Staff-level impact and technical strategy · Expert · Lesson 94 of 98 · about 3 hours
Choosing technology for the long term
After this you can evaluate a proposed new technology against its long-term cost to the organisation, not just its fit for one project.
Why it matters
Every new technology a team adopts costs operational knowledge, hiring, monitoring and maintenance, forever. McKinley's argument is that organisations have a few 'innovation tokens' and should spend them only where they produce a real advantage, using well-understood tools everywhere else. At staff level you are often the person who has to say no to an exciting choice. This is the vocabulary for doing it well. Trap: hearing 'boring' as 'never change'. The point is to spend novelty deliberately.
How to use this resource
The talk version of the essay, as annotated slides. One of the most quoted pieces in engineering leadership. No original recording of the talk is on YouTube.