Knowledge shared by our community

I struggled with giving critical feedback to a friendly employee

A new developer was hired for a team and their work was not up to par. After six months, the team leader gave feedback but didn't make it clear that expectations were not being met. After two projects, the team leader put the developer on a performance improvement plan, but there were no significant improvements. Eventually, the team leader had to let the developer go. Looking back, the team leader realized that they should have given critical feedback earlier and made it clear that expectations were not being met.

Interactions between Product and Engineering teams

At Datto, the product team and engineering team collaborate to create user stories that define business value and acceptance criteria. The PMs get Certified Product Owner training, the SM works with the PM to craft stories, and the SM, PM and team lead meet weekly to develop stories. Deadlines can not be set without iterations on the stories, and the business needs to buy into Agile work processes.

My basics for handling your own manager

When starting with a new manager, it is important to build trust and credibility quickly. This can be done by copying them in on emails, having regular sync-ups, and not joining in on gossip. Additionally, it is important to be a problem solver and to help fix any broken processes. Doing so will help build trust and credibility with the manager.

When to Fire Quickly

When dealing with an employee who is not performing well, a slow approach is generally taken. However, if the employee is making their coworkers uncomfortable, they should be let go quickly as it is difficult to fix personality and team dynamics issues. This was the case with a team whose happiness scores had dropped substantially, and the employee was being disrespectful to teammates. After the employee was fired, the team's communication improved and the unspoken tension evaporated quickly. This experience taught that it is important to act quickly when someone is making their team uncomfortable.

Adaptation to the company culture as a manager

A new Director of Engineering was hired at Box, but their behaviour was at odds with the company culture and caused a toxic atmosphere between them and the CTO. After a month of one-on-ones, the CTO let go of the DoE. The lesson learned is that company-culture fit should be evaluated during the hiring process to avoid similar issues.

How to promote the right engineers to management roles

This story recounts the experience of a former Evite employee who was promoted to manager after demonstrating leadership skills in helping a colleague adjust to the new scrum system. The employee's main concern was to maintain the same relationship with their peers, which was achieved by having open dialogues and listening to their needs. This experience has taught the employee that managing people is about listening to them and collaborating with them, which has been a philosophy they have applied in their career.

Making the best out of a rockstar developer

A tech lead was not performing well in their leadership role, so the manager decided to use their technical legitimacy to promote changes and assigned them the position of "Special Project Engineer". This allowed the team to make the best out of the individual and gain a key source of support. The lesson learned is that managers should be creative in finding ways to make the best out of their team members.

Five ways to build a thriving culture in a remote team

Mixmax CTO experienced "growing pains" when managing remote engineers, leading to decreased engagement and productivity. To improve the remote team culture, they raised the hiring bar for remote candidates, held company stand-ups and engineering co-working sessions, escalated conversations when chat didn't suffice, set core company hours, and brought the team together for off-sites. These actions improved the remote team culture and productivity.

Doing everything in your power to make your team successful

DocuSign experienced downtime due to an unexpected change to Microsoft's Authorisations and Permissions management. The team panicked, but the manager leveraged relationships to escalate the problem and get the systems back up quickly. The manager learned that monitoring is key, not to trust anyone, and to maintain relationships. As a result, DocuSign implemented a new way to detect errors and updated contacts with large companies.

Implementing a better collaboration between Product and Engineering

The VP of a team of four engineers noticed their lack of efficiency and ineffectiveness in delivering software. After investigating, the root of the problem was found to be unclear requests and changes being made while work was in progress. The engineer then set clear goals and criteria for the team and educated the product team on how to make better requests. This resulted in the team's velocity increasing three times over and a significant increase in motivation. The VP had not had the full picture and the problem was solved by establishing clear processes.

Teaching leadership through influence

As a team leader, the author identified four engineers with potential for leadership and used a simple task - organizing a team lunch - to teach them leadership through influence. After the team lunch, the author had a post-mortem with the engineer and two of the four engineers have since moved up to manager level. This experience has taught the author that leading through influence is more challenging than leading through authority, but can be effectively taught through simple tasks.

Rethinking onboarding and mentorship practices for newcomers

In order to ensure that new employees would be set up for success in the future, a comprehensive onboarding and mentorship program was established. This program consists of a mentor guiding the new employee through their first few pieces of work and providing a document with expectations, milestones and directions over a three-month period. The mentor is the point of contact for all questions or concerns. This program enables newcomers to integrate themselves faster and provides them with a sense of security.

Understanding how different people contribute helps with setting goals

This article discusses the importance of assessing performance in a team context. It shares the story of an engineer who was an average performer in terms of output, but was the enabler for the whole team. The article emphasizes the need to consider both what is getting done and how it is getting done when assessing performance, and suggests an investigative approach to understanding how people contribute to the team. It also cautions against tying monetary rewards directly to altruistic behaviors.

Invest in investigation

This article describes the process of a team assigned a large project of updating a 16-year old system. The team split the work into modules and then estimated the tasks by finding the best people to evaluate each task and giving them time to investigate. The key lesson learned was to invest in investigation to understand the scope of the project and to allow time for engineers to investigate tasks. The Engineering Manager's job is to facilitate the process by working with leadership and decision-makers, and to communicate requirements and deadlines.

Designing the right team-building activities

The author realized that happy hours were not inclusive for all team members and rethought team-building activities to be personalized based on the interests of the team. Through these activities, the author was able to foster a sense of social inclusion within the team and with the broader company. The team members enjoyed the happy hours, movie nights, team barbecues, and hikes, which helped build bonds and raise awareness about various team responsibilities.

