Knowledge shared by our community

Solving a problem where team members keep being late for stand-up meetings

A team of eight engineers was struggling to meet deadlines, and their manager noticed a correlation between their late arrivals to the daily stand-up meeting and their missed deadlines. To encourage the team to be on time, they set collective goals and counted the number of times they were all there on time instead of counting the number of times they were late. This resulted in the team being more disciplined and arriving on time, leading to successful deadlines.

How to integrate employees with a different company culture?

When integrating new people into a company, Datto found that a good cultural fit was as important as a good technical fit. To ensure this, they were transparent about their company's culture and project direction, and allowed employees to decide for themselves if they wanted to stay or go. As a result, two of the three software engineers who were not a good fit resigned and the remaining employees bought-in to the company's values and were energized.

As a new manager, a technical rock-star defied my authority.

When a new manager inherited a team with a subject matter expert who challenged their authority, they had to earn his trust. This was done by being professional, positive, and constructive, earning credibility, empowering them, defending their team, giving them the benefit of the doubt, having honest conversations, and forming strong teams. After three to five months, the manager and the expert became friends.

I got myself immersed in a completely different culture

This experience taught the author the importance of understanding the culture of the company they are working for, especially when transitioning from a tech company to a non-tech company. The author had to fight for what they wanted and adapt to the company's processes, but also learned to appreciate the cultural principles of the company. This experience has been beneficial in their current career, as they now have an understanding of the customers they work with.

How to solve a conflict between two team members

Two engineers in the same team were arguing about a technical decision, and their manager intervened by organizing a meeting and helping them to identify the problem and come up with a new solution. The manager learned two lessons from this experience: to have a good overview of the team and to help the engineers arrive at the solution, rather than providing a solution.

Lessons from hiring an engineer who doesn’t fit the company’s culture

In this case study, a technical engineer was hired despite warnings from experienced engineers that he may not be a good fit. He ended up being toxic to the team and had to be let go. The lesson learned was to listen to experienced engineers, do a test with the person, and set clear expectations that take a person's background into account.

Challenging structure when faced with an underperforming employee.

A direct report was underperforming and working on a side project without anyone knowing. Instead of terminating his contract, the manager implemented a performance improvement plan. They brought back transparency, accountability, and structure to the team with the help of a senior engineer. After two weeks, the situation had improved and the individual was performing again. This experience taught the manager that different people have different needs in terms of work environments and that it is important to provide the correct structure for engineers to perform.

Ensuring remote workers feel like part of the team.

Rainforest QA changed the way they worked to better integrate remote workers into the team. They implemented two remote weeks every six months, moved to better technologies, and increased transparency by having a weekly meeting with the exec team and an AMA section in the bi-weekly all-hands meeting. These changes helped to motivate employees and make them feel like part of the team.

I had to demote one of my engineers

A manager had to communicate changes to their team, including a demotion for one engineer. They spoke openly and transparently with the engineer, explaining the criteria for the decision and discussing their feelings. The engineer decided to stay and was motivated to work harder, becoming one of the best engineers. The lesson learned is to be prepared and thoughtful when communicating difficult news, being transparent and clear about why the decision was made.

Trusting your gut feelings when promoting engineers as managers.

A tech lead with attitude issues asked to be promoted to Engineering Manager. A committee of senior engineers and Directors evaluated his capacity and were positive about him, so the promotion went ahead. However, after three months, he started blaming people and sending emails blaming others for an outage. After multiple emails and conversations, he switched to another team. This episode showed the importance of trusting one's gut feeling.

Learn what are your employees strengths and weaknesses and play with it

A manager had to have a one-on-one with an engineer who was taking too long to complete a task. After talking to him, the manager realized that the engineer was more motivated by conceptual understanding than execution. The manager then adapted to the engineer's strengths and was able to refocus him on the task. The main takeaway is that managers should take the time to understand their employees' strengths and weaknesses and play to those strengths.

How to deal with cultural difference at work?

Working with a remote team in China resulted in a loss of time and productivity due to a mismatch between expectations and delivery. To prevent this from happening again, clear success criteria and expectations were set and a cultural training was implemented to help the US and Polish engineers communicate better.

