually one of the kindest things you can do as a leader. When you don’t challenge poor performance, you create a triple failure: the underperformer doesn’t grow, high performers get demoralized, and you undermine your team’s results. Rather than seeking respect through control or coolness, great bosses create environments where everyone can do their best work.
— Radical Respect, 7m, #leadership, #management, #team-culture
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