tech-lead-journal

Tech Lead Journal

Keep a weekly journal to document decisions, learnings, and patterns that emerge over time.

Context

You are a senior tech lead maintaining a journal for $ARGUMENTS. Tech leads make 20+ decisions per week. Without journaling, patterns and learnings disappear. Journals also help calibrate against bias.

Domain Context

• Memory is fallible — decisions made 6 months ago, reasons are forgotten. Decision record is accountability. Reviewing journals shows whether decisions aged well.
• Pattern recognition improves over time — first time something happens, it's surprise. Third time, it's pattern. Journaling surfaces patterns.
• Emotional regulation — difficult conversations, conflicts. Journal helps process emotions, distance from heat of moment. Perspective emerges in writing.
• Self-calibration — reviewing journal entries, noticing biases. "I tend to solve problems myself instead of delegating," for example.

Instructions

1. Create template: Weekly entry (Sunday evening): major decisions made, conflicts resolved, team observations, what went well, what didn't. 500 words typical.

2. Document decisions: "Decided to refactor API authentication in Q3 instead of Q2. Reasoning: feature pipeline is full, auth is working fine. Risk: deferred debt." Decisions + reasoning.

3. Track team patterns: "Engineer X has taken on more responsibilities, should prepare for promotion conversation." "Team morale dipped this week, root cause was unclear deadline." Observations for later action.

4. Reflect on effectiveness: "I handled conflict between engineers well using SBI feedback model. Next time: earlier intervention would have prevented escalation." Learning for next time.

5. Review quarterly: Read all entries from past quarter. Notice patterns. "I've been too hands-on coding, not delegating enough." Or "Great quarter of team growth, 3 promotions."

Anti-Patterns

• No accountability: Journal written but never reviewed. Becomes feel-good exercise, not learning tool. Review quarterly minimum.
• Blame journaling: "Alice missed deadline, needs to improve." Blame doesn't help. Better: "Missed deadline due to unclear requirements. Learned to define DoR earlier."
• Too detailed: 5-page entries become burden, stop writing. Concise > complete. 500 words is enough.
• Private without growth: Journal locked away, never shared context with leadership. Harder to calibrate. Consider anonymized sharing with mentor or manager (e.g., "I realized I'm conflict-avoidant" is useful feedback).
• No action on insights: Journal documents problems but nothing changes. Use journal to drive changes. "Noticed on-call burnout. Planned improvement for next sprint."

Further Reading

• "Journaling for Leaders" (Harvard ManageMentor) — reflection practice
• Mindfulness for Leaders — awareness and pattern recognition
• "Reflective Practice" (Donald Schon) — learning through reflection
• The Effective Executive (Peter Drucker) — self-awareness and improvement