Providing regular employee feedback

Feedback can be difficult to give and receive, so it is important to create a culture of feedback in the workplace. This will help to "inoculate" employees and make them more prepared for more serious pieces of feedback. Breaking up deeper areas into smaller, more manageable pieces will help to reduce drama and make it easier to give and receive feedback.

The importance of proper processes and tooling in remote teams.

This article discusses the steps taken by a company to transition to a remote work culture. They modified existing processes, set up a daily check-in on Google Hangouts, encouraged conversations over Slack, and used various tools for communication and screen sharing. The key lesson learned was that communication is critical for efficient remote work and keeping all employees in the loop.

Assuming the Worst: Why My Boss’ Critical Feedback Wasn’t What I Thought

After developing a good relationship with his boss and receiving positive feedback, the protagonist suddenly started receiving a lot of critical feedback. He felt vulnerable and unappreciated, and was worried that his boss had lost confidence in him. He decided to address his frustrations and come to his own defense. After evaluating his position and realizing most of it was based on assumptions, he had a successful meeting with his boss and learned the lesson to never make assumptions when dealing with others.

Organizing an offsite meeting to align your team with your company’s objectives

To ensure that engineers understand how their work ties in with their company's goals, the author organizes offsite meetings to define the company's vision and goals, discuss successes and failures from the last quarter, and brainstorm ideas to support the company's objectives. The offsite meetings have the psychological effect of allowing everyone to be in the right state of mind and focus on the task at hand.

How to reassure your team in case of a big change

When Atlassian announced their acquisition of Trello, many employees had doubts and concerns. As a manager, the author took action to listen to their frustrations and provide as much information as possible. They also used Atlassian's values to reassure employees that the acquirer was not against them. To further reassure the most negative employee, the author asked the CEO to talk to them. This experience taught the author that it is important to give each employee personal attention during big changes to soothe their concerns.

How to react to the resignation of one of your best team members.

When one of the best engineers on the team announced his departure, the manager took time to process the situation and discussed it with the team. They offered a counter-offer, but the engineer decided to leave anyway. The manager learned that it is important to anticipate the needs of team members and to be explicit about it, to ensure that they are on the right career path.

Being direct during performance management

After a new hire on a product team at Lyft was not meeting expectations, the manager took steps to identify the issue and have a direct conversation with the employee. Through an honest and empathetic approach, the manager was able to build rapport and reconcile the situation. The lesson learned is that termination should be a last resort, and that communication should be honest and transparent while also retaining empathy.

Solving a conflict between a team of back-end engineers and a team of ops engineers

The VP of Engineering at Happn faced a conflict between the ops and back-end engineering teams. To resolve the conflict, the VP gathered an equal number of engineers from each team and had them use the "Six Thinking Hats Method" to identify action plans. The teams were able to resolve the conflict with the help of action plans and follow-up meetings. The VP learned three lessons from the experience: it's better to gather both teams in the same room, they must have a common objective, and action plans and follow-up meetings are key.

Solving a problem where team members keep being late for stand-up meetings

A team of eight engineers was struggling to meet deadlines, and their manager noticed a correlation between their late arrivals to the daily stand-up meeting and their missed deadlines. To encourage the team to be on time, they set collective goals and counted the number of times they were all there on time instead of counting the number of times they were late. This resulted in the team being more disciplined and arriving on time, leading to successful deadlines.

How to integrate employees with a different company culture?

When integrating new people into a company, Datto found that a good cultural fit was as important as a good technical fit. To ensure this, they were transparent about their company's culture and project direction, and allowed employees to decide for themselves if they wanted to stay or go. As a result, two of the three software engineers who were not a good fit resigned and the remaining employees bought-in to the company's values and were energized.

As a new manager, a technical rock-star defied my authority.

When a new manager inherited a team with a subject matter expert who challenged their authority, they had to earn his trust. This was done by being professional, positive, and constructive, earning credibility, empowering them, defending their team, giving them the benefit of the doubt, having honest conversations, and forming strong teams. After three to five months, the manager and the expert became friends.

