Think Like a CTO
- Length: 320 pages
- Edition: 1
- Language: English
- Publisher: Manning
- Publication Date: 2023-04-11
- ISBN-10: 1617298859
- ISBN-13: 9781617298851
- Sales Rank: #626127 (See Top 100 Books)
An effective Chief Technology Officer shapes almost every aspect of a modern business. This book shares the experience and advice of veteran CTOs and industry experts for handling IT crises, leading tech teams, and creating an inspiring vision for your company.
In Think Like a CTO you will learn:
- Effective interaction and relationship-building with other C-level executives
- Creating long term visions and executing on short term goals
- Interviewing, hiring, and terminating team members
- Negotiating salaries and managing promotions
- Architecting future-proofed systems
- Handling security breaches and ransomware attacks
- Putting together budgets and working with your CFO
- Identifying and managing outsourced vendor opportunities
- Managing and communicating bad news by leading with data, not passion
- Being the kind of leader that employees want to follow and emulate
Becoming a CTO is an incredible accomplishment. It’s also one of the hardest transitions a technologist can make. This high-power and high-pressure role demands skills that are rarely developed as a software engineer. Think Like a CTO shines a light on all the areas an aspiring CTO needs to master to succeed. You’ll learn how to build incredible working relationships with the rest of the C-suite, transform a company with private equity, and recruit and manage your development team. With this book as your guide, you’ll quickly become a trusted leader figure with an inspiring vision for your company.
Foreword by Ankit Mathur.
Purchase of the print book includes a free eBook in PDF, Kindle, and ePub formats from Manning Publications.
About the technology
The Chief Technology Officer balances business needs with the constantly evolving world of technology. Think Like a CTO helps you develop the skills and mindset you need to take on this critical role and emerge as a successful leader. Packed with insights from industry experts and veteran CTOs, this book shares practical strategies for navigating the high-stakes world of technology leadership.
About the book
Think Like a CTO shares hard-won lessons on how to thrive in the fast-paced role of Chief Technology Officer. Inside, you’ll learn to establish successful technology platforms and teams, with practical frameworks for software selection and implementation, bias-free interviews and performance reviews, and earning your place at the table with other senior leaders. You’ll appreciate the no-nonsense advice, insights, and war stories from CTO mentor Alan Williamson.
What’s inside
- Building productive relationships with other C-level executives
- Negotiating salaries and managing promotions
- Architecting future-proof systems
- Handling security breaches and ransomware attacks
About the reader
For technology leaders working in or aspiring towards a CTO role.
About the author
Alan Williamson has advised numerous CTOs who were catapulted into the big leagues by private equity investment, acquisition, and rapid growth.