How to communicate about reorganization

When managing a team of backend engineers at Slack, the company experienced coordination problems when planning feature releases with the product team. To solve this, a reorganization of teams was proposed. To ensure the engineers would not be negatively affected, the team was warned of the changes, one-on-one meetings were held, and the decision was announced to the rest of the engineering team. The reorganization was successful and the engineers now feel like they can play a bigger role in projects. It is important to communicate changes well and consider the best way to do it, the timeline, and the people involved.

Finding the right way to communicate the 2017 team strategy

When inheriting a team from a company acquisition, the new manager faced pushback when rolling out the 2017 vision. To overcome this, they devised a strategy to communicate the vision, reduce headcount, and set up targets to move forward. The strategy included having a clear vision, setting up a coalition of people buying into the vision, setting up targets, over-communicating progress, and celebrating behaviors that head towards the goal. After implementing the strategy, the velocity reached the previous team's velocity in less than 60 days.

Sharing vision can contribute to team engagement

Oliver, an engineering manager, noticed a decrease in his team's productivity and motivation. After observing their behavior, he asked for advice and joined one of their weekly team meetings. It was discovered that the engineers had no idea of the impact of their projects on the company, and were only focused on delivery and execution. Oliver was advised to communicate the strategic vision of the company to his team and link their tasks to an objective of the company. This experience taught Oliver that the role of a manager is not only about making sure their team delivers well, but also about keeping them motivated by helping them understand why their contribution is important for the company.

How to solve a conflict between two team members

When two senior architects on a team had conflicting views, the manager asked them to write down their top three concerns and brainstorm together. This enabled them to address all but one of their disagreements. For the last issue, they chose an arbitrator to solve it. The manager learned that discussion, arbitration, and escalation to senior management are three ways to solve a conflict. Writing down ideas is a great first step to avoid heightened emotions and to find a satisfying solution.

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.

I struggled with giving critical feedback to a friendly employee

A new developer was hired for a team and their work was not up to par. After six months, the team leader gave feedback but didn't make it clear that expectations were not being met. After two projects, the team leader put the developer on a performance improvement plan, but there were no significant improvements. Eventually, the team leader had to let the developer go. Looking back, the team leader realized that they should have given critical feedback earlier and made it clear that expectations were not being met.

Interactions between Product and Engineering teams

At Datto, the product team and engineering team collaborate to create user stories that define business value and acceptance criteria. The PMs get Certified Product Owner training, the SM works with the PM to craft stories, and the SM, PM and team lead meet weekly to develop stories. Deadlines can not be set without iterations on the stories, and the business needs to buy into Agile work processes.

My basics for handling your own manager

When starting with a new manager, it is important to build trust and credibility quickly. This can be done by copying them in on emails, having regular sync-ups, and not joining in on gossip. Additionally, it is important to be a problem solver and to help fix any broken processes. Doing so will help build trust and credibility with the manager.

When to Fire Quickly

When dealing with an employee who is not performing well, a slow approach is generally taken. However, if the employee is making their coworkers uncomfortable, they should be let go quickly as it is difficult to fix personality and team dynamics issues. This was the case with a team whose happiness scores had dropped substantially, and the employee was being disrespectful to teammates. After the employee was fired, the team's communication improved and the unspoken tension evaporated quickly. This experience taught that it is important to act quickly when someone is making their team uncomfortable.

Adaptation to the company culture as a manager

A new Director of Engineering was hired at Box, but their behaviour was at odds with the company culture and caused a toxic atmosphere between them and the CTO. After a month of one-on-ones, the CTO let go of the DoE. The lesson learned is that company-culture fit should be evaluated during the hiring process to avoid similar issues.

How to promote the right engineers to management roles

This story recounts the experience of a former Evite employee who was promoted to manager after demonstrating leadership skills in helping a colleague adjust to the new scrum system. The employee's main concern was to maintain the same relationship with their peers, which was achieved by having open dialogues and listening to their needs. This experience has taught the employee that managing people is about listening to them and collaborating with them, which has been a philosophy they have applied in their career.

Making the best out of a rockstar developer

A tech lead was not performing well in their leadership role, so the manager decided to use their technical legitimacy to promote changes and assigned them the position of "Special Project Engineer". This allowed the team to make the best out of the individual and gain a key source of support. The lesson learned is that managers should be creative in finding ways to make the best out of their team members.

Five ways to build a thriving culture in a remote team

Mixmax CTO experienced "growing pains" when managing remote engineers, leading to decreased engagement and productivity. To improve the remote team culture, they raised the hiring bar for remote candidates, held company stand-ups and engineering co-working sessions, escalated conversations when chat didn't suffice, set core company hours, and brought the team together for off-sites. These actions improved the remote team culture and productivity.

Doing everything in your power to make your team successful

DocuSign experienced downtime due to an unexpected change to Microsoft's Authorisations and Permissions management. The team panicked, but the manager leveraged relationships to escalate the problem and get the systems back up quickly. The manager learned that monitoring is key, not to trust anyone, and to maintain relationships. As a result, DocuSign implemented a new way to detect errors and updated contacts with large companies.

Implementing a better collaboration between Product and Engineering

The VP of a team of four engineers noticed their lack of efficiency and ineffectiveness in delivering software. After investigating, the root of the problem was found to be unclear requests and changes being made while work was in progress. The engineer then set clear goals and criteria for the team and educated the product team on how to make better requests. This resulted in the team's velocity increasing three times over and a significant increase in motivation. The VP had not had the full picture and the problem was solved by establishing clear processes.