I got myself immersed in a completely different culture

This experience taught the author the importance of understanding the culture of the company they are working for, especially when transitioning from a tech company to a non-tech company. The author had to fight for what they wanted and adapt to the company's processes, but also learned to appreciate the cultural principles of the company. This experience has been beneficial in their current career, as they now have an understanding of the customers they work with.

How to solve a conflict between two team members

Two engineers in the same team were arguing about a technical decision, and their manager intervened by organizing a meeting and helping them to identify the problem and come up with a new solution. The manager learned two lessons from this experience: to have a good overview of the team and to help the engineers arrive at the solution, rather than providing a solution.

Lessons from hiring an engineer who doesn’t fit the company’s culture

In this case study, a technical engineer was hired despite warnings from experienced engineers that he may not be a good fit. He ended up being toxic to the team and had to be let go. The lesson learned was to listen to experienced engineers, do a test with the person, and set clear expectations that take a person's background into account.

Challenging structure when faced with an underperforming employee.

A direct report was underperforming and working on a side project without anyone knowing. Instead of terminating his contract, the manager implemented a performance improvement plan. They brought back transparency, accountability, and structure to the team with the help of a senior engineer. After two weeks, the situation had improved and the individual was performing again. This experience taught the manager that different people have different needs in terms of work environments and that it is important to provide the correct structure for engineers to perform.

Ensuring remote workers feel like part of the team.

Rainforest QA changed the way they worked to better integrate remote workers into the team. They implemented two remote weeks every six months, moved to better technologies, and increased transparency by having a weekly meeting with the exec team and an AMA section in the bi-weekly all-hands meeting. These changes helped to motivate employees and make them feel like part of the team.

I had to demote one of my engineers

A manager had to communicate changes to their team, including a demotion for one engineer. They spoke openly and transparently with the engineer, explaining the criteria for the decision and discussing their feelings. The engineer decided to stay and was motivated to work harder, becoming one of the best engineers. The lesson learned is to be prepared and thoughtful when communicating difficult news, being transparent and clear about why the decision was made.

Trusting your gut feelings when promoting engineers as managers.

A tech lead with attitude issues asked to be promoted to Engineering Manager. A committee of senior engineers and Directors evaluated his capacity and were positive about him, so the promotion went ahead. However, after three months, he started blaming people and sending emails blaming others for an outage. After multiple emails and conversations, he switched to another team. This episode showed the importance of trusting one's gut feeling.

Learn what are your employees strengths and weaknesses and play with it

A manager had to have a one-on-one with an engineer who was taking too long to complete a task. After talking to him, the manager realized that the engineer was more motivated by conceptual understanding than execution. The manager then adapted to the engineer's strengths and was able to refocus him on the task. The main takeaway is that managers should take the time to understand their employees' strengths and weaknesses and play to those strengths.

How to deal with cultural difference at work?

Working with a remote team in China resulted in a loss of time and productivity due to a mismatch between expectations and delivery. To prevent this from happening again, clear success criteria and expectations were set and a cultural training was implemented to help the US and Polish engineers communicate better.

Providing regular employee feedback

Feedback can be difficult to give and receive, so it is important to create a culture of feedback in the workplace. This will help to "inoculate" employees and make them more prepared for more serious pieces of feedback. Breaking up deeper areas into smaller, more manageable pieces will help to reduce drama and make it easier to give and receive feedback.

The importance of proper processes and tooling in remote teams.

This article discusses the steps taken by a company to transition to a remote work culture. They modified existing processes, set up a daily check-in on Google Hangouts, encouraged conversations over Slack, and used various tools for communication and screen sharing. The key lesson learned was that communication is critical for efficient remote work and keeping all employees in the loop.

Assuming the Worst: Why My Boss’ Critical Feedback Wasn’t What I Thought

After developing a good relationship with his boss and receiving positive feedback, the protagonist suddenly started receiving a lot of critical feedback. He felt vulnerable and unappreciated, and was worried that his boss had lost confidence in him. He decided to address his frustrations and come to his own defense. After evaluating his position and realizing most of it was based on assumptions, he had a successful meeting with his boss and learned the lesson to never make assumptions when dealing with others.