Think Like a CTO contents foreword preface acknowledgments about this book Who should read this book How this book is organized: A roadmap liveBook discussion forum about the author 1 The Chief Technology Officer (CTO) 1.1 What makes a Chief Technology Officer 1.2 Different types of CTOs 1.2.1 Prestartup, in name only 1.2.2 Funded startup: The technology expert with money 1.2.3 Established company: Their first CTO 1.2.4 Established company with CTO 1.3 Determining whether we need a CTO 1.4 Evolution from engineer 1.4.1 The first 100 days 1.5 Top 10 qualities for a CTO Summary Checklist 2 Managing up 2.1 Partnering with your CEO 2.1.1 The office of the CEO 2.1.2 Types of CEOs 2.1.3 Setting the tone 2.1.4 Tips for a successful partnership 2.2 Counting on your CFO 2.2.1 Getting a handle on your expenditures 2.2.2 Reaching out 2.3 Working with peers 2.3.1 Know your company 2.3.2 Speak their language 2.3.3 Find their pain 2.3.4 Think strategically 2.4 Taking over from another CTO 2.4.1 Celebrate, not disparage 2.4.2 Speak to the outgoing CTO 2.4.3 Discover the team 2.5 Presenting to the board 2.5.1 Know your audience 2.5.2 Format of the meeting 2.5.3 Your role 2.5.4 The dos and don’ts 2.6 Communications 2.6.1 Internal 2.6.2 External 2.7 Internal politics 2.7.1 The major types 2.7.2 Mitigating politics 2.8 Change management 2.8.1 Boiling the frog 2.8.2 Excitement committee 2.8.3 Valley of anguish 2.8.4 Consequences Summary Checklist 3 Visionary planning 3.1 The grand vision 3.1.1 The “what”/“why” part 3.1.2 The “how” part 3.1.3 Define success 3.2 Engaging with clients 3.2.1 Know your client 3.2.2 Your counterpart 3.3 Long-term planning 3.3.1 Timing is everything 3.3.2 Keep in mind 3.4 Incorporating seismic shifts 3.4.1 Decision paralysis 3.4.2 Identify the pillars of your vision 3.4.3 Watching the pillars 3.4.4 Looking for simplicity 3.5 Elevator pitch 3.5.1 Creating your pitch 3.5.2 Practicing and honing the pitch 3.6 Putting together a budget 3.6.1 What to include 3.6.2 Lay out the budget 3.6.3 Keeping track 3.6.4 Return on investment (ROI) 3.7 Near-term planning and expectations 3.7.1 Communication 3.7.2 Controlling the narrative Summary Checklist 4 Building a team 4.1 Different types of resources 4.1.1 Full-time employee (FTE) 4.1.2 Contracting individuals 4.1.3 Outsourcing to vendor 4.1.4 Onshore resourcing 4.1.5 Offshore resourcing 4.1.6 Comparison review 4.2 Knowing when to hire 4.2.1 Hiring events 4.2.2 Discipline matrix 4.2.3 Impact of not hiring 4.3 Sourcing candidates 4.3.1 Referrals 4.3.2 Recruitment agency 4.3.3 Headhunting 4.3.4 Graduate fairs/internships 4.3.5 Self-serve online 4.4 Creating the job description 4.4.1 Basic structure 4.4.2 Title 4.4.3 Description 4.4.4 Minimum requirements 4.4.5 Required skills 4.4.6 About/legal information Summary Checklist 5 Interviewing, choosing, and onboarding 5.1 The interview 5.1.1 Getting into the right mindset 5.1.2 Your objectives 5.1.3 Phone interview (or preinterview) 5.1.4 In-person interview 5.1.5 Video interview 5.2 Scoring candidates 5.2.1 Defining your criteria 5.2.2 Marking the candidate 5.3 Saying no 5.3.1 Definitely not 5.3.2 Definitely maybe 5.4 Onboarding 5.4.1 Bringing them up to speed 5.4.2 Your expectations 5.4.3 Getting to work Summary Checklist 6 Team management 6.1 Charter 6.1.1 Knowledge 6.1.2 Sample charter 6.2 Team structure 6.2.1 Product centric 6.2.2 Lifecycle centric 6.2.3 Customer/vertical centric 6.2.4 Hybrid approach 6.3 Titles 6.3.1 What is in the title? 