Loops, coaching, and indicators 💡

Monday Ideas — Edition #127

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Back to this week’s ideas 👇

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1) 🔄 Big loops vs Small loops

In my recent chat with Henry Poydar, we talked about Continuous Coordination — an open-source framework providing principles and practices for running modern engineering teams.

Out of the seven key principles, one of them stuck with me: keeping a steady beat 🥁

This is about adding structure to asynchronous coordination. Henry believes the work of most teams can be organized around two loops:

• Small loop — a frequent, inexpensive ceremony for team-level communication (similar to async stand-ups)

• Big loop — a larger, less frequent loop for updates on objectives or goals.

A successful steady beat avoids the "alignment trap" of either too many meetings or the complete absence of synchronization.

While this is very high level and not prescriptive about implementation, I found it helpful to establish a shared vocabulary about alignment meetings.

Now I often find myself thinking: is this a small loop or a big loop thing?

You can find my full chat with Henry here:

Continuous Coordination — with Henry Poydar 🎙️

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2) 🪴 Coaches, mentors, and sponsors

It’s very important for your career to be surrounded by people who can help you reach your goals.

Not all such relationships are created equal, though. The three most common approaches are: coaching, mentorship, and sponsorship.

Let's see the differences 👇

📣 Coaching

Coaches are people who help you figure out what the problem really is. They ask you questions and force introspection.

Coaching helps you with the what at a fundamental level, when you still have no clue. They make you understand what you need to succeed.

📚 Mentorship

Mentors are people who have gone through similar experiences as yours, and can give you practical advice.

Mentors might say:

• When I was in your situation, I…

• You should…

• Have you tried…

Mentoring can be the relationship between two colleagues in which the more experienced uses their knowledge to support the development of the less experienced.

While coaching helps the individual find their own solution, mentoring is directive and provides specific advice.

🌱 Sponsorship

Finally, sponsors are people who do practical things to help you.

They might advocate for your promotion, approve a budget for your project, or introduce you to useful people.

While mentoring is about giving advice, sponsoring is about empowering and giving opportunities.

We explored the various types of growth relationships and how to figure out what is the right approach for your situation in this past article 👇

People who make you grow 🌱

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3) 📈 Leading vs Lagging indicators

We often talk about product engineers, and most recently we did so in this super popular guide last month.

In the guide, we introduced leading vs lagging indicators as a way to understand the different responsibilities between PMs and Product Engineers:

Lagging indicators ⬅️

Lagging indicators are outcome metrics that capture the ultimate success or failure of past actions, like revenue, customer churn, or MAUs.

They are typically easier to measure — i.e. via product analytics tools — but harder to influence directly by a product team. Also, they change more slowly and are often only measurable after a significant period (hence lagging).

Leading indicators ➡️

Leading indicators are input metrics that predict future outcomes.

They are usually harder to identify and measure accurately, but easier to influence through current actions. They also change more rapidly, allowing for quick feedback and iteration. Examples are measuring a feature’s adoption or specific actions that reveal engagement.

Famously, Facebook used to track how many users added at least 7 friends, and how fast they did so. They figured out it was a reliable leading indicator for long-term engagement.

So, the key differences are about three areas:

1. ⏱️ Timing — lagging indicators show what has happened, while leading indicators suggest what will happen.

2. 🏃‍♂️ Actionability — leading indicators are more actionable in the short term, while lagging indicators often require long-term strategies to change.

3. 🎲 Certainty — lagging indicators usually provide more certainty about outcomes, while leading indicators offer predictive power but with less certainty.

Why is this model useful? Because it’s a blueprint for how PMs and Product Engineers can organize their responsibilities:

• PEs mostly focus on leading indicators — because they are more actionable and enable fast course correction.

• PMs mostly focus on lagging indicators — which are closer to business and strategy.

You can find the full guide below 👇

How to Become a Product Engineer 🎨

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I wish you a great week! ☀️

Luca