Organizing an offsite meeting to align your team with your company’s objectives

To ensure that engineers understand how their work ties in with their company's goals, the author organizes offsite meetings to define the company's vision and goals, discuss successes and failures from the last quarter, and brainstorm ideas to support the company's objectives. The offsite meetings have the psychological effect of allowing everyone to be in the right state of mind and focus on the task at hand.

How to reassure your team in case of a big change

When Atlassian announced their acquisition of Trello, many employees had doubts and concerns. As a manager, the author took action to listen to their frustrations and provide as much information as possible. They also used Atlassian's values to reassure employees that the acquirer was not against them. To further reassure the most negative employee, the author asked the CEO to talk to them. This experience taught the author that it is important to give each employee personal attention during big changes to soothe their concerns.

How to react to the resignation of one of your best team members.

When one of the best engineers on the team announced his departure, the manager took time to process the situation and discussed it with the team. They offered a counter-offer, but the engineer decided to leave anyway. The manager learned that it is important to anticipate the needs of team members and to be explicit about it, to ensure that they are on the right career path.

Being direct during performance management

After a new hire on a product team at Lyft was not meeting expectations, the manager took steps to identify the issue and have a direct conversation with the employee. Through an honest and empathetic approach, the manager was able to build rapport and reconcile the situation. The lesson learned is that termination should be a last resort, and that communication should be honest and transparent while also retaining empathy.

Solving a conflict between a team of back-end engineers and a team of ops engineers

The VP of Engineering at Happn faced a conflict between the ops and back-end engineering teams. To resolve the conflict, the VP gathered an equal number of engineers from each team and had them use the "Six Thinking Hats Method" to identify action plans. The teams were able to resolve the conflict with the help of action plans and follow-up meetings. The VP learned three lessons from the experience: it's better to gather both teams in the same room, they must have a common objective, and action plans and follow-up meetings are key.

Solving a problem where team members keep being late for stand-up meetings

A team of eight engineers was struggling to meet deadlines, and their manager noticed a correlation between their late arrivals to the daily stand-up meeting and their missed deadlines. To encourage the team to be on time, they set collective goals and counted the number of times they were all there on time instead of counting the number of times they were late. This resulted in the team being more disciplined and arriving on time, leading to successful deadlines.

How to integrate employees with a different company culture?

When integrating new people into a company, Datto found that a good cultural fit was as important as a good technical fit. To ensure this, they were transparent about their company's culture and project direction, and allowed employees to decide for themselves if they wanted to stay or go. As a result, two of the three software engineers who were not a good fit resigned and the remaining employees bought-in to the company's values and were energized.

As a new manager, a technical rock-star defied my authority.

When a new manager inherited a team with a subject matter expert who challenged their authority, they had to earn his trust. This was done by being professional, positive, and constructive, earning credibility, empowering them, defending their team, giving them the benefit of the doubt, having honest conversations, and forming strong teams. After three to five months, the manager and the expert became friends.

I got myself immersed in a completely different culture

This experience taught the author the importance of understanding the culture of the company they are working for, especially when transitioning from a tech company to a non-tech company. The author had to fight for what they wanted and adapt to the company's processes, but also learned to appreciate the cultural principles of the company. This experience has been beneficial in their current career, as they now have an understanding of the customers they work with.

How to solve a conflict between two team members

Two engineers in the same team were arguing about a technical decision, and their manager intervened by organizing a meeting and helping them to identify the problem and come up with a new solution. The manager learned two lessons from this experience: to have a good overview of the team and to help the engineers arrive at the solution, rather than providing a solution.

Lessons from hiring an engineer who doesn’t fit the company’s culture

In this case study, a technical engineer was hired despite warnings from experienced engineers that he may not be a good fit. He ended up being toxic to the team and had to be let go. The lesson learned was to listen to experienced engineers, do a test with the person, and set clear expectations that take a person's background into account.

Challenging structure when faced with an underperforming employee.

A direct report was underperforming and working on a side project without anyone knowing. Instead of terminating his contract, the manager implemented a performance improvement plan. They brought back transparency, accountability, and structure to the team with the help of a senior engineer. After two weeks, the situation had improved and the individual was performing again. This experience taught the manager that different people have different needs in terms of work environments and that it is important to provide the correct structure for engineers to perform.

