Engineering Management Flashcards
Engineering Manager Role
- Managing Engineering Output
- Managing Stakeholders
- Managing Team
- Managing yourself
Managing Engineering Output - Core Objective
Deliver impactful & reliable output
Managing Engineering Output - Engineering Production Loop
- Work Intake
- Assigning resources
- Tracking Agile Methods
- Sign-off Delivery
- Retrospectives (the most important one)
Managing Engineering Output - Retrospectives 3 types of feedback
- Output - what we just delivered/done
- Process - how we operating
- Roadmap - what is next
Managing Engineering Output - Retrospectives turn feedback into actions
- Next action required - No action vs Next cycle vs Strategic project
- Owner - IC vs PM vs EM
- Checkpoint - when to review this
Managing Engineering Output - Impact and Team Fit
Impact - Work is aligned with a strategic objective and is measurable
Team Fit -Work is scoped for feasible delivery by the team
Managing Engineering Output - Team Fit
- Size
- Skill
- Remit - The strategi objective of the work matches the strategic objective of the team
Managing Engineering Output - Assess the impact
- Absolution Assessment - defined threshold
2. Relative Assessment - compare to other existing work
Managing Engineering Output - Team Impact Matrix
High Impact and High Team Fit: Accept
High Impact and Low Team Fit: Refer
Low Impact and High Team Fit: Enabled(Adjust scope or resource)
Low Impact and Low Team Fit: Decline (Show Empathy and offer rationale)
Managing Engineering Output - Estimation Process
Short-Sighted: Simply fulfil the request
Long-Sighted: Use Estimation to influence future work, use it as an opportunity to strategically lay the groundwork for what’s to come for their team.
Managing Engineering Output - Regular Portfolio Review
Monthly cadence is ideal
Managing Engineering Output - Regular Portfolio Review - Identifying Issues
Project Issues: 1. Diminished business case 2. User signal 3. OKR shifts 4. Tech debt overwhelm 5. Scope creep Portfolio issues: 1. Parallel projects 2. Backchannel work 3. Never ending efforts
Managing Engineering Output - Regular Portfolio Review - Escalate & Collaborate
Project issues normally go to PM
Portfolio issues normally go to the director
Managing Engineering Output - Regular Portfolio Review - Establish a PoV
Adjust: Often the favoured approach when the project has slipped on team fit. Scope vs Time vs Resources
Abandon: External or structural factors are most likely at play. Thus are generally not responsive to the lever adjustments. Planning an exit & Cleaning up Tech Debt & Celebrating the sunset
Work allocation
Junior members work on more reactive/maintenance tasks
Senior members work on long term initiatives
The optimal size for one subdomain
3
1 is too risky for that person to leave
2 has the risk of disagreeing and not making progress
Managing Stakeholders - Collaboration Specs
Why: Strategic Direction, everyone agrees on the ultimate objective
What: Work Definition, everyone agrees on what to do and how the product will look
How: Work Execution. Everyone agrees on how to build the product together
Managing Stakeholders - Tools for Collaboration Specs - Product Strategy Map
Goals
Metrics
Quality Bar
Managing Stakeholders - Tools for Collaboration Specs - Contextual PoVs
Strategic context input
Learned preferences
Blindspots
Team development
Managing Stakeholders - Tools for Collaboration Specs - Collaboration Responsibilities
- Identify key collab responsibilities
- Determine the decision-making framework
- Assign roles for all relevant parties, ownership, participation and awareness, or leave blank.
Managing Stakeholders - Decision-making framework
RACI: Responsible Accountable Consulted Informed
RAPID: Recommend Agree Perform Input Decide
Managing Stakeholders - Tools for Collaboration Specs - Comms Plan
Set regular check-in rituals to stay aligned over time
Start with why
Check responsibility matrix for collab needs
Identify what kind of communication to use, sync or async?
