For today’s episode, Mike is joined by Sphira Tucker of Buildkite to discuss building momentum and velocity by removing friction from your business. Something that, as you will see, is not just about putting in place good processes and following them.
Find out why slowing down to fix friction might be the fastest move you make – and exactly how to do it.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Better tools are essential for tech growth.
Deploying the right tools and the right people at the right time unblocks bottlenecks.
The more points of friction you have, the slower you go. Everyone needs to be rowing in the same direction.
Be crystal clear about the higher objective, how it will be measured (a mega metric) and how each team contributes to it and how that progress will be monitored.
Question your constraints, e.g. Why does it take so long to ship? and address what is holding you back.
Don´t normalise pain points, tackle them.
Invest in a small team to actively deal with bottlenecks. Things can be paralysed, skipped or reworked to remove them. Buildkite enables you to manage all of this.
Invest in simplicity.
If you don´t have momentum people will get disheartened, stop caring and your company will fail.
BEST MOMENTS
00.10 "Most tech leaders think productivity means doing more, coding more, hiring more or stacking more tools. They tend to overlook the real blocker - the friction buried in day-to-day workflows."
4.36 “At some point growth plateaus – then, figure out what the next level in the game is, because what worked before probably doesn't work now.”
12.53 “If the handoff takes too long - too much ping pong going on between two sides, that is a sign there´s not enough shared context.”
16.57 “Niche down to the highest leverage bottleneck you can unblock to then accelerate your broader goal.”
36.02 “Battle that pipeline complexity.”
45.06 “ We give you tooling to pull out just the right needle from the haystack for your developer.”
48.19 "The scarcest resource we have is people caring … people giving a s**t, that´s the seed from which all the good things come."
1.03.13 "If you've got downtime, invest it in tooling that helps you do more with what you already have."
1.10.48 “If you can reduce the time to actionable insight at every level of your organisation in sort of a fractal way, you will move faster.”
If you enjoyed the show, please do me a favour - Hit that subscribe button and send me your growth challenges at https://masteringtechgrowth.com . I really want to know what you're working on and what keeps you up at night.
ABOUT THE GUEST
https://buildkite.com/home
Trial: https://buildkite.com/platform/get-started
https://www.linkedin.com/company/buildkite
Webinars: https://buildkite.com/resources/webinars
ABOUT THE HOST
Meet Mike, a seasoned tech entrepreneur and visionary with over two and a half decades of invaluable experience in founding and scaling successful tech start-ups. Mike brings a wealth of firsthand knowledge, and a deep understanding of the challenges faced by entrepreneurs and tech professionals.
As a host, Mike is dedicated to sharing actionable insights, strategies, and stories gathered from conversations with industry leaders, innovators, and experts. With a remarkable ability to distil practical wisdom from guests, Mike curates engaging discussions that resonate with both aspiring entrepreneurs and seasoned professionals.
This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/