Teaching leadership through influence

As a team leader, the author identified four engineers with potential for leadership and used a simple task - organizing a team lunch - to teach them leadership through influence. After the team lunch, the author had a post-mortem with the engineer and two of the four engineers have since moved up to manager level. This experience has taught the author that leading through influence is more challenging than leading through authority, but can be effectively taught through simple tasks.

Rethinking onboarding and mentorship practices for newcomers

In order to ensure that new employees would be set up for success in the future, a comprehensive onboarding and mentorship program was established. This program consists of a mentor guiding the new employee through their first few pieces of work and providing a document with expectations, milestones and directions over a three-month period. The mentor is the point of contact for all questions or concerns. This program enables newcomers to integrate themselves faster and provides them with a sense of security.

Understanding how different people contribute helps with setting goals

This article discusses the importance of assessing performance in a team context. It shares the story of an engineer who was an average performer in terms of output, but was the enabler for the whole team. The article emphasizes the need to consider both what is getting done and how it is getting done when assessing performance, and suggests an investigative approach to understanding how people contribute to the team. It also cautions against tying monetary rewards directly to altruistic behaviors.

Invest in investigation

This article describes the process of a team assigned a large project of updating a 16-year old system. The team split the work into modules and then estimated the tasks by finding the best people to evaluate each task and giving them time to investigate. The key lesson learned was to invest in investigation to understand the scope of the project and to allow time for engineers to investigate tasks. The Engineering Manager's job is to facilitate the process by working with leadership and decision-makers, and to communicate requirements and deadlines.

Designing the right team-building activities

The author realized that happy hours were not inclusive for all team members and rethought team-building activities to be personalized based on the interests of the team. Through these activities, the author was able to foster a sense of social inclusion within the team and with the broader company. The team members enjoyed the happy hours, movie nights, team barbecues, and hikes, which helped build bonds and raise awareness about various team responsibilities.

How to communicate about reorganization

When managing a team of backend engineers at Slack, the company experienced coordination problems when planning feature releases with the product team. To solve this, a reorganization of teams was proposed. To ensure the engineers would not be negatively affected, the team was warned of the changes, one-on-one meetings were held, and the decision was announced to the rest of the engineering team. The reorganization was successful and the engineers now feel like they can play a bigger role in projects. It is important to communicate changes well and consider the best way to do it, the timeline, and the people involved.

Finding the right way to communicate the 2017 team strategy

When inheriting a team from a company acquisition, the new manager faced pushback when rolling out the 2017 vision. To overcome this, they devised a strategy to communicate the vision, reduce headcount, and set up targets to move forward. The strategy included having a clear vision, setting up a coalition of people buying into the vision, setting up targets, over-communicating progress, and celebrating behaviors that head towards the goal. After implementing the strategy, the velocity reached the previous team's velocity in less than 60 days.

Sharing vision can contribute to team engagement

Oliver, an engineering manager, noticed a decrease in his team's productivity and motivation. After observing their behavior, he asked for advice and joined one of their weekly team meetings. It was discovered that the engineers had no idea of the impact of their projects on the company, and were only focused on delivery and execution. Oliver was advised to communicate the strategic vision of the company to his team and link their tasks to an objective of the company. This experience taught Oliver that the role of a manager is not only about making sure their team delivers well, but also about keeping them motivated by helping them understand why their contribution is important for the company.

How to solve a conflict between two team members

When two senior architects on a team had conflicting views, the manager asked them to write down their top three concerns and brainstorm together. This enabled them to address all but one of their disagreements. For the last issue, they chose an arbitrator to solve it. The manager learned that discussion, arbitration, and escalation to senior management are three ways to solve a conflict. Writing down ideas is a great first step to avoid heightened emotions and to find a satisfying solution.

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.

I struggled with giving critical feedback to a friendly employee

A new developer was hired for a team and their work was not up to par. After six months, the team leader gave feedback but didn't make it clear that expectations were not being met. After two projects, the team leader put the developer on a performance improvement plan, but there were no significant improvements. Eventually, the team leader had to let the developer go. Looking back, the team leader realized that they should have given critical feedback earlier and made it clear that expectations were not being met.

Interactions between Product and Engineering teams

At Datto, the product team and engineering team collaborate to create user stories that define business value and acceptance criteria. The PMs get Certified Product Owner training, the SM works with the PM to craft stories, and the SM, PM and team lead meet weekly to develop stories. Deadlines can not be set without iterations on the stories, and the business needs to buy into Agile work processes.

My basics for handling your own manager

When starting with a new manager, it is important to build trust and credibility quickly. This can be done by copying them in on emails, having regular sync-ups, and not joining in on gossip. Additionally, it is important to be a problem solver and to help fix any broken processes. Doing so will help build trust and credibility with the manager.

When to Fire Quickly

When dealing with an employee who is not performing well, a slow approach is generally taken. However, if the employee is making their coworkers uncomfortable, they should be let go quickly as it is difficult to fix personality and team dynamics issues. This was the case with a team whose happiness scores had dropped substantially, and the employee was being disrespectful to teammates. After the employee was fired, the team's communication improved and the unspoken tension evaporated quickly. This experience taught that it is important to act quickly when someone is making their team uncomfortable.

Adaptation to the company culture as a manager

A new Director of Engineering was hired at Box, but their behaviour was at odds with the company culture and caused a toxic atmosphere between them and the CTO. After a month of one-on-ones, the CTO let go of the DoE. The lesson learned is that company-culture fit should be evaluated during the hiring process to avoid similar issues.

