The Manager's Path: A Guide for Tech Leaders Navigating Growth and Change

- 6 minutes read - 1222 words

Chapter 1: Management 101

  1. what to expect from a manager

    1. 1:1 meeting, every few weeks with direct/line manager; two purposes

      1. create human connections

      2. status update: regular

    2. feedback and workspace guidance: frequest, fast, many wasy

      1. quick feedbackup loop is more efficient

      2. public praise, private critism

      3. feedback type: code, presentation

        1. code, content, layout, style …​

      4. role

      5. strech projects:

    3. Training and career growth

      1. you are responsible for the most part, for figuring out what types of training you want.

      2. CTO: strong communication skills, project management skills, and product sense in addition to good technical sense.

      3. create and build strong peer networks.

  2. how to be managed

    1. not exactly same as managing up.

    2. Developing a sense of ownership and authority for your own experiencees at work, not relying on your manager to set entire tone for your relationship

    3. spending time thinking what do you want

    4. you are responsible for yourself

    5. give your manager a break: bring solutions, not problems

    6. choose your manager wisely

  3. Assess your own experiences: questionnaire

Chapter 2: Mentoring

  1. The importance of mentoring to junior team members.

  2. Being a mentor: an opportunity to learn in a fairly safe way about the job of management and the feeling responsible for another person.

    1. mentor an intern

    2. listen carefully

      1. basic skill: really, full-hearted listening

      2. lesson: people are not good at saying precisely what they mean in a way that others can exactly understand

      3. say anything complex a few times, in different ways

    3. whiteboard, draw diagrams

    4. clear communicate

      1. mgmt skill: communicate what needs to happen

    5. calibrate your response

      1. mgmt skill: adjusting to the intern’s responses

      2. checking progress once a week.

  3. mentering a new hire

    1. onboarding process and document

    2. help this person adjust to life in the company effectly,

    3. build you and his/her network of contacts in the company.

    4. introduce the new hire around: formal and informal, buddy several days

    5. opportunity to see the world of your company through fresh eyes

    6. networking

  4. Technical or Career mentoring

    1. when you are a mentor

      1. tell your mentee what you expect from him

    2. when you are a mentee

  5. good manager, bad manager: The alpa geek

    1. practice the art teaching

  6. tips for the manager of a mentor

  7. key takeaways for the mentor

    1. Be curious and open-minded

    2. listen and speak their language

    3. make connections

  8. assessing your own experience

Chapter 3: Tech lead

continue to write code, but with the added resposiblities of representing the group to management, vetting our plans for feature delivery, and dealing with a lot of the details of the project management process.

talking with tech leads: spent at least 30% of their time writing code with the team.

  1. all great tech leads know this weird trick

    1. the willingness to step away from the code and figure out how to balance you technical commitments with the work the whole team needs.

  2. Being a tech lead 101

    1. The main roles of a tech lead

      1. system architect and business analyst

      2. project planner

      3. software developer and team leader

  3. tech lead: a stepping stone for promotion to senior levels, without immediate and tangible rewards.

  4. managing projects

  5. managing a project

    1. break down the work

    2. push through the details and the unknowns

    3. run the project and adjus the plan as you go

    4. use the insights gained in the planning process to manage requirements change

    5. revisit the details as you get close to completion

  6. Decision point: stay on the technical track or become a manager

    1. imaged life of a senior individual contributor

    2. real life of a senior IC

    3. imaged life of a manager

    4. real life of a manager

  7. good manager, bad manager: the process czar

  8. how to be a great tech lead

    1. understand the architecture

    2. be a team player

    3. lead technical decisions

    4. communicate

  9. assess your own experience

Chapter 4: Managing People

  1. starting a new reporting relationship off right

    1. build trust and rapport

      1. QUESTIONS FOR OUR FIRST 1:1

    2. create a 30/60/90-day plan

    3. encourage participation by updating the new hire documentation

    4. communicate your style and expectations

    5. get feedback from your new hire

  2. communicating with your team

    1. have regular 1-1s

    2. scheduling 1-1s: weekly; focus and short; respect maker’s schedule

    3. adjusting 1-1s:

  3. different 1-1 styles

    1. the to-do list meeting

    2. the catch-up

    3. the feadback meeting

    4. progress report

    5. getting to know you

    6. mix it up

    7. keep notes in a shared document: for each person you manage, maintain a running shared document of notes, takeaways, and todos from your 1-1s

  4. good manager, bad manager, micromanager, delegator

    1. how to effectly delegate

  5. practical advices for delegating effectively

    1. use the team’s goals to understand which details you should dig into

    2. gather information from the systems before going to the people

    3. adjust your focus depending on the stage of the projects

    4. establish standards for code and systems

    5. treat the open sharing of information, good or bad, in a neutral to positive way

  6. creating a culture of continuous feedback

    1. know your people

    2. observe your people

    3. provide lightweight, regular feedback

    4. bonus: provide coaching, coach-based continuous feedback

  7. performance reviews: 360 model,

    1. writing and delivering a performance review

      1. give yourself enough time, start early

      2. try to account for the whole year, not just the past couple of months

      3. use concrete examples and excerpts from peer reviews

      4. spend plenty of time on accomplishments and strengths

      5. when it comes to areas for improvement, keep it focus

      6. avoid big surprises

      7. schedule enough time to discuss the review

    2. potential: work hard to get the extra mile, offering insightful suggestions on problems, and helping the team in areas that previous neglected.

  8. cultivate career

  9. challenging situations: fire underperformers

    1. performance improvement plan: just a generous way of giving someone time to look for another job before being fired.

    2. no supprise:

  10. coaching out

  11. assess your own experience

Chapter 5: Managing a team

new set of skils

  1. stay technical

  2. debugging dysfunctioanl teams: the basic

    1. not shipping

    2. people drama

    3. unhappiness due to overwork

      1. 20% time in every planning session to system substainability work

      2. pressing, time-critical release:

        1. cheerleader

        2. learn from it and avoid it next time

    4. collaboratio problem

  3. the shield

  4. how to drive good decisions

    1. create a data driven team culture

    2. flex your own product muscles

    3. look into the future

    4. review the outcome of your decisions and projects.

    5. run restrospective for the process and day-to-day: 2-week development sprint

  5. good manager, bad manager: conflict avoider, conflict tamer

    1. The Dos and Don’ts of managing conflict

      1. Don’t rely exclusively on consensus or voting

      2. Do set up clear processes to depersonalize decisions

      3. Don’t turn a blind eye to simmering issues

      4. Do address isssues without courting drama

      5. Don’t take it out on other teams

      6. Do remember to be kind. It’s natural and perfectly human to want to be liked by other people.

      7. Don’t be afraid

      8. Do get curious

  6. Challenging situations: Team cohension destroyers

    1. the brilliant jerk

    2. the noncommunicator

    3. the employee who lack respect

  7. advanced project management

    1. project management rules of thumb

      1. none of this is a replacement of agile project management

      2. you have 10 productive engineering weeks per engineer per quarter.

      3. budget 20% of time for generic sustaining engineering work across the board.

      4. as you approach deadlines, it is your job to say no.

      5. using the doubling rule for quick esitmates, but push for planning time to estimate longer tasks.

      6. be selective about what you bring to the team to estimate

    2. joining a small team: how to do

  8. assess your own experience

Chapter 6: managing multiple teams

Chapter 7: managing managers

  1. hiring manager, philosophy?

Chapter 8: The big leagues

chapter 9: bootstraping culture

  1. culture fit, how to determine

chapter 10: conclusion

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