Ensuring remote workers feel like part of the team.

Rainforest QA changed the way they worked to better integrate remote workers into the team. They implemented two remote weeks every six months, moved to better technologies, and increased transparency by having a weekly meeting with the exec team and an AMA section in the bi-weekly all-hands meeting. These changes helped to motivate employees and make them feel like part of the team.

I had to demote one of my engineers

A manager had to communicate changes to their team, including a demotion for one engineer. They spoke openly and transparently with the engineer, explaining the criteria for the decision and discussing their feelings. The engineer decided to stay and was motivated to work harder, becoming one of the best engineers. The lesson learned is to be prepared and thoughtful when communicating difficult news, being transparent and clear about why the decision was made.

Trusting your gut feelings when promoting engineers as managers.

A tech lead with attitude issues asked to be promoted to Engineering Manager. A committee of senior engineers and Directors evaluated his capacity and were positive about him, so the promotion went ahead. However, after three months, he started blaming people and sending emails blaming others for an outage. After multiple emails and conversations, he switched to another team. This episode showed the importance of trusting one's gut feeling.

Learn what are your employees strengths and weaknesses and play with it

A manager had to have a one-on-one with an engineer who was taking too long to complete a task. After talking to him, the manager realized that the engineer was more motivated by conceptual understanding than execution. The manager then adapted to the engineer's strengths and was able to refocus him on the task. The main takeaway is that managers should take the time to understand their employees' strengths and weaknesses and play to those strengths.

How to deal with cultural difference at work?

Working with a remote team in China resulted in a loss of time and productivity due to a mismatch between expectations and delivery. To prevent this from happening again, clear success criteria and expectations were set and a cultural training was implemented to help the US and Polish engineers communicate better.

Providing regular employee feedback

Feedback can be difficult to give and receive, so it is important to create a culture of feedback in the workplace. This will help to "inoculate" employees and make them more prepared for more serious pieces of feedback. Breaking up deeper areas into smaller, more manageable pieces will help to reduce drama and make it easier to give and receive feedback.

The importance of proper processes and tooling in remote teams.

This article discusses the steps taken by a company to transition to a remote work culture. They modified existing processes, set up a daily check-in on Google Hangouts, encouraged conversations over Slack, and used various tools for communication and screen sharing. The key lesson learned was that communication is critical for efficient remote work and keeping all employees in the loop.

Assuming the Worst: Why My Boss’ Critical Feedback Wasn’t What I Thought

After developing a good relationship with his boss and receiving positive feedback, the protagonist suddenly started receiving a lot of critical feedback. He felt vulnerable and unappreciated, and was worried that his boss had lost confidence in him. He decided to address his frustrations and come to his own defense. After evaluating his position and realizing most of it was based on assumptions, he had a successful meeting with his boss and learned the lesson to never make assumptions when dealing with others.

Organizing an offsite meeting to align your team with your company’s objectives

To ensure that engineers understand how their work ties in with their company's goals, the author organizes offsite meetings to define the company's vision and goals, discuss successes and failures from the last quarter, and brainstorm ideas to support the company's objectives. The offsite meetings have the psychological effect of allowing everyone to be in the right state of mind and focus on the task at hand.

How to reassure your team in case of a big change

When Atlassian announced their acquisition of Trello, many employees had doubts and concerns. As a manager, the author took action to listen to their frustrations and provide as much information as possible. They also used Atlassian's values to reassure employees that the acquirer was not against them. To further reassure the most negative employee, the author asked the CEO to talk to them. This experience taught the author that it is important to give each employee personal attention during big changes to soothe their concerns.

How to react to the resignation of one of your best team members.

When one of the best engineers on the team announced his departure, the manager took time to process the situation and discussed it with the team. They offered a counter-offer, but the engineer decided to leave anyway. The manager learned that it is important to anticipate the needs of team members and to be explicit about it, to ensure that they are on the right career path.

Being direct during performance management

After a new hire on a product team at Lyft was not meeting expectations, the manager took steps to identify the issue and have a direct conversation with the employee. Through an honest and empathetic approach, the manager was able to build rapport and reconcile the situation. The lesson learned is that termination should be a last resort, and that communication should be honest and transparent while also retaining empathy.

