Tonrik Blog https://tonrik.com/blog A network of seasoned interim leaders. We help you assess the situation, then quickly draft and execute the actions your digital project needs. en The CTO diamond of excellence https://tonrik.com/blog/2023-02-08-the-cto-diamond-of-excellence https://tonrik.com/blog/2023-02-08-the-cto-diamond-of-excellence Wed, 08 Feb 2023 00:00:00 GMT What is the responsibility of a Chief Technology Officer / CTO? Throughout the years I have defined the "diamond of excellence" for tech leadership. A strong CTO must master all of these areas - they are intertwined and together result in the value a the CTO and tech organisation will deliver. tech leadership What is the responsibility of a Chief Technology Officer / CTO? Throughout the years I have defined the "diamond of excellence" for tech leadership. A strong CTO must master all of these areas - they are intertwined and together result in the value a the CTO and tech organisation will deliver.

  1. Business - this is valid for or commercial technology - which business do you operate in, and which factors shape the business? What level of maturity / evolution is the current state of technology? What drivers will effect the business long and short term? This is the overarching goal for the CTO.

  2. People - you need a skilled team to deliver. Which roles? Which seniority? Which qualifications? How should your organisation look? What can you afford? How do you recruit, support/develop/grow and inspire your team? Do you need all roles full time? Which culture are you building? Why?

  3. Tech - what is your technology supposed to do? How do you build capable systems? Which architecture? Which infrastructure? Which way to deploy and ship your system? How to defend your system from threats? How to maintain and keep your system stable? How to keep your system architecture and code base healthy over time?

  4. Teamwork - also called "methods" or "process" - I prefer calling it teamwork. How do you define which way to deliver technology? Which activities are required and why? How should they relate to eachother? Should you re-use a common methodology or does your team and product need something else?

With experience a CTO learns the craft of thinking around these areas (learning from mistakes and successes). As all crafts this takes time and a lot of effort - in a space with a very high velocity for engineering evolution - a fantastic leadership role!

CTO - diamond of excellence

]]> Is your website fast? How you as manager can find out instead of trusting your consultant. https://tonrik.com/blog/2021-04-29-is-your-website-fast https://tonrik.com/blog/2021-04-29-is-your-website-fast Thu, 29 Apr 2021 00:00:00 GMT The new site shift is ready, you are ready for that big press release. Your consultants claim the site is "performant" and of course you believe them, especially when signing off their invoices. However - is trust really better than control? technology performance The new site shift is ready, you are ready for that big press release. Your consultants claim the site is "performant" and of course you believe them, especially when signing off their invoices. However - is trust really better than control?

Luckily these days technology provides us tools to validate the claims. First of all every site owners big daddy Google provides Lighthouse - a scoring mechanism giving your site a score between 0 and 100. In order to use it you need Chrome and an extension - then just enter your url.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/lighthouse/blipmdconlkpinefehnmjammfjpmpbjk

Why bother? In May Google will roll out changes the pagerank algorithm (that yummy "free" organic trafic to your site) and add Core Web Vitals to the scoring. Read more here:

https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2020/11/timing-for-page-experience?hl=en

To avoid being completely Google-centric I would recommend trying both GT Metrix and Pagespeedtest as well:

https://gtmetrix.com/

https://www.webpagetest.org/

Try it out straight away and bring your suppliers to the performance table!

If you are in need of trustworthy advice - get in touch with us at Tonrik. We are happy to assist on your digital journey.

]]> Defining interim objectives https://tonrik.com/blog/2019-09-01-defining-interim-objectives https://tonrik.com/blog/2019-09-01-defining-interim-objectives Sun, 01 Sep 2019 00:00:00 GMT How to define objectives for a successful interim assignment. interim management Without clear objectives you cannot make the most of your interim leader. Take a moment to answer: What goal/goals would you like to achieve? Why? When? Try to make the goal as SMART as possible. Should the focus be on transformation? Or keeping the current state? Make sure the objectives are agreed by the stakeholders and followed up during the assignment. If you have ideas or questions regarding interim objectives - welcome to contact Tonrik to continue the conversation.

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