Hi I'm Alex.

This was not a high point in my career. It's a story of single metric bias, how I let one measure become a 'source of truth', failed to manage up and ended up yelling at one of the most respected engineers in my team.

Have you ever been asked "Do you feel recognised at work?" perhaps as part of an engagement survey perhaps from HR? It's a good question.

We've known for at least 70 years [1] that there is a connection between being recognised at work and feeling motivated. I've occasionally been asked to look into 'encouraging' engineering teams to share more public recognition because when measured, they do it less than any other area of the business. Public recognition is good, so should we be worried its not happening publicly?

Recruiting and retaining good staff is amongst the top challenges for every business.

There is a world where it's not always expensive, doesn't take an age, reduces lead times and actively contributes to the in-situ teams growth.

In-house recruitment teams have been saying it for years, but having built this kind of function alongside HR a few times now I thought I'd share some of the approaches that have gained results!

I recently chatted to a few graduates who had a few questions about what support and guidance they should expect from their new roles. Unfortunately, we can't hire them all but I wanted to share 3 things I think they (and all of us) should expect from their new managers.

Here are 3 things EVERY manager should be doing with their team. Its an easy one to check, If your manager isn't doing these send them this link and start a discussion! (especially if its me!)

It's not fair.😫 You've been thrown on the emotional rollercoaster of redundancy, you didn't ask for it, you're awesome at your job and you don't deserve this. I can't change that but having been there several times I have a few tips that might help.

Here's 10 events that I've run that will work for teams that are mostly remote and want to get together occasionally. Nothing too run of the mill!

Tackling a hybrid world is hard for managers struggling to find the right balance. Sharing some of the ideas we've implemented and the disasters we've avoided!

For those of us that grew up in the heydays of the Sinclair era, Sir Clive Sinclair's death in 2021 brought back fond memories of a small black device that was the ZX Spectrum. For many people who have forged a career in technology this little device was the first time they got a chance to code. 👾