Solving a conflict between a team of back-end engineers and a team of ops engineers

The VP of Engineering at Happn faced a conflict between the ops and back-end engineering teams. To resolve the conflict, the VP gathered an equal number of engineers from each team and had them use the "Six Thinking Hats Method" to identify action plans. The teams were able to resolve the conflict with the help of action plans and follow-up meetings. The VP learned three lessons from the experience: it's better to gather both teams in the same room, they must have a common objective, and action plans and follow-up meetings are key.

Solving a problem where team members keep being late for stand-up meetings

A team of eight engineers was struggling to meet deadlines, and their manager noticed a correlation between their late arrivals to the daily stand-up meeting and their missed deadlines. To encourage the team to be on time, they set collective goals and counted the number of times they were all there on time instead of counting the number of times they were late. This resulted in the team being more disciplined and arriving on time, leading to successful deadlines.

How to integrate employees with a different company culture?

When integrating new people into a company, Datto found that a good cultural fit was as important as a good technical fit. To ensure this, they were transparent about their company's culture and project direction, and allowed employees to decide for themselves if they wanted to stay or go. As a result, two of the three software engineers who were not a good fit resigned and the remaining employees bought-in to the company's values and were energized.

As a new manager, a technical rock-star defied my authority.

When a new manager inherited a team with a subject matter expert who challenged their authority, they had to earn his trust. This was done by being professional, positive, and constructive, earning credibility, empowering them, defending their team, giving them the benefit of the doubt, having honest conversations, and forming strong teams. After three to five months, the manager and the expert became friends.

I got myself immersed in a completely different culture

This experience taught the author the importance of understanding the culture of the company they are working for, especially when transitioning from a tech company to a non-tech company. The author had to fight for what they wanted and adapt to the company's processes, but also learned to appreciate the cultural principles of the company. This experience has been beneficial in their current career, as they now have an understanding of the customers they work with.

How to solve a conflict between two team members

Two engineers in the same team were arguing about a technical decision, and their manager intervened by organizing a meeting and helping them to identify the problem and come up with a new solution. The manager learned two lessons from this experience: to have a good overview of the team and to help the engineers arrive at the solution, rather than providing a solution.

Lessons from hiring an engineer who doesn’t fit the company’s culture

In this case study, a technical engineer was hired despite warnings from experienced engineers that he may not be a good fit. He ended up being toxic to the team and had to be let go. The lesson learned was to listen to experienced engineers, do a test with the person, and set clear expectations that take a person's background into account.

Challenging structure when faced with an underperforming employee.

A direct report was underperforming and working on a side project without anyone knowing. Instead of terminating his contract, the manager implemented a performance improvement plan. They brought back transparency, accountability, and structure to the team with the help of a senior engineer. After two weeks, the situation had improved and the individual was performing again. This experience taught the manager that different people have different needs in terms of work environments and that it is important to provide the correct structure for engineers to perform.

Ensuring remote workers feel like part of the team.

Rainforest QA changed the way they worked to better integrate remote workers into the team. They implemented two remote weeks every six months, moved to better technologies, and increased transparency by having a weekly meeting with the exec team and an AMA section in the bi-weekly all-hands meeting. These changes helped to motivate employees and make them feel like part of the team.

I had to demote one of my engineers

A manager had to communicate changes to their team, including a demotion for one engineer. They spoke openly and transparently with the engineer, explaining the criteria for the decision and discussing their feelings. The engineer decided to stay and was motivated to work harder, becoming one of the best engineers. The lesson learned is to be prepared and thoughtful when communicating difficult news, being transparent and clear about why the decision was made.

Trusting your gut feelings when promoting engineers as managers.

A tech lead with attitude issues asked to be promoted to Engineering Manager. A committee of senior engineers and Directors evaluated his capacity and were positive about him, so the promotion went ahead. However, after three months, he started blaming people and sending emails blaming others for an outage. After multiple emails and conversations, he switched to another team. This episode showed the importance of trusting one's gut feeling.

