Team Lead Guide: Decisions, People and Delivery

The six-step answer shape (goal, options, choice, reason, risk, plan B), how to think out loud, and a map of the questions a lead asks.

Six questions before you add a dependency, npm commands to check health, how to plan the exit, and a short decision-note template.

Start from the problem and the team, boring technology and innovation tokens, handling a team that wants something new, and writing decision records.

What real projects (Rust, Kubernetes, Python) put in a design doc, status words, a simple review process, when not to write one, and tips for clear writing.

Conway, Brooks, Goodhart, Gall, Hyrum, Chesterton and more, each in one sentence with a lead's use, plus common thinking biases.

Honest ranges with named unknowns, missed deadlines, quick fix versus proper fix, reviewing for better-not-perfect, and saying no with an option.

Debt as a loan with interest, refactor or rewrite, a test plan, what to monitor, and lessons from five famous public outages.

Fix first and be blameless, DORA delivery measures without a people scoreboard, feedback, juniors, and your first weeks as a lead.

Explaining the why before the what, a five-line status update, fewer and better meetings, preparing people for change, and planning around outcomes.

How to run a 1:1, give specific feedback, delegate with a clear owner, handle disagreement, and build trust.

Context before answers, a first-90-days plan for a new hire, fair work-like interviews, and what the popular lists say about hiring.

Daily habits that build culture, psychological safety, the brilliant jerk, remote habits, a retro template and Etsy's incident debrief method.

Strategy versus wish list, roadmaps as bets with date ranges, saying no, build versus buy, migrations and a one-page strategy template.

Ladders, scope versus output, the IC and manager tracks, sponsorship versus mentorship, and a promotion packet template.

Splitting teams with Conway in mind, a service catalogue, humane on-call, avoiding hero culture, toil and cross-team dependencies.

A 30-minute threat model, supply-chain hygiene, secrets, access reviews, SECURITY.md and security in code review.

The author owns every line, what to allow, reviewing generated code harder, agent permissions, helping juniors, measuring honestly and a one-page policy.

The most-starred GitHub lists and well-known documents behind this series, which I read directly, which I only know from summaries, and which I could not open.