Seven skills that CEOs should learn from software engineers

Seven skills that CEOs should learn from software engineers

What are the skills of software engineers worth learning? Obviously, software engineers are logical, efficient, detail-oriented, and planned, and the same is true for most CEOs. However, software engineers still have some more subtle or even annoying qualities. Can CEOs learn from them?

1. laziness

Good engineers, not just software engineers, are lazy: They like automated and repetitive work and are unwilling to do any unnecessary work. Meetings and paperwork generally fall under this category. By avoiding unnecessary work, software engineers can be more efficient and have more time to do more useful work.

CEOS should also strive to be highly efficient and lazy. Delete unnecessary activities and put energy and time in the task of increasing value. In most cases, repeating the same thing is meaningless. If you have to do it repeatedly, use an automated method. If you cannot perform the task automatically, delegate the task!

2. Frequent failures

Software engineers share the same qualities as the inventor and the scientist-all suffering from the storms of failure. Normally, this is intentional, but sometimes it is experimental. This is not reckless, but fearless. Unknown is a risk that needs to be explored, and you cannot reject it. Focusing on labs and prototypes allows you to learn quickly.

The impact of the CEO's adaptation to this practice will be huge: opening up new markets, trying different methods, and even researching trends and expectations. The key is to fail quickly without wasting costs, and keep in mind the purpose. If you think it sounds a bit like Lean Production, that's right .)

If you do not often fail, it means you have not tried anything new.

3. manufacturing problems

Software engineers will actively look for problems and sometimes even deliberately create problems. The problem is a disguised opportunity, but failure to find the problem does not mean no problem. Software engineers would rather destroy the results to see what would happen. They write tests to ensure that all Edge Conditions are effective. They implement the monitoring system, so that problems will be warned. All in all, they will listen to people's complaints-because they may be pleasantly surprised, which is the same as finding a problem on their own.

CEOs of start-ups should learn how to do this systematically and explore opportunities until they find the right problems to solve and use the right solutions for the right market, at the right time. It helps enterprises to gain a firm foothold. The CEOs of well-known companies are doing well in this regard. They take manufacturing problems as a form of continuous improvement.

4. Hands-on

Software engineers often do not like to talk on paper. They not only fought on the front line of coding, but also cooperated with users and customers to learn about various requirements and complaints. The answer is that you will not come out in the office: they are in the factory workshop and in the customer's office. Learn about the concept of user experience in the software world and how it applies to your supply chain and your employees. A new angle may mean a big surprise.

5. Ignore Human Factors

When software engineers work, they tend to ignore human factors, especially when they are trying to implement improvements. They believe that most problems originate from the constraints of a system, which can be time, money, motivation, motivation, standard, or process. Individuals often cannot solve the system. Culture, peer pressure, and prejudice against the status quo are powerful obstacles to be overcome. For unresolved issues, changing the system is a treasure that hangs over the head of software engineers. These are irrelevant to human factors.

CEOs are often used to dealing with political systems and people, so they may tend to delegate risks and accusations to some people. Sometimes this is also a good method, but if you review the systems run by people in the past, you may find that the system is the root cause of the problem.

Remember that no system is perfect, and no system is sacred.

6. Killing your darling

Engineers are not afraid to test their own ideas. if the proof is unrealistic, they will not hesitate to discard them. They often "kill their pet" by abandoning valuable ideas and amateur projects, no matter how fascinating this darling is, if they cannot work. CEOS can review their ideas in a realistic manner, or "kill their pet" by objectively evaluating others' performance ". Obviously, murder is against the law, and it is not really a person here .)

7. daze

Software engineers are often in a daze, but they call it system thinking: a kind of capability that makes people think of a series of complex systems that are associated with each other as a whole. System thinking can be said to be the most important and sometimes annoying catalyst to produce coherence and simplicity from complexity. Software engineers are good at system thinking. Solving Problems usually requires them to balance multiple constraints including time, capital, and quality. Although this kind of habit is annoying when deciding where to go for lunch, it is very valuable when dealing with significant problems and looking for opportunities.

CEOS must always deal with multiple associated systems and conflict constraints. It is not enough to check each part in isolation-you must also consider all potential relationships and strengths. System Thinking also involves high-level and subtle thinking from multiple perspectives. Therefore, a complete model can serve as a framework for identifying, organizing, and solving subproblems. Generally, several simple ideas and rules are enough to make a mess of failures turn into an integral crystallization.

Software engineers are not paid for writing code: they are thinking. System Thinking does not happen when you write code, but sometimes the two may do the same at the same time ). Therefore, if you see a software engineer in a daze and often in a daze, it is what the real work should look like. Simple and elegant solutions come not from the sky, but through unremitting thinking and pursuit.

Creativity

Give yourself a quiet time and use all your imagination and creativity to take on the issues you need to solve as a CEO. Analyze the complexity of the problem and constraints. I guess they work hard on each other. Think from multiple perspectives. Find patterns and analogy that help explain or simplify what is happening or what you want to happen. And when you find a possible answer, run a fast and cheap experiment to test. Repeat. Cyclical. Your work is the same as that of a software engineer.

Http://www.codeceo.com/article/7-skills-ceo-learn-from-programmer.html.
7. skills software engineers can teach CEOs