How to promote the right engineers to management roles

This story recounts the experience of a former Evite employee who was promoted to manager after demonstrating leadership skills in helping a colleague adjust to the new scrum system. The employee's main concern was to maintain the same relationship with their peers, which was achieved by having open dialogues and listening to their needs. This experience has taught the employee that managing people is about listening to them and collaborating with them, which has been a philosophy they have applied in their career.

Making the best out of a rockstar developer

A tech lead was not performing well in their leadership role, so the manager decided to use their technical legitimacy to promote changes and assigned them the position of "Special Project Engineer". This allowed the team to make the best out of the individual and gain a key source of support. The lesson learned is that managers should be creative in finding ways to make the best out of their team members.

Five ways to build a thriving culture in a remote team

Mixmax CTO experienced "growing pains" when managing remote engineers, leading to decreased engagement and productivity. To improve the remote team culture, they raised the hiring bar for remote candidates, held company stand-ups and engineering co-working sessions, escalated conversations when chat didn't suffice, set core company hours, and brought the team together for off-sites. These actions improved the remote team culture and productivity.

Doing everything in your power to make your team successful

DocuSign experienced downtime due to an unexpected change to Microsoft's Authorisations and Permissions management. The team panicked, but the manager leveraged relationships to escalate the problem and get the systems back up quickly. The manager learned that monitoring is key, not to trust anyone, and to maintain relationships. As a result, DocuSign implemented a new way to detect errors and updated contacts with large companies.

Implementing a better collaboration between Product and Engineering

The VP of a team of four engineers noticed their lack of efficiency and ineffectiveness in delivering software. After investigating, the root of the problem was found to be unclear requests and changes being made while work was in progress. The engineer then set clear goals and criteria for the team and educated the product team on how to make better requests. This resulted in the team's velocity increasing three times over and a significant increase in motivation. The VP had not had the full picture and the problem was solved by establishing clear processes.

Teaching leadership through influence

As a team leader, the author identified four engineers with potential for leadership and used a simple task - organizing a team lunch - to teach them leadership through influence. After the team lunch, the author had a post-mortem with the engineer and two of the four engineers have since moved up to manager level. This experience has taught the author that leading through influence is more challenging than leading through authority, but can be effectively taught through simple tasks.

Rethinking onboarding and mentorship practices for newcomers

In order to ensure that new employees would be set up for success in the future, a comprehensive onboarding and mentorship program was established. This program consists of a mentor guiding the new employee through their first few pieces of work and providing a document with expectations, milestones and directions over a three-month period. The mentor is the point of contact for all questions or concerns. This program enables newcomers to integrate themselves faster and provides them with a sense of security.

Understanding how different people contribute helps with setting goals

This article discusses the importance of assessing performance in a team context. It shares the story of an engineer who was an average performer in terms of output, but was the enabler for the whole team. The article emphasizes the need to consider both what is getting done and how it is getting done when assessing performance, and suggests an investigative approach to understanding how people contribute to the team. It also cautions against tying monetary rewards directly to altruistic behaviors.

Invest in investigation

This article describes the process of a team assigned a large project of updating a 16-year old system. The team split the work into modules and then estimated the tasks by finding the best people to evaluate each task and giving them time to investigate. The key lesson learned was to invest in investigation to understand the scope of the project and to allow time for engineers to investigate tasks. The Engineering Manager's job is to facilitate the process by working with leadership and decision-makers, and to communicate requirements and deadlines.

Designing the right team-building activities

The author realized that happy hours were not inclusive for all team members and rethought team-building activities to be personalized based on the interests of the team. Through these activities, the author was able to foster a sense of social inclusion within the team and with the broader company. The team members enjoyed the happy hours, movie nights, team barbecues, and hikes, which helped build bonds and raise awareness about various team responsibilities.

How to communicate about reorganization

When managing a team of backend engineers at Slack, the company experienced coordination problems when planning feature releases with the product team. To solve this, a reorganization of teams was proposed. To ensure the engineers would not be negatively affected, the team was warned of the changes, one-on-one meetings were held, and the decision was announced to the rest of the engineering team. The reorganization was successful and the engineers now feel like they can play a bigger role in projects. It is important to communicate changes well and consider the best way to do it, the timeline, and the people involved.

Finding the right way to communicate the 2017 team strategy

When inheriting a team from a company acquisition, the new manager faced pushback when rolling out the 2017 vision. To overcome this, they devised a strategy to communicate the vision, reduce headcount, and set up targets to move forward. The strategy included having a clear vision, setting up a coalition of people buying into the vision, setting up targets, over-communicating progress, and celebrating behaviors that head towards the goal. After implementing the strategy, the velocity reached the previous team's velocity in less than 60 days.

Sharing vision can contribute to team engagement

Oliver, an engineering manager, noticed a decrease in his team's productivity and motivation. After observing their behavior, he asked for advice and joined one of their weekly team meetings. It was discovered that the engineers had no idea of the impact of their projects on the company, and were only focused on delivery and execution. Oliver was advised to communicate the strategic vision of the company to his team and link their tasks to an objective of the company. This experience taught Oliver that the role of a manager is not only about making sure their team delivers well, but also about keeping them motivated by helping them understand why their contribution is important for the company.

How to solve a conflict between two team members

When two senior architects on a team had conflicting views, the manager asked them to write down their top three concerns and brainstorm together. This enabled them to address all but one of their disagreements. For the last issue, they chose an arbitrator to solve it. The manager learned that discussion, arbitration, and escalation to senior management are three ways to solve a conflict. Writing down ideas is a great first step to avoid heightened emotions and to find a satisfying solution.

