Roles & Titles

Taking a Product From a Concept to Launch

The speaker heard from customers that they needed a way to easily manage their products, so they did a market analysis and gathered data from stakeholders, competitors, and customers. They developed a product requirements document, did a build-versus-buy analysis, and presented the recommendations to the executive team. They ended up OEMing a third-party vendor software and building integrations around it. Lessons learned included doing a 360-degree analysis, making decisions quickly, and testing thoroughly with end-to-end customer scenarios.

Managing People More Experienced Than You

Leaders must be aware of the different personalities of their team members in order to effectively lead them. The DISC Assessment can be used to understand the strengths and personality traits of team members. Goals should be set according to the personality of the team member, with more flexibility for senior members. Leaders should also be aware of the motivations of their team members before assigning tasks.

Stumbling into chaos

The new director of engineering at a startup had to jump in on day one when the team had just done a re-org and re-oriented the product roadmap. He met with the CTO and engineering leads to understand why the new structure had been put in place, then worked with the product managers to focus on pieces they had high certainty of needing. He also added weekly planning meetings for each product team and daily standups to create structure and accountability. Through retros and feedback, he tailored these initial short-term fixes to their needs. He learned that plans often go awry and we have to adapt, look for short-term engineering work when long-term plans change, and creating a predictable process cadence can help create stability.

Why We Should Transform Performance Reviews

To improve performance reviews, a periodic compensation review system was introduced that decoupled performance and compensation. A judgment-free coaching system was also implemented, giving team members ownership of their own goals, progress, and results. This created a more motivating environment and showed a clear difference between proactive and reactive individuals. Judging people based on performance is counterproductive and does not motivate anyone.

Tracking Task Estimation

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.

Skip-Level One-On-Ones: Skip Them of Keep Them?

A leader was struggling with too many reports and decided to hire new managers. To avoid undermining their authority, the leader canceled one-on-ones with their direct reports and instead introduced the Open Doors, a voluntary event that allowed them to stay close to their engineers without taking up too much time. Through this, the leader was able to identify potential problems in their early stages and stay connected with their team.