Are you a technology professional looking to connect with like minded people?

We have a thriving community of CTOs discussing these episodes and more.
Click HERE to set up a call and learn more about becoming a member.

Vision, Strategy An Alignment — Stephan Schmidt // Amazing CTO

Click here to listen wherever you enjoy podcasts.

There is a business vision and a business strategy, a product vision and a product strategy, and then a tech vision and a tech strategy. The business vision, the product vision, and the tech vision need to be aligned. What is your tech vision and strategy, and how do you create one? Find out more as Stephan Schmidt, CTO Coach at Amazing CTO, discusses vision, strategy, and alignment.

About The Speaker:

Stephan Schmidt
Stephan SchmidtCTO at Amazing CTO
As a CTO, Interim CTO, CTO Coach – and developer – Stephan has seen many technology departments in fast-growing startups. As a kid he taught himself coding in a department store around 1981 because he wanted to write video games. Stephan studied computer science with distributed systems and artificial intelligence at the University of Ulm. He also studied Philosophy. When the internet came to Germany in the 90 he worked as the first coder in several startups. He has founded a VC funded startup, worked in VC funded, fast growing startups with architecture, processes and growth challenges, worked as a manager for ImmoScout and as a CTO of an eBay Inc. company. After his wife successfully sold her startup they moved to the sea and Stephan took up CTO coaching. You can find him on LinkedIn or on Twitter @KingOfCoders

Episode Resources:

Check out https://7ctos.com/

Stephan Schmidt: Website // LinkedIn // Twitter

Etienne de Bruin: Website // LinkedIn // Twitter

Amazing CTO Newsletter Website

Show Notes

02:25

Why Amazing CTO newsletter?

Born out of over 40 plus years of experience in software development and strong opinions

05:03

The importance of having an opinion and sharing it

If you have an interest in something, youre likely to have an opinion about it, so feel free to air your views and contribute to public discussion Dont be reactionary or agreeable with whoever is the loudest.

08:14

Vision setting, strategy building, and alignment

A lot of the problems in startups and their technology departments is that they lack a vision and strategy. It is why developers on such teams struggle to build the right tech stack

09:24

As a CTO youre a leader. Where are you leading your team to?

CTOs struggle to be leaders because they dont know where to lead people to

09:54

What is a good vision?

The vision is self-motivating, self-evident, explanatory, so no explanation, no motivation, no evidence needs because the vision speaks for itself. The strategy is how to get there.

11:36

Whats in a strategy?

The strategy should be something that helps people make decisions. If it’s not helping people make the right decisions, then it’s a bad strategy.

12:54

What do you do when youre not in charge of the vision and strategy?

There is a business vision and a business strategy, a product vision and a product strategy, and then a tech vision and a tech strategy. The business vision, the product vision, and the tech vision need to be aligned.