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.

I struggled with giving critical feedback to a friendly employee

A new developer was hired for a team and their work was not up to par. After six months, the team leader gave feedback but didn't make it clear that expectations were not being met. After two projects, the team leader put the developer on a performance improvement plan, but there were no significant improvements. Eventually, the team leader had to let the developer go. Looking back, the team leader realized that they should have given critical feedback earlier and made it clear that expectations were not being met.

Interactions between Product and Engineering teams

At Datto, the product team and engineering team collaborate to create user stories that define business value and acceptance criteria. The PMs get Certified Product Owner training, the SM works with the PM to craft stories, and the SM, PM and team lead meet weekly to develop stories. Deadlines can not be set without iterations on the stories, and the business needs to buy into Agile work processes.

My basics for handling your own manager

When starting with a new manager, it is important to build trust and credibility quickly. This can be done by copying them in on emails, having regular sync-ups, and not joining in on gossip. Additionally, it is important to be a problem solver and to help fix any broken processes. Doing so will help build trust and credibility with the manager.

When to Fire Quickly

When dealing with an employee who is not performing well, a slow approach is generally taken. However, if the employee is making their coworkers uncomfortable, they should be let go quickly as it is difficult to fix personality and team dynamics issues. This was the case with a team whose happiness scores had dropped substantially, and the employee was being disrespectful to teammates. After the employee was fired, the team's communication improved and the unspoken tension evaporated quickly. This experience taught that it is important to act quickly when someone is making their team uncomfortable.

Adaptation to the company culture as a manager

A new Director of Engineering was hired at Box, but their behaviour was at odds with the company culture and caused a toxic atmosphere between them and the CTO. After a month of one-on-ones, the CTO let go of the DoE. The lesson learned is that company-culture fit should be evaluated during the hiring process to avoid similar issues.

How to promote the right engineers to management roles

This story recounts the experience of a former Evite employee who was promoted to manager after demonstrating leadership skills in helping a colleague adjust to the new scrum system. The employee's main concern was to maintain the same relationship with their peers, which was achieved by having open dialogues and listening to their needs. This experience has taught the employee that managing people is about listening to them and collaborating with them, which has been a philosophy they have applied in their career.

Making the best out of a rockstar developer

A tech lead was not performing well in their leadership role, so the manager decided to use their technical legitimacy to promote changes and assigned them the position of "Special Project Engineer". This allowed the team to make the best out of the individual and gain a key source of support. The lesson learned is that managers should be creative in finding ways to make the best out of their team members.

Five ways to build a thriving culture in a remote team

Mixmax CTO experienced "growing pains" when managing remote engineers, leading to decreased engagement and productivity. To improve the remote team culture, they raised the hiring bar for remote candidates, held company stand-ups and engineering co-working sessions, escalated conversations when chat didn't suffice, set core company hours, and brought the team together for off-sites. These actions improved the remote team culture and productivity.

Doing everything in your power to make your team successful

DocuSign experienced downtime due to an unexpected change to Microsoft's Authorisations and Permissions management. The team panicked, but the manager leveraged relationships to escalate the problem and get the systems back up quickly. The manager learned that monitoring is key, not to trust anyone, and to maintain relationships. As a result, DocuSign implemented a new way to detect errors and updated contacts with large companies.

Implementing a better collaboration between Product and Engineering

The VP of a team of four engineers noticed their lack of efficiency and ineffectiveness in delivering software. After investigating, the root of the problem was found to be unclear requests and changes being made while work was in progress. The engineer then set clear goals and criteria for the team and educated the product team on how to make better requests. This resulted in the team's velocity increasing three times over and a significant increase in motivation. The VP had not had the full picture and the problem was solved by establishing clear processes.

Teaching leadership through influence

As a team leader, the author identified four engineers with potential for leadership and used a simple task - organizing a team lunch - to teach them leadership through influence. After the team lunch, the author had a post-mortem with the engineer and two of the four engineers have since moved up to manager level. This experience has taught the author that leading through influence is more challenging than leading through authority, but can be effectively taught through simple tasks.

Rethinking onboarding and mentorship practices for newcomers

In order to ensure that new employees would be set up for success in the future, a comprehensive onboarding and mentorship program was established. This program consists of a mentor guiding the new employee through their first few pieces of work and providing a document with expectations, milestones and directions over a three-month period. The mentor is the point of contact for all questions or concerns. This program enables newcomers to integrate themselves faster and provides them with a sense of security.

Understanding how different people contribute helps with setting goals

This article discusses the importance of assessing performance in a team context. It shares the story of an engineer who was an average performer in terms of output, but was the enabler for the whole team. The article emphasizes the need to consider both what is getting done and how it is getting done when assessing performance, and suggests an investigative approach to understanding how people contribute to the team. It also cautions against tying monetary rewards directly to altruistic behaviors.

Invest in investigation

This article describes the process of a team assigned a large project of updating a 16-year old system. The team split the work into modules and then estimated the tasks by finding the best people to evaluate each task and giving them time to investigate. The key lesson learned was to invest in investigation to understand the scope of the project and to allow time for engineers to investigate tasks. The Engineering Manager's job is to facilitate the process by working with leadership and decision-makers, and to communicate requirements and deadlines.

Designing the right team-building activities

The author realized that happy hours were not inclusive for all team members and rethought team-building activities to be personalized based on the interests of the team. Through these activities, the author was able to foster a sense of social inclusion within the team and with the broader company. The team members enjoyed the happy hours, movie nights, team barbecues, and hikes, which helped build bonds and raise awareness about various team responsibilities.

