Technology Leadership Newsletter
Draw the Definition of Done
Draw the Definition of Done
In his latest LinkedIn post, Sanjay Mistry, Group CTO and one of our MBA lecturers, surfaced a great provocation from Lucy-Rose Walker's lecture in our Digital MBA for Technology Leaders: don’t just define “Done”— draw it. The point, of course, isn’t art; it’s achieving cross-functional alignment on outcomes, risks, and proof of value in a way that a bullet list never can.
Here’s how tech leaders do it.
The 5-Layer DoD Sketch (15–25 min)
- Outcome (green): The user/business change expected by a date - in one sentence. Adding 1–2 leading metrics (e.g., activation +10%, MTTR −20%).
- Functionality (blue): 3 frames (Before → Change → After). Boxes/arrows are enough. Each frame gets a verb (e.g., detect, decide, notify).
- Quality & NFRs (purple): Latency, reliability, privacy, accessibility, cost ceiling (e.g., p95 < 200ms; error < 0.1%; €<0.03 per call).
- Constraints & Risks (red): Guardrails and anti-goals (what we will not ship), plus a rollback trigger.
- Proof & Acceptance (black): 3–5 Gherkin-style checks per frame: Given/When/Then and the telemetry to verify in prod.
Color key: Green = value, Blue = behavior, Purple = non-functional, Red = risk/guardrails, Black = verification.
A 20-Minute DoD Ritual
- Minute 0–3: Agreeing on the Outcome sentence + metrics ( green).
- Minute 4–10: Co-sketching 3 frames on a whiteboard or FigJam ( blue).
- Minute 11–14: Adding NFRs & cost caps ( purple).
- Minute 15–18: Naming top risks, anti-goals, rollback ( red).
- Minute 19–20: Writing acceptance checks + telemetry (black). Photographing and pasting into the ticket/PRD.
One-Pager Canvas (usually in a doc/ticket)
- Outcome & Metric: …
- Storyboard (3 frames): Before | Change | After (attached photo)
- NFRs/Cost: …
- Risks/Anti-goals/Rollback: …
- Acceptance & Telemetry:
- Given … When … Then … (dashboards/logs: …)
- Go/No-Go Checklist: owner, on-call, kill-switch, docs, comms, migration/rollback tested.
Anti-patterns to watch for
- Grey-scale DoD: Only tasks, no value or proof. Adding green + black.
- Endless scope creep: If a box can’t fit in one frame, splitting the slice.
- “Works on my laptop” DoD: No purple (NFRs) or telemetry—adding both.
- No rollback: Defining the red line and the switch before shipping.
Sprint example: Running the ritual on the riskiest ticket. Posting the photo in the team channel and linking it in Jira/Linear. The outcome is fewer surprises, cleaner code reviews, and a release you can prove is done.
Did You Know?
Fixing a requirements mistake in design is often 10×–100× cheaper than fixing it in production. When you draw the Definition of Done up front—three frames (Before, Change, After), 3–5 Given/When/Then checks, and key NFRs—you surface the expensive gaps while they’re still cheap.
To make this a leadership habit, you have to build it into your toolkit. However, turning tools into habits doesn’t happen by reading. It happens through practice, feedback, and repetition. That’s exactly what our Digital MBA for Technology Leaders delivers: a repeatable leadership toolkit pressure-tested on real initiatives with a practitioner-led faculty, coaching, and peer review.
Spotlight
Bridging the Gap: Your Guide to Understanding the Tech and Your Techies turns business–tech tension into a practical partnership with its plain-English frameworks, checklists, and real-world examples for leading engineering well.
Co-authors Andrew Weaver and Kasey McCurdy unpack the ideas in a special episode, explaining why they wrote it, who it’s for, and how to use it on Monday morning.
And the new episode of our podcast is here!
In this episode, Sanjay sits down with global marketing & AI leader Asavari Moon (ex-Uber/Meta, now Google) to unpack why bias is already hard-baked into the AI era—and what tech leaders can do in hiring, data, and governance to move the needle. Listen in and steal the playbook.
