Week 0

How this course runs

• 6 Fridays: this 90-minute kickoff, 4 teaching sessions of 120 minutes, and a closing case clinic
• Discussion in Egyptian Arabic, every artifact in English
• Cameras on, always
• Take-home work is capped at 1 hour per week

No artifact means not done

Every weekly task produces evidence from your real work: a tagged calendar, an influence map, a list.

A reflection without an artifact counts as not done. Lack of evidence is a bad sign, in this course as in engineering.

The pre-read contract

You read before each session, 30 to 40 minutes, so live time goes to the hard parts and the discussion, not to coverage.

Pre-reads are never submitted. Each session opens with one question: what question did the pre-read leave you with?

The four arcs

The other 13 laws sit under their arcs in the workspace as optional bonus reading, never assigned and never tested.

Source: John Maxwell, the 21 irrefutable laws

The two tracks, one course

IC track: Larson's four Staff archetypes (Tech Lead, Architect, Solver, Right Hand). What changes at Staff: your scope grows through influence, not headcount.

Management track: Fournier's path to Tech Lead and Engineering Manager. What changes as a lead: a title makes people comply, it does not make them follow.

Undecided is a valid answer. The capstone works either way.

Source: Will Larson, Staff Engineer; Camille Fournier, The Manager's Path

Every law, both tracks

Whether you lead a team of reports or lead technical direction without reports, every session says how each law applies to you.

You will hear that sentence in every law block. If a session skips it, say so.

The capstone: a 30-day experiment

One page, six fixed items:

• Your gap, and one real named problem it costs you
• One behavior for 30 days, with a start date
• The evidence you will collect
• The success measure
• The risk: what makes you likely to quit, and your counter

Drafted after week 4, pressure-tested in your 60-minute 1:1, committed in one line at the case clinic. Never presented.

The honest promise

No course makes you a better leader in 30 days, and I will not claim this one does.

You will leave with your biggest gap identified with data, a designed experiment running on your real team, and before-and-after evidence of movement on that one gap.

Teach-back pairing

Tonight you get a pair, a law, and a date. You will apply the law to a real case from your own track and argue where it held or broke. 8 minutes, both speak.

The brief and the rubric are in the workspace now.

What earns the certificate

• Attend at least 5 of 6 sessions; the case clinic is mandatory
• Submit all 4 evidence artifacts
• Deliver your teach-back
• Submit the capstone plan and state your commitment at the clinic

Before week 1

Read the one-pagers for the Law of the Lid and the Law of Priorities, plus the Peter Principle summary.

Counts as done: you arrive with one question the pre-read left you with.

Your first question for the week: what is capping your team, the work, or the way you lead it?