Being an Effective CTO

Resources

The primary sources this course is built from, and where to go next.

6 sources
Will Larson, The Engineering Executive's Primer (O'Reilly, 2024)

The primary source. Getting the job, the first 90 days, engineering strategy, planning, measurement, org values, hiring, leaving. Most chapters have a free companion essay on lethain.com under the executive tag.

Camille Fournier, The Manager's Path (O'Reilly, 2017)

Ch. 8 'The Big Leagues' for the five senior technical roles and the CTO/VP Eng split. Ch. 9 'Bootstrapping Culture' for career ladders.

Richard Rumelt, Good Strategy / Bad Strategy (2011)

The kernel: diagnosis, guiding policy, coherent action. What Larson's strategy chapter is built on.

Nicole Forsgren, Jez Humble & Gene Kim, Accelerate (2018)

The four delivery metrics and the capabilities that move them. dora.dev carries the current, longer capability list.

Matthew Skelton & Manuel Pais, Team Topologies (2019)

Conway's law, four team types, three interaction modes, cognitive load as the limit on what a team can own.

Andrew Grove, High Output Management (1983)

Managerial output and leverage, task-relevant maturity, meetings as the medium of managerial work.