Reminder: LTL Summit 2025 — Exclusive 40% Off
Just to remind you that, on October 7–8, the Minster Building in London will host two days of inspiring talks, panel discussions, and high-value networking for senior technology leaders. Use code CTOACADEMY40 for 40% off your ticket.
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🎟 Secure Your Place
Recommended reading
MBA Tour
Inside the Digital MBA — 2-minute tour
Curious how the program actually runs week to week? Take a fast walkthrough of the modules, format, faculty, and how it fits a busy exec schedule—straight from our CEO. It’s the clearest way to see if the October cohort is a match.
Digital MBA for Technology Leaders
The next cohort launches on Monday, October 6.
"I have been in tech for almost 30 years and have multiple certifications along the way, including MS, Cisco, and AWS. This was certainly one of the better laid-out programs I've done, with lots of variety, learning, and structure. A shout-out to Andrew and Jason for providing such an amazing and immersive program.” - Craig W., CTO ( Trustpilot, September 3, 2025)
Why Leaders Pick This MBA (now)
- Outcome-first: Turn modules into results—OKR mapping, finance fluency, AI strategy, and delivery systems you can deploy at work the same week.
- Built for busy execs: ~2.5 hrs/week, complete in 9–12 months, with lifetime access to revisit playbooks and templates.
- Practitioner faculty: Learn from leaders who ship—case-based sessions, not ivory-tower theory.
- Live coaching + peers: Weekly sessions, AMAs, and structured peer reviews to pressure-test your plans.
- Proven experience: 4.9/5 from 25,000+ lecture ratings; trusted by tech leaders in 100+ countries.
- Membership included: 12 months FREE CTO Academy membership (debates, Q&As, community support).
Questions? Book a quick Discovery Call with our CEO to map the program to your goals.
What's New
Coaching Sessions
Included with your enrollment: free coaching drop-in sessions with our experienced leadership and career coaches.
The opportunity here is to book a 15-20 introductory session, which allows you to lean into some initial guidance.
Our leadership coaches operate independently of CTO Academy, and so you are welcome and encouraged to follow up with them directly.
Introducing the Coaches:
- Sanjay Mistry has worked with CTO Academy for 4+ years as a leadership coach
- Corey Latislaw focuses on all areas of leadership and career coaching
- Mita Patel is a coach with an approach rooted in Core Energy principles.
Once you've chosen a coach, click “Book a Session” to open their Calendly page and select a convenient time.
CTO Community Pulse: Highlights
Ask the Community
- Help needed on online payment fraud solutions for an urgent rollout.
- Collaboration invitation to build an agentic AI framework spanning architecture, comms, delivery, and governance for space data center and cross-platform projects.
Jobs & Opportunities
- One member is open to new roles.
- Director, Software Engineering opening at a leading developer platform (US remote), salary $127,600–$338,500.
Learning & Content
- A shortlist shared of top AI platforms for developing, training, and deploying ML.
- Ongoing US–UK collaboration on our upcoming book project; early readers for a cybersecurity book proposal needed soon.
Tools & Builds
- A member shipped a self-hosted property site using a static site generator, cloud hosting, object storage, and AI-assisted copy/layout.
- Recommendations are requested for AI assistant software to streamline workflows and expedite responses.
Wins
- Personal milestones and project launches, including a book co-authorship announcement.
- New CTO role landed — with a grateful shout-out to CTO Academy for the support.
New Members
- A warm welcome to new joiners across Europe and the US—glad you’re here!
Upcoming CTO Academy Events
In-Person*
- Oct 7 — Malta: Tech Leaders Dinner
- Oct 8 — Johannesburg: Breakfast Meetup
- Oct 22 — Amsterdam: Tech Talks (canal cruise format)
- Nov 27 — London: TBC
* Visit our Events page for details and reservations
Online
- Oct 7 — Managing Neurodiversity in Your Team (Community session)
- Oct 14-15 — CTO Academy October Peer-to-Peer Session #1 & #2
- Oct 21 — Key Facts You Need To Know About Agentic Automation (Masterclass)
Recent Events
- How to Bring AI into Your Dev Team — Masterclass with Benedikt Stemmildt
- Containing the Prompt: Managing AI's New Attack Surface — Masterclass with Jon Winterburn
- Fractional CTO Community Meetup — Community session