Back to resources

Managing an IC Who Is Getting Ahead of the Project Timeline

Stakeholder Management
Working with Product Teams
Team Management

17 June, 2021

Rachel Wasko

Rachel Wasko

Product Manager at Lyft

Rachel Wasko, Growth Product Manager at Lyft, explains how she manages a developer getting ahead of themselves when a project is not well-defined enough to be built just yet.

Problem

Right now, I’m working on a new feature within my company’s suite of offerings. It’s very unique, something that we’ve never really dabbled in before. It has the potential to be controversial and risky in terms of how our clients perceive it.

Everybody on my team is very excited about the idea, which is great. Recently, we got into a room and had a higher-level conversation about the idea, and I had a Lead Engineer who really wanted to start building immediately. They were very enthusiastic, pushing for what they would like to contribute to the project.

As it is so early in the timeline of the project, I found myself kind of stressed out about it. There is little alignment on what the product should be yet and little confirmation that we have product-market fit. Moving too quickly has the potential to harm our brand if we aren’t careful about how we think about it.

For this situation, the conflict was between their desire to move fast and figuring out what was being built as a whole. From my perspective, we just don’t know what we need yet.

Actions taken

After the conflict presented itself, I persuaded them that we should talk to our users before moving too quickly in one direction or another in order to find out what they think before we start building. We were able to find some really great insights to bring back to the team.

I am finding that what works is managing expectations around timelines. I’m starting to get better at managing this excitement and energy of this Individual Contributor. You don’t want to have them stop working on the project; you want to keep them engaged and listening in on the UXR sessions to hear what users have to say, and they continue to.

I am finding that it really is about redirecting that energy, collaborating on aspects of the feature that are rooted in the insight gathered from those who will be using it. What are some generic parts of the feature that we can start building, coming from this foundation of what has been investigated? What is something flexible that could potentially be applied to all four of the paths that we are considering as a team?

Lessons learned

  • The key here is to keep the IC excited and engaged with the project while still giving yourself time as a manager to make the right decision on the best direction to take the project in as a whole.
  • Bring your team along when gathering insight from the intended user. This will show your Developers how much is known concretely about what the team as a whole should be doing. Connect the Engineer to the customer’s needs as they actually exist.
  • Give yourself and your team an adequate window of time to brainstorm. This keeps the momentum going. Manage their expectations around timelines and the projected date of delivery.
  • If you have an IC who is overly enthusiastic, consider applying the energy to generic features, perhaps on the back-end, that will inevitably be a part of the feature no matter what direction you take it in.

Discover Plato

Scale your coaching effort for your engineering and product teams
Develop yourself to become a stronger engineering / product leader


Related stories

Beware the Empathy Trap

21 March

Is it possible to be too empathetic? If you overdo it, it can be an energy sucker.

Leadership
Conflict Resolution
Team Management
Managing Stress and Burnout
Melanie Zens

Melanie Zens

Delivery & Operations / Digital Transformation / Innovation at Marais Consulting Inc

Relationships, like products, need to be designed.

7 March

3 ways leaders can cultivate relationships that lead to better products.

Leadership
Building and Scaling Teams
Career Growth
Team Management
Strategy and Vision
Guy Jenkins

Guy Jenkins

SVP Global Customer Experience at Salesforce

Inspiring Engineers with your Company's Vision

25 March

Oftentimes Engineers work in silos, developing products to specified requirements, while they remain disconnected from the most important of questions - "WHY are we building this?" We'll explore the consequences of this mindset, as well as how to connect your Engineers to the larger Company Vision.

Leadership
Communication and Collaboration
Team Management
Strategy and Vision
Eric Adams

Eric Adams

VP of Engineering at ExecThread

"You don't care about quality" A story of single metric bias

3 February

This was not a high point in my career. It's a story of single metric bias, how I let one measure become a 'source of truth', failed to manage up and ended up yelling at one of the most respected engineers in my team.

Productivity
Conflict Resolution
Working with Product Teams
Alex Shaw

Alex Shaw

Chief Technology and Product Officer at Hive Learning

I was passed for Promotion. What now ?

26 January

Passing for promotion happens to everyone in their career lifespan. If someone does not had to go through the situation, consider them they are unique and blessed. Managing disappointment and handling situations in professional setting when things don’t pan out, is an important life skill.

Leadership
Career Growth
Conflict Resolution
Team Management
Compensation
Praveen Cheruvu

Praveen Cheruvu

Senior Software Engineering Manager at Anaplan