How to communicate about reorganization

When managing a team of backend engineers at Slack, the company experienced coordination problems when planning feature releases with the product team. To solve this, a reorganization of teams was proposed. To ensure the engineers would not be negatively affected, the team was warned of the changes, one-on-one meetings were held, and the decision was announced to the rest of the engineering team. The reorganization was successful and the engineers now feel like they can play a bigger role in projects. It is important to communicate changes well and consider the best way to do it, the timeline, and the people involved.

Finding the right way to communicate the 2017 team strategy

When inheriting a team from a company acquisition, the new manager faced pushback when rolling out the 2017 vision. To overcome this, they devised a strategy to communicate the vision, reduce headcount, and set up targets to move forward. The strategy included having a clear vision, setting up a coalition of people buying into the vision, setting up targets, over-communicating progress, and celebrating behaviors that head towards the goal. After implementing the strategy, the velocity reached the previous team's velocity in less than 60 days.

Sharing vision can contribute to team engagement

Oliver, an engineering manager, noticed a decrease in his team's productivity and motivation. After observing their behavior, he asked for advice and joined one of their weekly team meetings. It was discovered that the engineers had no idea of the impact of their projects on the company, and were only focused on delivery and execution. Oliver was advised to communicate the strategic vision of the company to his team and link their tasks to an objective of the company. This experience taught Oliver that the role of a manager is not only about making sure their team delivers well, but also about keeping them motivated by helping them understand why their contribution is important for the company.

How to solve a conflict between two team members

When two senior architects on a team had conflicting views, the manager asked them to write down their top three concerns and brainstorm together. This enabled them to address all but one of their disagreements. For the last issue, they chose an arbitrator to solve it. The manager learned that discussion, arbitration, and escalation to senior management are three ways to solve a conflict. Writing down ideas is a great first step to avoid heightened emotions and to find a satisfying solution.

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.

I struggled with giving critical feedback to a friendly employee

A new developer was hired for a team and their work was not up to par. After six months, the team leader gave feedback but didn't make it clear that expectations were not being met. After two projects, the team leader put the developer on a performance improvement plan, but there were no significant improvements. Eventually, the team leader had to let the developer go. Looking back, the team leader realized that they should have given critical feedback earlier and made it clear that expectations were not being met.

Interactions between Product and Engineering teams

At Datto, the product team and engineering team collaborate to create user stories that define business value and acceptance criteria. The PMs get Certified Product Owner training, the SM works with the PM to craft stories, and the SM, PM and team lead meet weekly to develop stories. Deadlines can not be set without iterations on the stories, and the business needs to buy into Agile work processes.

My basics for handling your own manager

When starting with a new manager, it is important to build trust and credibility quickly. This can be done by copying them in on emails, having regular sync-ups, and not joining in on gossip. Additionally, it is important to be a problem solver and to help fix any broken processes. Doing so will help build trust and credibility with the manager.

When to Fire Quickly

When dealing with an employee who is not performing well, a slow approach is generally taken. However, if the employee is making their coworkers uncomfortable, they should be let go quickly as it is difficult to fix personality and team dynamics issues. This was the case with a team whose happiness scores had dropped substantially, and the employee was being disrespectful to teammates. After the employee was fired, the team's communication improved and the unspoken tension evaporated quickly. This experience taught that it is important to act quickly when someone is making their team uncomfortable.

Adaptation to the company culture as a manager

A new Director of Engineering was hired at Box, but their behaviour was at odds with the company culture and caused a toxic atmosphere between them and the CTO. After a month of one-on-ones, the CTO let go of the DoE. The lesson learned is that company-culture fit should be evaluated during the hiring process to avoid similar issues.

How to promote the right engineers to management roles

This story recounts the experience of a former Evite employee who was promoted to manager after demonstrating leadership skills in helping a colleague adjust to the new scrum system. The employee's main concern was to maintain the same relationship with their peers, which was achieved by having open dialogues and listening to their needs. This experience has taught the employee that managing people is about listening to them and collaborating with them, which has been a philosophy they have applied in their career.

Making the best out of a rockstar developer

A tech lead was not performing well in their leadership role, so the manager decided to use their technical legitimacy to promote changes and assigned them the position of "Special Project Engineer". This allowed the team to make the best out of the individual and gain a key source of support. The lesson learned is that managers should be creative in finding ways to make the best out of their team members.

Five ways to build a thriving culture in a remote team

Mixmax CTO experienced "growing pains" when managing remote engineers, leading to decreased engagement and productivity. To improve the remote team culture, they raised the hiring bar for remote candidates, held company stand-ups and engineering co-working sessions, escalated conversations when chat didn't suffice, set core company hours, and brought the team together for off-sites. These actions improved the remote team culture and productivity.

Doing everything in your power to make your team successful

DocuSign experienced downtime due to an unexpected change to Microsoft's Authorisations and Permissions management. The team panicked, but the manager leveraged relationships to escalate the problem and get the systems back up quickly. The manager learned that monitoring is key, not to trust anyone, and to maintain relationships. As a result, DocuSign implemented a new way to detect errors and updated contacts with large companies.

Implementing a better collaboration between Product and Engineering

The VP of a team of four engineers noticed their lack of efficiency and ineffectiveness in delivering software. After investigating, the root of the problem was found to be unclear requests and changes being made while work was in progress. The engineer then set clear goals and criteria for the team and educated the product team on how to make better requests. This resulted in the team's velocity increasing three times over and a significant increase in motivation. The VP had not had the full picture and the problem was solved by establishing clear processes.

