This article discusses the importance of tracking ticket estimation and completion within sprints. It outlines the steps taken to ensure that tickets are estimated and completed within sprints, such as setting a total number of points per person, estimating for QA and ticket closure, and keeping things balanced. It also highlights the importance of tracking progress quarterly and making it open to engineers to ensure that tasks are completed.

Plato

Ashley Miller

Director of Engineering at Datadog

When Company Growth Work Visibility

As a manager, it is important to stay informed about what other teams are doing and to communicate this to your team. This helps to provide context and prevent rumors from circulating. To stay informed, managers should talk to other managers, encourage cross-team mixing, and keep their team up to date in one-on-ones and team meetings. Transparency is key, even if the manager doesn't know much.

Plato

Florian Jourda

First Engineer & Principal Architect at Bayes Impact

A hardly-manageable rockstar dev

At Box, a manager had to deal with a difficult developer who was technically excellent but had a diva-like attitude. Managers were too nice to him and accepted behaviours from him that would have been intolerable from the rest of the team. He was eventually fired, and the lesson learned was that the culture at Box should have been more clearly defined, with one-on-one meetings and clear red lines.

Plato

Dan Johnson

Senior Software Engineer at Netflix, Inc

Additive Hiring: Looking Beyond Common Technical Interview Practices

Technical skills are important for day-to-day work, but what is more important is what a candidate can bring to the team that doesn’t currently exist. When hiring, focus on the candidate's ability to bring a calming influence to the team, as well as their "hungry, humble, and smart" qualities. Interviewers should look for what the candidate can add to the team, rather than just checking boxes.

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Erik Barbara

Engineering Director at Duo Security

How To Establish Team Trust And Cohesion

The manager of a team wanted to foster a sense of team togetherness and trust, so they adopted the Quarterly Business Reviews process used by the sales team. Each team member prepared a thirty-minute presentation with four slides, focusing on what they did well and what they could do better, what they will do in the next quarter, what help they need from the team, and a fun question. Through this process, team members were able to give each other feedback and support each other. As a manager, it is important to be open and vulnerable in order to get the best results.

Plato

Matthew Barnes

CTO at onetwo

The Importance of A Clear Company Culture

Drawboard had not taken their culture seriously from the start, leading to a number of problems. Six months ago, mission and vision statements were introduced, which changed the interview process and allowed for more passionate and energetic hires. Values were also created, which can be used to determine whether a candidate is a good fit. The lesson learned is that mission, vision and value statements are fundamental to the health of an organization.

Plato

Rui Miguel Ferreira

Director of Engineering at Spider AF＠アドフラウド対策

Shortening the Feedback Loop to Improve Collaboration

This article discusses the difficulties of a long feedback loop in a company where the certification process was done externally to the team. To overcome this, the team proposed an idea where they had certification dates, which allowed them to focus on the certification with the external team during the last two or three days of the iteration. This shortened the feedback loop and increased collaboration between teams, allowing them to prioritize the most important items in the backlog.

Plato

Dan Drew

CTO, VP Engineering at Didja Inc

Firing Someone When They Are No Longer A Good Fit

In this case, an employee in QA was not a good fit for the company's move to automation. After consulting with HR, the employee was let go in a respectful manner. This situation taught the importance of treating people fairly and with respect, and being willing to take the necessary steps to ensure the best outcome for the company.

Plato

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Latest Stories

AJ Zane

Software Engineering Manager at Measurabl

A 4-Step Structure for Improving Your Pull Request Review Process for Better Code Delivery

The text discusses the importance of providing context in pull requests (PRs) to improve the PR review process and code development speed. It suggests that a strong PR should include sections such as an overview of the problem the change solves, the context for understanding the impact of the change, instructions for evaluating and replicating the change, and additional information like screenshots or documentation. By providing this context, reviewers can better understand the purpose and impact of the change, leading to more effective and efficient reviews.

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Melanie Zens

Delivery, Operations & Transformation Leader / Certified Executive Coach at Marais Consulting Inc

Beware the Empathy Trap

Empathy in leadership is gaining attention due to its connection to employee engagement and well-being. However, it can be ineffective and even harmful if used incorrectly. It is important to understand the potential downside of empathy and find the right balance of support for team members. Pity, sympathy, and compassion are other emotions that can help empower team members without draining the leader's energy.

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Kamal Raj Guptha R

Engineering Manager at Jeavio

Honesty in Leadership

Leaders should be honest and transparent with their team, even if it means admitting they don't know something or have made a mistake. Faking it will not build trust in the long run. Leaders should be open about their vulnerabilities and mistakes, and put in effort to learn and grow. People understand that no one is perfect, and will still trust and respect a leader who is trying to improve.

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Ahsan Habib

VP Software Engineering at human

V2 infrastructure project

Multi-year infrastructure overhaul (V2) projects are complex and require a clear business driver and customer-facing value. The engineering leader needs to work closely with business leaders and stakeholders to ensure there is consensus on making the long-term investment. The team needs to go through a prototyping phase to identify components that need refactoring/re-architecting, risks associated with the proposed architecture, and the resources/time required to deliver the project. The engineering leader must also decide how to organize the team for success, either by embedding the V2 team in the V1 team or by spinning up a new V2 team. The project plan should include deliverables, budget, resources, and time, and the team should identify risks early and have mitigation plans. The team should also set KPIs and OKRs and celebrate small victories and demos to stakeholders.

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Ron Pragides

ex-SVP Engineering at Trustly

Assessing the Performance of Your Team

The French National Football Team won the 2018 FIFA World Cup, led by exceptional players such as Paul Pogba and Kylian Mbappé. The team was coached by Didier Deschamps, who was also a player on the 1998 championship team. This post discusses the importance of a coach in any team sport, and how an Engineering Manager is similar to a football coach. It also provides a list of metrics to measure the performance of individual team members, such as pull requests merged, bugs or support tickets touched, and open source contributions. Finally, it emphasizes the importance of assessing the “soft” skills of collaboration, motivation, and culture fit in a dynamic business context.

Plato

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