Leadership in Tech
Leadership in Tech
#348 – September 20, 2026
true impact on software delivery speed is harder than it looks
Measuring AI's impact on delivery speed
9 minutes by James Shore
Measuring AI's true impact on software delivery speed is harder than it looks. Simple metrics like pull requests or story points are unreliable, so comparing teams to themselves using randomized controlled trials gives cleaner results. Key pitfalls include inconsistent estimates, process changes happening alongside AI adoption, and teams adjusting estimates once they know they'll use AI. Getting this right matters because spending on AI tools varies enormously, and guessing wrong is costly.
[Webinar] How to stop babysitting your agents
sponsored by Unblocked
Agents can generate code. Getting it right for your system is the hard part – you end up wasting time and tokens in the back and forth. More MCPs solve access but not understanding. Join us for a FREE webinar on Sep 23 to see how to give agents exactly what they need the first time (includes a live demo).
How do I give feedback to someone I don’t manage?
13 minutes by Andi Roberts
Giving feedback to a colleague you don't manage works best when you focus on shared work rather than their performance. Describe what you have observed and how it affects outcomes you both contribute to, rather than positioning yourself as an unofficial evaluator. Make sure you have a genuine reason to raise it, and stay open to hearing how your own behaviour may be part of the problem.
Nobody's giving you a quarter to feel clean
5 minutes by Aviv Ben-Yosef
Teams doing important work never have time to make everything perfect, and that's a good sign. Instead of asking for weeks to fix tech debt, Aviv suggests breaking the work into small pieces, cleaning things up as you go, and using AI tools to handle large boring migrations. Frame improvements around business needs by showing how refactoring saves time or money on upcoming features.
Executive loop
6 minutes by Jade Rubick
Being an executive comes down to three things: figuring out what needs to happen, planning how to get there, and making it happen. Jade argues that the hard part is developing the judgment to define the right destination, which requires deep curiosity, honest research, and creative thinking about what the future should look like. Once the goal is clear, the path forward becomes easier to navigate.
The Semmelweis reflex
8 minutes by Mike Fisher
In 1847, Ignaz Semmelweis discovered that doctors were spreading deadly infections by moving from autopsies to deliveries without washing their hands. Simple handwashing cut maternal deaths dramatically, yet colleagues rejected his findings for years, partly because accepting them meant admitting they had killed patients themselves. Mike argues this same reflex appears in boardrooms today, when data implicating a leader's decision suddenly faces questions about methodology. Building habits like pre-committing to what would change your mind, and protecting people who deliver bad news, helps catch this bias before it causes harm.
How should QA teams adapt as AI changes software delivery?
sponsored by BrowserStack
AI is changing how teams build and ship software, but the harder question is what happens to quality, ownership, and the role of QA. At BrowserStack’s QA Leadership Summit on September 23, engineering and QA leaders will unpack AI adoption, ROI, test automation, career shifts, and what it takes to move from experimentation to practical execution. Explore the New QA Playbook!
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