6.3.2 Ladder to improvement 6.3.3 Common mistakes with titles 6.4 Team reporting 6.4.1 Define autonomy 6.4.2 Reporting metrics 6.4.3 Accountability 6.5 One-on-one meeting 6.6 Education and training 6.6.1 Online libraries/resources 6.6.2 Platform/software certifications 6.6.3 Bootcamps 6.6.4 User groups 6.6.5 Internal training 6.6.6 Conferences 6.6.7 University/college courses 6.7 Communication 6.7.1 Email 6.7.2 Meetings 6.7.3 Feedback Summary Checklist 7 Annual reviews 7.1 Skill matrix 7.1.1 Basic matrix structure 7.1.2 Filling out the grid 7.1.3 Logistics 7.2 Handling failure 7.2.1 Initial reaction 7.2.2 Investigation 7.2.3 Learning 7.3 Termination 7.3.1 Downsizing the department 7.3.2 Skills no longer required 7.3.3 Poor performance 7.3.4 Logistics 7.3.5 The exit interview 7.4 Remote working 7.4.1 Setup 7.4.2 Managing expectations 7.4.3 Preventing abuse Summary Checklist 8 Technology decisions 8.1 Avoid lock-in 8.2 Build vs. buy 8.2.1 Buy 8.2.2 Build 8.2.3 Considerations 8.2.4 Checklist 8.3 Cloud vs. on-prem 8.3.1 Cloud 8.3.2 On-prem 8.4 Disaster recover 8.4.1 Downtime tolerance 8.4.2 Full or partial service 8.4.3 Fail forward vs. bounce back 8.4.4 Managing the event 8.4.5 Cloud and DR 8.5 Data management 8.5.1 Storage 8.5.2 Data types 8.6 Microservices vs. monolithic 8.7 Open source 8.7.1 License types 8.7.2 Usage guidelines 8.7.3 Publishing open source 8.7.4 Using code from the web 8.8 Languages and frameworks 8.8.1 Legacy language 8.8.2 Choosing the next one Summary Checklist 9 Development 9.1 Project planning 9.1.1 Project manager 9.1.2 Defining projects 9.2 Development standards 9.3 Version control 9.4 Quality assurance (QA) 9.4.1 Manual testing 9.4.2 Automated tests 9.5 Cl/CD 9.6 Technical debt 9.7 Release 9.7.1 Outage release 9.7.2 Blue-green release 9.8 Client requests Summary Checklist 10 Contract management 10.1 Service agreement 10.1.1 Statement of work 10.1.2 Service-level agreement 10.2 Evaluating vendors 10.3 Software licensing 10.4 Support contracts Summary Checklist 11 Documentation 11.1 Why document? 11.1.1 Audience 11.1.2 Format 11.1.3 Validation 11.2 Documentation types 11.2.1 Meeting notes 11.2.2 Walk-throughs demos 11.2.3 Owner’s manual 11.2.4 Backing up and restoration 11.2.5 Deployment process 11.2.6 Source/code comments 11.2.7 Architectural diagrams 11.2.8 Process diagrams 11.2.9 Network diagrams 11.2.10 Data schemas 11.2.11 Compliance documentation 11.2.12 License and audit tracking 11.3 Whitepapers 11.4 Best practices Summary Checklist 12 Security 12.1 Patching 12.1.1 Identify patches 12.1.2 Scheduling 12.1.3 Special considerations 12.2 Penetration testing 12.3 Social engineering 12.4 Data leakage 12.4.1 Logging 12.4.2 Application errors 12.4.3 Data exports 12.4.4 Version control 12.5 Password rotation 12.5.1 System credentials tracking 12.6 Secure environment 12.6.1 Identify 12.6.2 Protect 12.6.3 Monitor 12.7 Developing with security 12.7.1 Creating secure code 12.7.2 Securing the build process 12.8 “We are under attack” 12.8.1 Kill switch 12.8.2 Communication 12.8.3 Managing a security breach 12.9 Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) Summary Checklist 13 Housekeeping 13.1 Managing hardware 13.2 Support contracts 13.2.1 Providing support 13.3 Monitoring 13.3.1 Outside looking in 13.3.2 Inside looking in 13.4 Backup and restoration 13.4.1 Frequency/retention 13.4.2 Archive security 13.5 Budget oversight Summary Checklist 14 Company growth 14.1 Investment groups 14.2 Impromptu pitch 14.3 Investment cadence 14.4 Preparing for integration 14.5 Due diligence 14.5.1 Performing due diligence 14.5.2 Conducting due diligence 14.5.3 Presenting your findings 14.5.4 Answering due diligence 14.6 Handing over the reins 14.7 Taking the reins Summary Checklist 15 You, Inc. 15.1 Reviewing yourself 15.2 Mentor 15.3 Keeping pace 15.4 Monitoring change 15.5 Succession planning 15.6 Career success 15.7 Stepping up Summary Checklist index A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W Think Like a CTO-back
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