Title of the Newsletter
Impact is often uneven. Two projects can require the same time and skill, yet one significantly impacts a company metric, while the other has a minimal effect.
The difference is rarely luck. It is fit. Fit between the problem and a real pain. Fit between the timing and what the business needs right now. Fit between the change and a beneficiary who can feel it and talk about it.
When a project has that fit, the impact is easier to see. The before and after are measurable. Someone has specific benefits and can say so. Leaders can connect the result to priorities they already care about.
That is the goal. Treat each technical win like a small product. Know who it helps. Capture the starting point. Ship a change that moves a simple number. Tell the story in plain language so people can feel the improvement.
Pick and Size the Win
Start where impact is most noticeable and matters to someone specific.
Three places tend to pay off:
Reliability. Look for the alerts people ignore, the recurring incidents that interrupt the team, or the slow rollbacks that turn small mistakes into long nights. A single fix that prevents a page from firing at 2 a.m. buys genuine goodwill.
Developer experience. Find the friction that wastes time every day. CI that drags. Local setup that breaks on a small change. A flaky test that blocks merges. Shaving minutes off a path that engineers use all day is a quiet way to give the team back time and focus.
User papercuts. Hunt for forms that reject valid inputs, labels that confuse, or micro-delays in a typical flow. Removing a minor annoyance that many users hit will show up in support, error logs, or completion rates.
If you want help framing reliability and DevX work so it gets prioritized, read Tech Debt Prioritization.
Keep the scope small enough that you can ship, observe, and adjust without asking the whole organization to pause. You're seeking something meaningful that fits within a tight feedback window.
Choose one metric to move and one beneficiary to name. Examples: "Cut CI median from 12 minutes to under 7 for the mobile repo" or "Reduce checkout p95 from 1.8s to 1.2s for new users." A clear target makes the work concrete. A named beneficiary makes the story travel.
Make it Measurable
Decide how you will prove it worked. Do this before you change anything.
Write down four things:
- Baseline. The current value, a date, and how you measured it.
- Target. The simple goal you are aiming for.
- Owner. Who is driving the change?
- Timeframe. When you check the result, you can decide on the next steps.
Pick a measure that maps to the outcome, not just activity. Error rate on a hot endpoint. CI time on the main repo. p95 load on a key page. Support tickets for a specific issue. Time to merge on a familiar path. Task success rate in a user flow.
Instrument lightly. Add one counter, one timer, or one log line if you need it. You do not need a dashboard project to get started. A saved query, a single chart, or a short spreadsheet is enough if it anchors the conversation.
Position the baseline where it's visible to people. Post a short note in your team channel. Add a line in the sprint document. Pin a comment in the repo. Visibility invites feedback and keeps you honest.
Anchor at least one measure to a user or flow. System metrics matter, but showing how a change helped a real customer journey is what builds persuasion. If you want a quick primer on packaging metrics so they land with stakeholders, see How to Lead with Data.
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Where can AI save you time?
My friends at Big Creek Growth put together a quick survey to spot the repetitive work you can hand off to automation.
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Ship with Tight Feedback Windows
Your goal is to learn fast.
Begin with the smallest change that should move the needle. Release it behind a flag or to a small slice. Monitor the metric for hours to a day, rather than weeks. If you see the right movement, expand. If you do not, adjust and try the next smallest step.
Use simple safety nets. Feature flags let you turn changes on and off without surprises. Small rollouts limit risk while you learn. A clear rollback path keeps confidence high.
Share the signal while you work. A brief update is enough: the baseline, the change, and the current number. For example: "CI median 12m. Added dependency cache. Now 8m on 30 runs. Expanding to all PRs." That single line tells people what changed, what it did, and what you'll do next.
Tight loops make impact visible and keep trust high. They also protect focus. You avoid parking the team on a long bet that may not pay off, and you build a pattern of steady improvement that others can see and plan around.
Tell the Story
Make the improvement easy to feel. Explain what hurt, what changed, the before and after, who benefits, and what you will try next. Keep the language plain. Show one chart or one screenshot if it helps. Add a short caption that names the beneficiary.
Examples help:
- "Password-reset tickets down 42%. CX team saves about two hours each day."
- "Checkout p95 dropped to 1.2s on 20k sessions. New users finish the flow more often."
Share where it will travel. Post in your squad channel. Add a short note to the sprint recap. Show a quick demo in the next product review. If design or support was the beneficiary, send it to them directly and thank the person who helped validate the result.
Ask for a modest follow-up while the result is fresh. "We cut CI to eight minutes. Approve a half day to get under seven across all PRs." Or, "Checkout p95 is 1.2 seconds for new users. Next up is the returns flow. Target 1.5 seconds."
Turn the win into a standard others can reuse. Capture the steps in a short doc or a template. If you want a simple framing for "done" that avoids rework after release, see When Is Your Work Actually Complete?. Bring in a teammate for the next change to help build champions for your cause.
Repeat this loop a few times, and people start to connect your name to outcomes. That is the path to more trust, a seat at the table, and greater opportunities to shape the work.