Web Directions Year round learning for product, design and engineering professionals

I caught up with one of our keynote speakers the other day to discuss in more detail their presentation. He’s a dear friend of long standing, but we hadn’t caught up in person for perhaps two years.

The bandwidth during that conversation was simply unlike what’s possible via messaging, or even video calls (we’re both the sort of thinkers who jump from one thing to another, put ideas on the stack and pop them off again, a mode I appreciate at least some folks find infuriating but…)

Some things just work much better in-person.

Code Leaders, an event we’ve run in Melbourne since 2017 alongside our Code conference was always designed to be a little different–with a focus on connection, conversation and idea sharing among our attendees, supported by excellent presenters (and coffee–another thing that doesn’t work so well virtually) to fuel those conversations. Things that really do work much better in-person.

And as we planned a return to in-person events we felt we really wanted to re-animate this conference.

It’s more intimate, with attendees seated around tables with their peers. We select a someone from each table to help those conversations start and continue.

We build in a fair bit of time too for discussion after each presentation, and QA with the speakers.

Code Leaders ’22 Program

We’ve just announced the full schedule for the day, and if you’re an engineering leader or manager (experienced or aspiring) then we’d love you to consider attending.

The talks have a strong focus on the capabilities and practices that engineering leaders need to thrive, with some more technology focussed presentations to round out the day.

The program

After an excellent coffee (or tea, or juice if those are your thing) we kick off with a session focussed on you and the qualities and capabilities that help make you a better leader and manager.

• David Lewis shares lessons from the 2,000 year old philosophy of stoicism, and how these have helped him become a better leader
• Stefano Fratini looks at the often overlooked issue of how you manage managers
• Then to close our first session, Philip Boardman explores how good mentors make good managers, and how you can be a better mentor to your team (and others)

After a quick chance to recharge (more great coffee, tea, etc, and some morning tea) we’ll focus on your team

• Gretchen Scott looks at approaches to building and retaining high performance tech teams
• Chris Modica shares insights into growing and scaling your organisation
• And to lead into lunch, Tanya Pelly shares a new playbook for 1:1s

After a fantastic meal and the chance to connect a bit more with fellow attendees and speakers, our after lunch session focusses on some bigger picture ideas.

• Sebastiano Armeli sheds some light on the difference between Mission, Strategy, Roadmap, KPIs and OKRs, and how they all correlate
• while Paul Hughes looks at the power of potential, and asks as leaders how can you help your amazing people realise theirs?

Then after a final quick coffee break, we focus a bit more on technology and some of the things we feel should be on your radar as an engineering leader

• Henri Helvetica looks at the state of web performance, and the current state (and future direction) of Core Web Vitals
• Grant Sheppard shares lessons from his organisation’s adoption of micro frontend architectures, to help you consider whether this approach might be right for you
• And to wrap things up Thomas Steiner from Google’s Chrome team looks at the state and future of the Web platform (there is a lot happening).

I hope you’ll agree that’s an in-depth and valuable day, all put together by our fantastic curators, Claire Tran, Chris Lienert and Craig Penfold.

We hope to see you there!