Teaching leadership through influence

As a team leader, the author identified four engineers with potential for leadership and used a simple task - organizing a team lunch - to teach them leadership through influence. After the team lunch, the author had a post-mortem with the engineer and two of the four engineers have since moved up to manager level. This experience has taught the author that leading through influence is more challenging than leading through authority, but can be effectively taught through simple tasks.

Rethinking onboarding and mentorship practices for newcomers

In order to ensure that new employees would be set up for success in the future, a comprehensive onboarding and mentorship program was established. This program consists of a mentor guiding the new employee through their first few pieces of work and providing a document with expectations, milestones and directions over a three-month period. The mentor is the point of contact for all questions or concerns. This program enables newcomers to integrate themselves faster and provides them with a sense of security.

Understanding how different people contribute helps with setting goals

This article discusses the importance of assessing performance in a team context. It shares the story of an engineer who was an average performer in terms of output, but was the enabler for the whole team. The article emphasizes the need to consider both what is getting done and how it is getting done when assessing performance, and suggests an investigative approach to understanding how people contribute to the team. It also cautions against tying monetary rewards directly to altruistic behaviors.

Invest in investigation

This article describes the process of a team assigned a large project of updating a 16-year old system. The team split the work into modules and then estimated the tasks by finding the best people to evaluate each task and giving them time to investigate. The key lesson learned was to invest in investigation to understand the scope of the project and to allow time for engineers to investigate tasks. The Engineering Manager's job is to facilitate the process by working with leadership and decision-makers, and to communicate requirements and deadlines.

Designing the right team-building activities

The author realized that happy hours were not inclusive for all team members and rethought team-building activities to be personalized based on the interests of the team. Through these activities, the author was able to foster a sense of social inclusion within the team and with the broader company. The team members enjoyed the happy hours, movie nights, team barbecues, and hikes, which helped build bonds and raise awareness about various team responsibilities.

How to communicate about reorganization

When managing a team of backend engineers at Slack, the company experienced coordination problems when planning feature releases with the product team. To solve this, a reorganization of teams was proposed. To ensure the engineers would not be negatively affected, the team was warned of the changes, one-on-one meetings were held, and the decision was announced to the rest of the engineering team. The reorganization was successful and the engineers now feel like they can play a bigger role in projects. It is important to communicate changes well and consider the best way to do it, the timeline, and the people involved.

Finding the right way to communicate the 2017 team strategy

When inheriting a team from a company acquisition, the new manager faced pushback when rolling out the 2017 vision. To overcome this, they devised a strategy to communicate the vision, reduce headcount, and set up targets to move forward. The strategy included having a clear vision, setting up a coalition of people buying into the vision, setting up targets, over-communicating progress, and celebrating behaviors that head towards the goal. After implementing the strategy, the velocity reached the previous team's velocity in less than 60 days.

Sharing vision can contribute to team engagement

Oliver, an engineering manager, noticed a decrease in his team's productivity and motivation. After observing their behavior, he asked for advice and joined one of their weekly team meetings. It was discovered that the engineers had no idea of the impact of their projects on the company, and were only focused on delivery and execution. Oliver was advised to communicate the strategic vision of the company to his team and link their tasks to an objective of the company. This experience taught Oliver that the role of a manager is not only about making sure their team delivers well, but also about keeping them motivated by helping them understand why their contribution is important for the company.

How to solve a conflict between two team members

When two senior architects on a team had conflicting views, the manager asked them to write down their top three concerns and brainstorm together. This enabled them to address all but one of their disagreements. For the last issue, they chose an arbitrator to solve it. The manager learned that discussion, arbitration, and escalation to senior management are three ways to solve a conflict. Writing down ideas is a great first step to avoid heightened emotions and to find a satisfying solution.

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.

I struggled with giving critical feedback to a friendly employee

A new developer was hired for a team and their work was not up to par. After six months, the team leader gave feedback but didn't make it clear that expectations were not being met. After two projects, the team leader put the developer on a performance improvement plan, but there were no significant improvements. Eventually, the team leader had to let the developer go. Looking back, the team leader realized that they should have given critical feedback earlier and made it clear that expectations were not being met.

Interactions between Product and Engineering teams

At Datto, the product team and engineering team collaborate to create user stories that define business value and acceptance criteria. The PMs get Certified Product Owner training, the SM works with the PM to craft stories, and the SM, PM and team lead meet weekly to develop stories. Deadlines can not be set without iterations on the stories, and the business needs to buy into Agile work processes.

My basics for handling your own manager

When starting with a new manager, it is important to build trust and credibility quickly. This can be done by copying them in on emails, having regular sync-ups, and not joining in on gossip. Additionally, it is important to be a problem solver and to help fix any broken processes. Doing so will help build trust and credibility with the manager.

When to Fire Quickly

When dealing with an employee who is not performing well, a slow approach is generally taken. However, if the employee is making their coworkers uncomfortable, they should be let go quickly as it is difficult to fix personality and team dynamics issues. This was the case with a team whose happiness scores had dropped substantially, and the employee was being disrespectful to teammates. After the employee was fired, the team's communication improved and the unspoken tension evaporated quickly. This experience taught that it is important to act quickly when someone is making their team uncomfortable.

Adaptation to the company culture as a manager

A new Director of Engineering was hired at Box, but their behaviour was at odds with the company culture and caused a toxic atmosphere between them and the CTO. After a month of one-on-ones, the CTO let go of the DoE. The lesson learned is that company-culture fit should be evaluated during the hiring process to avoid similar issues.

