Via “Tools & Thoughts for Leaders” by my teammate, Paolo Belcastro:

…two things inevitable: communication had to be text-first (that’s why the writing culture is so important to us) and asynchronous.

We don’t fight chaos—we embrace it.

Read Paolo’s post for all the details on how a text-first culture is the key to asynchronous communication. Including why we’ve added in some extra chaos back in, on purpose.

Great list! Here are my additions:

• You help your friends add PHP code to their website footer files to show the current date correctly (“here’s a code snippet”)

• You type /feed on any URL to try and follow via RSS

• You may have memorized a few Trac ticket numbers that you super-duper care about landing in core

• You naturally type URL fragments into the browser address bar, including /wp-admin

• You quickly navigate any site by searching with ?s=term or using /tag, /author for people, or /2025 for dates

• Yes, you “view source”… and then search for “wp-content/themes” and check out the stylesheet

• You help friends get a solid theme from the directory instead of downloading from the first Google search result

• You have a wp-config.php “paste from this file” for common patterns like how to turn on debug mode

What would you add? Are you a WordPresser, too?

Last week I spoke to Anthony (a product designer) and his co-host Katie Langerman (a systems designer) on their excellent podcast “Complementary” for Episode 64: Being Intentional About Quality with Lance Willett.

A fun and engaging conversation! We touched on many quality-related topics, including:

• How to champion quality in distributed teams
• Quality metrics: measures of success
• Giving and receiving feedback (and other team dynamics), especially between designers and developers
• Balancing craft, context, and care in product development

Take a listen on your favorite podcast player. I recommend Pocket Casts (an Automattic venture).

A fun conversation since MK and I have known each other 15+ years after working together at Automattic in the earliest days. I’ve followed his career and learned from listening to these insightful episodes over the years.

In this podcast session we also got into what it means to be a full-stack leader, the role of feedback loops in product development, and real stories from the trenches.

Listen here: https://www.betweentwocoos.com/automattic-chief-quality-officer-lance-willett-wordpress/

“Move purposefully and fix things.”

Doc Pop

This role is all about systems thinking, operational excellence, and the long-term compounding effects of quality work.

Whether working in design, code, customer support, or leading teams of people, I believe everything valuable in building a durable business comes down to quality and maintenance:

• What we tolerate sets the standard for the company.
• What customers experience is the ground truth.
• When we fix known issues quickly, we build trust with our users.
• When the flywheel of quality spins faster, the business will grow organically, with new features built on a solid foundation.

Business growth

In a crowded market, quality creates gravity to attract customers organically, which leads to loyalty and expansion with lower marketing/sales costs.

While fixing small bugs might not 10x your growth overnight, not fixing them will make 10x growth impossible over time.

Casey Winters

Shared responsibility

Cultivate a culture of quality where every team, from engineering to customer support, feels responsible for the customer experience. Quality is a shared value and responsibility, not just a QA step.

Move quickly to fix known bugs and the cost to repair only goes up to fix them later. “Fix issues before the ink is dry.”

Measure what matters: define clear metrics for quality and operational performance, review them relentlessly, but also listen to qualitative feedback – both data and intuition have a role.

• Establish clear standards and workflows, with tracking and stats to measure success; train folks on how to meet those standards and act as owners for their area.
• Ensure quality and housekeeping don’t go unowned; automate any audits and checks to save time and catch errors.
• Lightweight structure: just enough process.

Consistency

Operate from a standard, consistent set of tools across the company.

Standardization aims to:

• Improve execution: one tool to learn, one place to integrate with data, one place to add AI assistance.
• Increase visibility: single source of truth.
• Help corral costs: negotiate one bulk contract instead of many, smaller contracts w/ different vendors.
• Set & teach a higher standard: speed up training & onboarding, maximize the best of each tool.
• Spread knowledge & skills: give team members a smoother switch between teams inside the company.
• Speed: encourage a shipping mindset, where teams are empowered to build game-changing products faster, instead of wrangling a tool/vendor.

Many of the culture changes we seek as a company are powered by foundational quality work to streamline data, tools, and documentation. This sounds basic; yet, when this foundational work is in place, everything else operates better.

Feedback loops

Craft plus context for faster feedback loops.

• Craft: Quality as we see it; e.g., technical quality from building and testing code pre-release.
• Context: Quality as others see it. Oxygen in from outside, via customers and the community.

Put it all together

A world-class “head of quality” pays attention to both the big picture (strategy: culture, mindset, consistency) and oversees the day-to-day details (execution: bug fixing, automated testing, and quality metrics).

See also: Companies with dedicated quality efforts by Anthony Hobday.

1. Question all requirements, esp. if someone smart made them
2. Try to delete parts or steps in the process
3. Simplify or optimize what’s left
4. Accelerate cycle time
5. Automate

Source, Christian Scheb: Elon Musk’s Engineering Principles – The 5 Step Process

The order matters, since you don’t want to automate or accelerate work that doesn’t matter.

Challenge: How will I apply this rigor at work? In my personal life?

Highly recommend this talk, and agree with the notion that quality, craft, and care are competitive advantages.

Here are several proactive techniques, when in doubt.

Use the available name pronunciation entry field appears in your personal profile settings. This is common in consumer or work apps like LinkedIn, Slack, Gravatar, and others.

1. Type in a simple “sounds like” phrase with phonetic spelling and homonyms, words that rhyme easily with yours. And, if offered, add a quick audio recording.
2. If the app doesn’t have a setting for name pronunciation, and you are extra friendly—you can add a visual aid to your first or last name field using brackets or quotes.

When you greet someone for the first time in a meeting—say your full name in your greeting. “Hi, I’m Lance Willett, based in Arizona, USA.” This acts as both a courtesy and a gift; a simple action to teach the other person how you’d prefer to be addressed.

Any other chance you get while talking or interacting, repeat your name again; slowly and clearly.

And, if you have any doubts, speak up when you guess there are language and cultural layers. This kindness helps spread clarity and reduce friction.

My current trick for new people I meet is to find a YouTube video or social media audio where they introduce themselves, so I can hear it before I greet them the first time.

If I can’t find a video with clear audio, I’ll often either Google the name to find common variations. Or, I’ll end up asking for the correct sounding name right at the start of the meeting.

What are your tips for proactive name pronunciation?

Source: Doc Pop on YouTube explaining the Fediverse, on the WordPress.com channel—the first frame shows this motto on a sticker graphic.

I love this for a 2025-era product quality motto.

You can’t capture lightning in a bottle. But you can care. If you care about what you do, if you bring to it that which initially got you to choose to work on this, you’ll make something special.

Wise words from Joen, someone I’ve long admired as a craftsperson who brings care to every pixel.