A living document about my thoughts and values in managing my teams. If you do not understand my management principles after reading this document, please reach out to me and we'll jump on a call to address that immediately.
This is what you call a "manager readme". As a direct report, use this as a guide on how you'll work with me. If you're not, feel free to take inspiration as I've put a lot of effort on refining my values as a manager of complex individuals over years of experience.
- Engineering excellence - I continue being a programmer because I want to be part of the top 1% of the best programmers. I continuously learn and benchmark myself among other programmers.
- Grit (passion and perseverance) and Growth - I see mistakes as learning opportunities - I persevere, I move on and grow
- Transparency and Trust - The best decisions are the most informed ones. I trust each individual on my team and I trust the team to support me when I need them. As your manager, I can only make a decision to the best of your interests if you let me know the necessary facts, the context and more.
- Being treated fairly - I will address any injustices within my team.
- Your EQ - Are you feeling 100% whenever you work? Are there no issues on your working relationship with someone in or out of the team? Do you feel that you have a great "work-life balance"?
- Your IQ - Are you learning more about the domain knowledge of the company? Are your skills improving? Are you getting better at planning and breaking down tasks?
- Your hunger for growth - Are you wanting more to learn more? Do you have the motivation to grow within the company?
- Your productivity - Do you have enough resources to function at your role? Are you becoming faster in delivering tickets?
- 30 mins 1:1 every week or 1 hour 1:1 every 2 weeks. BUT if you need to talk let's talk, I'm available for my direct reports 24/7, no need to ask me, just put something on my calendar.
- 30 mins Team meeting every month or 1 hour team meeting every 2 months depending on availability and agenda.
- I will communicate to you directly about my feedback on an action you've done as soon as possible. Not necessarily something that starts with "My feedback..."
- Expect me to have your back 100% of the time.
- Be 100% at work every day (if you're not 100% you should probably take a break)
- Attend all meetings on time and take notes
- Come prepared for our 1:1's by preparing a list of things you want to discuss beforehand. It's not a meeting for updates but of topics that have substance. You can share me your successes and mistakes. After all, "a mistake, if shared, becomes a challenge; if hidden, becomes a failure."
- Continuously ask where the company is heading and understand the skills required to help us get there. It may involve new tech stack or new methodologies. I'll try to tell you when I can, but hold me accountable.
- Continuously ask for relevant training (books, workshops, etc.)
- You let me or the team know if you can't do your job, and if you can, you have to actively communicate your progress to the team
- You think like this in terms of priority: 1) customers 2) product 3) project 4) tasks
- You have read this https://www.useronboard.com/features-vs-benefits/ and you measure everything you deliver in terms of how the customer will benefit from it (external or internal). This is as important as writing tests and having proper monitoring/alerts.
- You spend more time with product and customer success teams as they meet more customers than you. Take any opportunity before starting a new project. Try to understand how they would measure the impact on the customer. Ask them for metrics and understand why they chose them.
- You chase down dependencies
- You trim down conversations and push for decisions. It's not always a democracy, the feature/project owners decide as they're responsible for the outcome.
- You make decisions and/or take actions that ultimately reduces the business and tech risks.
- You bring your friends over and help grow the team
- You debate and disagree with me and you feel safe doing that
- You are not afraid to call out anyone on something that doesn't make sense to you. "Be kind, be constructive, but never hold back."
- By performance review season, you have procured a list of things you have delivered of significant impact within the time period specified for the review. Depending on your level, 80%-100% of your score will depend on customer impact, 0-20% on team impact.