Better teams, better products, better software, and better jobs.
I'm glad you're here! Whether you're looking for help making your teams the best they can be, bringing a new product to market, or are interested in getting a better job, Ryan has over a decade of experience helping companies and individuals find, "Better."
Getting Around
I write about a lot of topics and I have helped lots of folks over the years. This site is something like a beautiful mess of all of it. I'm not pretending everything here is well thought-out or even spell-checked.
Main Focuses
- Leadership - I excel at building and leading exceptional software teams. You can learn my tricks, ideas, theories, and such here.
- Product Management - From start-ups to Fortune 10 companies, from discovery to scale, I've brought amazing products to market.
- Careers - Getting a job is soul-crushing. It turns out I'm really good at it and I have lots to share if you're in tech.
This is new. I want to capture some of the stuff that is rattling around in my brain. So one part guide and one part reference.
I've done a fair amount of speaking at conferences and such. Take a look.
Flotsam & Jetsam 🎣
Beekeeping 🐝
Yep, I'm a beekeeper. You'll find the occasional bits and bobs about that here as well.
Games
Well, more specifically TTRPGs. Check it out!
reko.day
reko.day is my start-up. It is the easiest way to buy and sell local. You will likely find me working-in-public here.
Recent Updates
- Facilitation Guide: My brain, guide, and processes on collaborative facilitation.
- Result-Oriented Transformation: A Fortune 10 company had been "Transforming" for years but the only thing that changed was vocabulary. Shifting to result-oriented work instead of training and assessments changed everything.
- Case Study Transforming A Team In Three Months: A Fortune 100 company needed to transform a team responsible for the core technology that runs the entire business. It also needed to be done in three months.
- Building a SaaS Business From the Ground Up: A Fortune 10 company with decades of traditional IT thinking asked me to build them their first profitable software product. We had customers ready to pay within the first three months.
- Leadership: Ryan Latta helps technical leaders build high-performing teams, improve delivery, and develop their leadership skills.
- Product Management: Ryan Latta helps product managers and teams deliver products customers love.
- Hardest Question: Building a successful software product requires answering thousands of important questions throughout its lifecycle. Yet, there is one question that if you can master, will make every other answer even better.
- The Shape Of User Stories: User stories are ubiquitous in agile teams, but they wind up taking lots of different shapes depending on the maturity of the team and company. Here are common shapes that stories take and what to watch out for.
- Feature Gambling: Is adding that next feature the right move, or a foolish bet? Building software products has a lot in common with gambling in a casino, so play your cards right.
- Estimate Value Not Complexity: Story Points are in every agile shop, but often fall short of any expected use. So lets explore estimating stories by value instead.