Feedback & Reviews

How To Develop Managers Through An Internship Program

This article discusses an approach taken by a company to develop managers internally. They created an internship program that gives engineers bitesize pieces of management experience to help them decide if it is something they enjoy. Through this program, engineers learn how to interview, onboard, and mentor interns, as well as how to give and receive feedback. This has been a successful way to develop managers internally, and has also helped engineers learn what they really enjoy.

How To Fire An Underperforming Employee

When an employee was failing to deliver on their work and attempts to correct the situation failed, HR and the manager worked together to create a four-week performance improvement plan. Despite the employee's failure to meet expectations, they were treated with respect and the transition was handled properly to avoid any potential legal issues. It is important to partner with HR early and be upfront with employees when they are not performing, while also treating them with respect.

How to detect a potential problem within your team

During a one-on-one, a direct report expressed concern that some people were not aware of the time requirements associated with a process. After further investigation, it was found that the problem was due to one person not being prompt in responding to others. To solve the problem, clearer, quantitative language was used to match everyone's expectations. This experience taught the importance of being alert during one-on-ones, digging deeper if there is a sense of frustration, and watching out for patterns in stories across time.

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.

Unless You Prioritize Product Features, Your Product Will Remain Dormant

This article discusses a project that was stuck between a beta and a pilot version. To make the product Generally Available (GA), the team had to prioritize features and break down the project into manageable parts. With a four-month timeline, they were able to reduce the 16-month-long GA timeline to only four months while preserving the most valuable features to customers. The author also learned two main challenges while negotiating with the PM and talking to team members; the only way to move forward was to make compromises. The author applied the most effective tactic of asking "Tell me more" instead of "What do you mean" to his team members.

Principles to Set as a New Manager

As a new manager, it is important to strive for an autonomous team without bottlenecking. To do this, remain operational to fill in gaps, stay empathetic while setting limits, rely on facts, and avoid being the bridge between team members. Investing in understanding and reaching autonomy is difficult, but will pay off in the long run.