How to promote the right engineers to management roles

This story recounts the experience of a former Evite employee who was promoted to manager after demonstrating leadership skills in helping a colleague adjust to the new scrum system. The employee's main concern was to maintain the same relationship with their peers, which was achieved by having open dialogues and listening to their needs. This experience has taught the employee that managing people is about listening to them and collaborating with them, which has been a philosophy they have applied in their career.

Making the best out of a rockstar developer

A tech lead was not performing well in their leadership role, so the manager decided to use their technical legitimacy to promote changes and assigned them the position of "Special Project Engineer". This allowed the team to make the best out of the individual and gain a key source of support. The lesson learned is that managers should be creative in finding ways to make the best out of their team members.

Five ways to build a thriving culture in a remote team

Mixmax CTO experienced "growing pains" when managing remote engineers, leading to decreased engagement and productivity. To improve the remote team culture, they raised the hiring bar for remote candidates, held company stand-ups and engineering co-working sessions, escalated conversations when chat didn't suffice, set core company hours, and brought the team together for off-sites. These actions improved the remote team culture and productivity.

Doing everything in your power to make your team successful

DocuSign experienced downtime due to an unexpected change to Microsoft's Authorisations and Permissions management. The team panicked, but the manager leveraged relationships to escalate the problem and get the systems back up quickly. The manager learned that monitoring is key, not to trust anyone, and to maintain relationships. As a result, DocuSign implemented a new way to detect errors and updated contacts with large companies.

Implementing a better collaboration between Product and Engineering

The VP of a team of four engineers noticed their lack of efficiency and ineffectiveness in delivering software. After investigating, the root of the problem was found to be unclear requests and changes being made while work was in progress. The engineer then set clear goals and criteria for the team and educated the product team on how to make better requests. This resulted in the team's velocity increasing three times over and a significant increase in motivation. The VP had not had the full picture and the problem was solved by establishing clear processes.

Teaching leadership through influence

As a team leader, the author identified four engineers with potential for leadership and used a simple task - organizing a team lunch - to teach them leadership through influence. After the team lunch, the author had a post-mortem with the engineer and two of the four engineers have since moved up to manager level. This experience has taught the author that leading through influence is more challenging than leading through authority, but can be effectively taught through simple tasks.

Rethinking onboarding and mentorship practices for newcomers

In order to ensure that new employees would be set up for success in the future, a comprehensive onboarding and mentorship program was established. This program consists of a mentor guiding the new employee through their first few pieces of work and providing a document with expectations, milestones and directions over a three-month period. The mentor is the point of contact for all questions or concerns. This program enables newcomers to integrate themselves faster and provides them with a sense of security.

Understanding how different people contribute helps with setting goals

This article discusses the importance of assessing performance in a team context. It shares the story of an engineer who was an average performer in terms of output, but was the enabler for the whole team. The article emphasizes the need to consider both what is getting done and how it is getting done when assessing performance, and suggests an investigative approach to understanding how people contribute to the team. It also cautions against tying monetary rewards directly to altruistic behaviors.

Invest in investigation

This article describes the process of a team assigned a large project of updating a 16-year old system. The team split the work into modules and then estimated the tasks by finding the best people to evaluate each task and giving them time to investigate. The key lesson learned was to invest in investigation to understand the scope of the project and to allow time for engineers to investigate tasks. The Engineering Manager's job is to facilitate the process by working with leadership and decision-makers, and to communicate requirements and deadlines.

Designing the right team-building activities

The author realized that happy hours were not inclusive for all team members and rethought team-building activities to be personalized based on the interests of the team. Through these activities, the author was able to foster a sense of social inclusion within the team and with the broader company. The team members enjoyed the happy hours, movie nights, team barbecues, and hikes, which helped build bonds and raise awareness about various team responsibilities.

How to communicate about reorganization

When managing a team of backend engineers at Slack, the company experienced coordination problems when planning feature releases with the product team. To solve this, a reorganization of teams was proposed. To ensure the engineers would not be negatively affected, the team was warned of the changes, one-on-one meetings were held, and the decision was announced to the rest of the engineering team. The reorganization was successful and the engineers now feel like they can play a bigger role in projects. It is important to communicate changes well and consider the best way to do it, the timeline, and the people involved.

Finding the right way to communicate the 2017 team strategy

When inheriting a team from a company acquisition, the new manager faced pushback when rolling out the 2017 vision. To overcome this, they devised a strategy to communicate the vision, reduce headcount, and set up targets to move forward. The strategy included having a clear vision, setting up a coalition of people buying into the vision, setting up targets, over-communicating progress, and celebrating behaviors that head towards the goal. After implementing the strategy, the velocity reached the previous team's velocity in less than 60 days.

Sharing vision can contribute to team engagement

Oliver, an engineering manager, noticed a decrease in his team's productivity and motivation. After observing their behavior, he asked for advice and joined one of their weekly team meetings. It was discovered that the engineers had no idea of the impact of their projects on the company, and were only focused on delivery and execution. Oliver was advised to communicate the strategic vision of the company to his team and link their tasks to an objective of the company. This experience taught Oliver that the role of a manager is not only about making sure their team delivers well, but also about keeping them motivated by helping them understand why their contribution is important for the company.

How to solve a conflict between two team members

When two senior architects on a team had conflicting views, the manager asked them to write down their top three concerns and brainstorm together. This enabled them to address all but one of their disagreements. For the last issue, they chose an arbitrator to solve it. The manager learned that discussion, arbitration, and escalation to senior management are three ways to solve a conflict. Writing down ideas is a great first step to avoid heightened emotions and to find a satisfying solution.

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.