All 23 playbooks, in chapter order
Every chapter of The Code Takes Care of Itself ends on a playbook. The book prints a short version of each, enough to run the tool and read without the web. The full version is here, with every step, every example, and the “Try this with AI” prompt that goes with it.
Read the chapter a playbook cites before you use it. Pick the playbook that matches the decision in front of you, and print the page if you want to write on it.
The CTO Sets the Standard the Team Works To
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Pick Your Top Three Coaching Priorities and Make Each Testable: Your Top-3 Coaching Priorities, from “The CTO Is a Coach First.”
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Run the Origin Audit in Your First Sixty Days: The Origin Audit, from “Learn Why the Business Exists First.”
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Fill In the Three-Horizon Vision Worksheet in One Week: The Three-Horizon Vision Worksheet, from “Build the Vision on Your Company’s Native Alpha.”
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Define What Good Means Before You Pick Metrics: Choosing Metrics That Actually Align, from “Excellence Starts with Standards Specific Enough to Check.”
Write the Playbook Down and Keep It Current
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Spend One Hour on the Lineage Audit Before Writing Plays: The Lineage Audit, from “Short Written Playbooks Make Small Teams Fast.”
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Draft One Play for One Team and Get It Right: Building Your First Three Plays, from “Write a Short Playbook That Explains Why.”
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Write Down How Your Playbook Gets Changed: The Mechanism That Decides When the Rules Change, from “A Playbook Has to Change When the Business Does.”
Lead by Placing and Developing People Well
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Review the Talent Framework Every Quarter: The Talent Acquisition and Development Framework, from “Hire and Develop for the Skills You’ll Need Next.”
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Separate What a Role Requires from What Is Merely Useful: The Critical Roles Template, from “Put People Where Their Strengths Matter Most.”
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Prepare the Crisis Response Plan in Seven Steps: The Crisis Response Plan Template, from “In a Crisis, Your Job Is to Keep Everyone Informed.”
Earn Trust by Showing How the Work Is Going
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Track Each Person’s Autonomy Stage Task by Task: The Staged-Autonomy Tracker, from “Grant Autonomy in Stages, Based on Evidence.”
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Map What Each Department Needs to Hear from Engineering: The Cross-Functional Communication Strategy, from “Translate Technical Work into Each Audience’s Terms.”
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Install the Instrument Panel One Written Step at a Time: The Instrument Panel Install, from “Give Executives Real Measures of Engineering Health.”
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Keep a Living Plan for Every Relationship You Manage: The Multi-Level Management Plan, from “A CTO Manages Up, Down, and Sideways at Once.”
Growth Needs Decisions Made Ahead of Demand
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Check Whether You Have an Answer Before You Approve Scaling: The Scaling Threshold Framework, from “Scale Early Enough to Stay Ahead of Demand.”
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Revisit Architecture Bets on a Fixed Cadence: The Strategic Architectural Planning Template, from “Match Architecture to the Business’s Next Three Years.”
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Run Five Questions Before You Lock In or Defer a Decision: The Decision Classification Worksheet, from “Know Which Decisions to Make Early and Which to Delay.”
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Write a Tradeoff Ledger Before Any Hard-to-Reverse Decision: The Tradeoff Ledger, from “Every Real Decision Gives Something Up.”
Build a Team That Keeps Working Without You
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Audit the Completion Loop When Shipping Falls Behind Generating: The Completion Loop Audit, from “AI Makes Drafts Cheap, So Finishing Is the Constraint.”
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Build the Leadership Pipeline and Then Test It: The Leadership Pipeline Roadmap, from “Build Leaders Who Don’t Wait for You.”
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Decide Now What Should Outlast Your Tenure: The Legacy and Customer-Impact Blueprint, from “Leave a Team That Decides with the Customer in Mind.”
Tie the Playbook to What the Business Earns
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Turn Every Request into a Capability Ticket: The Capability Ticket, from “Prioritize Work by What It Earns for the Business.”
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Design a Rotation Program That Fits Your Company: Design Your Rotation Program, from “Good Judgment Needs Direct Contact with Customers.”