Management

I used to regularly run the engineering manager community of Practice at my current workplace. I loved and still love it. But now I barely get time to do anything extra. My hours are so squeezed into a specific slot of time - the time when my toddler is not at home. :D I got asked in the community slack channel a very important question. One that a lot of engineering managers debate in their heads. Especially if they used to be tech leads and then switched to managing others. They get their joy from helping others develop and also building something that others can use. ...

Never in my wildest dreams did I think I’d hear of an agile management framework of this name - HoneyBadger. What is HoneyBadger? HoneyBadger is an agile management framework. Now that doesn’t make much sense does it? Don’t we already have plenty of agile management frameworks? Let’s start breaking that down a bit Info ...

I was curious about the title - As your team gets bigger, your leadership style has to adapt. I am not Julie Zhuo, and I am not a Vice President of an organisation just yet. But as I started working at Kaluza, leading multiple teams, I felt like I had to evolve my leadership style accordingly too. The article was reassuring as I feel like I did get some things right. ...

I was recently re-reading, actually, listening to Camille Fournier’s The Manager’s path. In one of the chapters, Camille talks about some questions to ask when hiring managers. One of those questions was — What is your management philosophy? This took me by surprise. I hadn’t thought of it myself. How would I have answered that? What is my management philosophy anyway? Philosophy By definition, Philosophy has several meanings The study of nature, causes, or principles of reality, knowledge, or values, based on logical reasoning system of thought based on or involving such study an underlying theory or set of ideas relating to a particular field of activity or to life as a whole In this question’s context, it is the third definition that we are looking for from the prospective managerial candidate. ...

Starting as an engineering manager As an engineering manager, you already have numerous responsibilities. At an early stage in your engineering manager career, you could even feel overwhelmed by the number of things you have to know. Some of them include Mentoring and coaching your direct reports who are individual contributors Setting strategic objectives for the team and the individuals Performance management - performance improvement programs Recruiting the right engineers for your team, squad, and organization Preparing promotion packs for your engineers Liaising with the people team to ensure benefits and compensation are attractive enough for bringing in new talent Working with Product and Peers to ensure delivery is smooth and dependencies are communicated and coordinated It doesn’t end there. ...

What is invisible work? Work that is done by someone or a group of people that is not tracked anywhere is invisible work! This could be something that is an interruption to your day, this could be a side project that you are doing with someone else in your organisation, or anything along these lines, that is not covered as part of your daily stand-up or updates. In fact, no one apart from those involved in the work know that this work is being done and it doesn’t really have many stakeholders apart from the ones doing the work. ...

There will be a time in your career where you start to think, I have been doing what I’m assigned really well. I would like to do more. Maybe this time, I should lead people. What do you think you need, in order to start working on leadership? Attend a leadership course? Read a book? That is a good start. Wouldn’t it be great if there was one place where you could go to find out what you needed to become a good leader? ...

Are you a people leader, someone whose role involves a lot of influencing others to work towards objectives? Are you a mentor to someone who is at your level or junior whom you are helping navigate their career? Anyone in either of these roles will have conversations that help their coachee/mentee identify goals that matter to them, realise what needs to be done to get there, reflect on what and how they have been doing so far and to encourage them to get to their goals consistently. That is the role of a coach. This sounds like something that is relatively easy to do. But in my experience, it is not. ...

Featured image courtesy https://www.pexels.com/photo/ground-group-growth-hands-461049/ Are you a people leader in a company? What do I mean by a people leader? It is someone who is in charge of managing people and their development, ensuring those people in your care have the room to grow and get the recognition and opportunities they deserve. This is a very difficult role as it is not meant for the selfish. To lead is a unique responsibility where you take ownership of your team’s mistakes while giving credit and celebrating their wins. To lead in a way, is to serve. ...

Featured Image by Austin Distel on Unsplash The title of this post is a bit vague. I agree it doesn’t give away much. Having managed teams since 2015ish, I have finally come to realise that as managers, one must make sure that their team members have an environment to thrive. A place where they can grow, be stretched just enough to feel proud of their achievement and not too much where they feel, work is taking over their life. It is not just about getting something done or achieving a target, but it is more about how you get there in a way that your team is committed to it rather than forced to it. ...