Managing Stakeholders - SBIIN
Situation Behaviour Impact Intent Next
Managing Stakeholders - Stakeholder proximity map
At centre Own eng team POD Product manager, Design and Data team Other Eng teams (EM) Operations (EM & PM) Business (PM) Execs (PM) Outermost
Managing Stakeholders - Inquiry Load Buffer System
- Communication Level, proactively communicate out
- Process Level, ask stakeholders to follow certain ways when inquiry
- Insight - Reflect based on data
Managing Stakeholders - Inquiry to other Eng teams
Same as the load buffer system
- Give heads up and plan together
- Follow the other team’s process
Managing Stakeholders - Inquiry Load Buffer System - Operations
- Provide self-served materials to operational teams
- On-call rotation
- See patterns
Managing Stakeholders - On-call - Prioritization Criteria
- Frequency
- Severity
- Reproducibility
Priority 0 - 3
Managing Stakeholders - Inquiry Load Buffer System - Business
- Provide guidelines
- PM should be the receiver
- Assess product & market maturity
Managing People - Team Health
Positive energy Camaraderie High morale Fun High retention Resilience Honesty & transparency Trust
Those are indicators, not drivers
Managing People - Team Health Drivers
Motivation: Intrinsic Need
Collaboration: Interpersonal Need
Recognition: Extrinsic Need
Managing People - Team Health Drivers - EM Groundwork
Motivation: 1. Team purpose statement 2. Individual team commitments
Collaboration: 1. Tools and Wikis 2. Host knowledge sharing
Recognition: 1. Transparent Compensation 2. Public Kudos Forum
Managing People - Team Health Drivers - EM Maintenance
Motivation: 1. 1:1 meetings 2. Team strategy briefings
Collaboration: 1. Supervise code review 2. Solicit peer feedback
Recognition: 1. Celebrate milestones 2. Value awards
Managing People - Team Development
Engineering Team Competency Model 6 Behavioral Output Quality: - Data & results orientation - Customer focus - Quality / Delivery balance Team Contribution: - Collaboration & Comms - Thought leadership - Citizenship 6 Technical - Languages and Frameworks - Quality Assurance - Documentation - Specialization - Architecture & code design - Security Legal & Compliance
Managing People - Team Development - Managing Team Composition
Headcount
Talent Deficit Map
Talent Need –>
Borrow Contract Hire
Cover Upskill Promote
Attrition –>
month quarter 6 months
Managing People - Team Development - Team Competency Model
Thought Leadership measures both curiosity for next-order knowledge beyond the task at hand—showing an interest in growing one’s skill set—and how well one is tuned into developing methodologies, tools, and trends. It also looks at how an individual seeks opportunities to disseminate knowledge to the team and broader organization.
The last competency within the team contribution quadrant is Citizenship. This looks at how an individual is demonstrably aligned with the org’s greater good beyond the explicit needs of the role. This also considers how one mentors and helps develop the careers of their peers, as well as how they positively represent the team internally and externally.
Managing self - Two Components of Impact
Delivering work output: Immediate output through which an EM and team can be easily evaluated
Building Organizational Capabilities: Harder to evaluate work that sets the team up for the future
Managing self - Optimizing Impact
Deliver the most impact possible
Rebalance based on the needs of the company
Push out impact capacity over time
Managing self - Optimizing Impact - Deliver the most impact possible
Rock pebbles and sand framework
- Categorize your priorities as rocks pebbles and sand
- Plan and execute your activities accordingly
- Reflect and defrag your calendar
Managing self - Optimizing Impact - Rebalance based on the needs of the company
Gathering info from as many channels as possible
- Strategy
- Role and responsibilities
- Others’ priorities
Managing self - Optimizing Impact - Push out impact capacity over time
- Realizing it’s ok to let some things slip
- Getting comfortable delegating
- Learning to operate with less context
Managing self - Optimizing Impact - Delegation
impact
high delegate and monitor keep
neutral delegate and forget delegate and coach
low let slip
multiple team members only you
Managing self - manage your own career
Blue flame of career impact intersect 1. Environment 2. Skills 3. Passions
Managing self - manage your own career - Skills
EM Competency Model Delivery management 1. Product delivery 2. Dynamic planning 3. Reliability management Strategic Domain knowledge 4. Technical design and philosophy 5. Product vision and road mapping 6. Impact delivery Influencing and collaboration 7. Functional management 8. Cross-functional partnership 9. Manage up Team culture development 10. Team management 11. Career growth development 12. Culture setting
Managing self - manage your own career - Environment
Environment variables Env you prefer to work in 1. Company stage 2. Company domain 3. Type of work 4. Role orientation Env factors that accelerate career 5. team 6. Leadership support 7. Compensation philosophy 8. Growth outlook
Managing self - manage your own career - Environment - Type of Product Work
- Initial Product Market Fit
- Product Market Fit Expansion
- Scaling
- Feature Strategy
- Growth Strategy