Learn what are your employees strengths and weaknesses and play with it

A manager had to have a one-on-one with an engineer who was taking too long to complete a task. After talking to him, the manager realized that the engineer was more motivated by conceptual understanding than execution. The manager then adapted to the engineer's strengths and was able to refocus him on the task. The main takeaway is that managers should take the time to understand their employees' strengths and weaknesses and play to those strengths.

How to deal with cultural difference at work?

Working with a remote team in China resulted in a loss of time and productivity due to a mismatch between expectations and delivery. To prevent this from happening again, clear success criteria and expectations were set and a cultural training was implemented to help the US and Polish engineers communicate better.

Providing regular employee feedback

Feedback can be difficult to give and receive, so it is important to create a culture of feedback in the workplace. This will help to "inoculate" employees and make them more prepared for more serious pieces of feedback. Breaking up deeper areas into smaller, more manageable pieces will help to reduce drama and make it easier to give and receive feedback.

The importance of proper processes and tooling in remote teams.

This article discusses the steps taken by a company to transition to a remote work culture. They modified existing processes, set up a daily check-in on Google Hangouts, encouraged conversations over Slack, and used various tools for communication and screen sharing. The key lesson learned was that communication is critical for efficient remote work and keeping all employees in the loop.

Assuming the Worst: Why My Boss’ Critical Feedback Wasn’t What I Thought

After developing a good relationship with his boss and receiving positive feedback, the protagonist suddenly started receiving a lot of critical feedback. He felt vulnerable and unappreciated, and was worried that his boss had lost confidence in him. He decided to address his frustrations and come to his own defense. After evaluating his position and realizing most of it was based on assumptions, he had a successful meeting with his boss and learned the lesson to never make assumptions when dealing with others.

Organizing an offsite meeting to align your team with your company’s objectives

To ensure that engineers understand how their work ties in with their company's goals, the author organizes offsite meetings to define the company's vision and goals, discuss successes and failures from the last quarter, and brainstorm ideas to support the company's objectives. The offsite meetings have the psychological effect of allowing everyone to be in the right state of mind and focus on the task at hand.

How to reassure your team in case of a big change

When Atlassian announced their acquisition of Trello, many employees had doubts and concerns. As a manager, the author took action to listen to their frustrations and provide as much information as possible. They also used Atlassian's values to reassure employees that the acquirer was not against them. To further reassure the most negative employee, the author asked the CEO to talk to them. This experience taught the author that it is important to give each employee personal attention during big changes to soothe their concerns.

How to react to the resignation of one of your best team members.

When one of the best engineers on the team announced his departure, the manager took time to process the situation and discussed it with the team. They offered a counter-offer, but the engineer decided to leave anyway. The manager learned that it is important to anticipate the needs of team members and to be explicit about it, to ensure that they are on the right career path.

Being direct during performance management

After a new hire on a product team at Lyft was not meeting expectations, the manager took steps to identify the issue and have a direct conversation with the employee. Through an honest and empathetic approach, the manager was able to build rapport and reconcile the situation. The lesson learned is that termination should be a last resort, and that communication should be honest and transparent while also retaining empathy.

Solving a conflict between a team of back-end engineers and a team of ops engineers

The VP of Engineering at Happn faced a conflict between the ops and back-end engineering teams. To resolve the conflict, the VP gathered an equal number of engineers from each team and had them use the "Six Thinking Hats Method" to identify action plans. The teams were able to resolve the conflict with the help of action plans and follow-up meetings. The VP learned three lessons from the experience: it's better to gather both teams in the same room, they must have a common objective, and action plans and follow-up meetings are key.

Solving a problem where team members keep being late for stand-up meetings

A team of eight engineers was struggling to meet deadlines, and their manager noticed a correlation between their late arrivals to the daily stand-up meeting and their missed deadlines. To encourage the team to be on time, they set collective goals and counted the number of times they were all there on time instead of counting the number of times they were late. This resulted in the team being more disciplined and arriving on time, leading to successful deadlines.

How to integrate employees with a different company culture?

When integrating new people into a company, Datto found that a good cultural fit was as important as a good technical fit. To ensure this, they were transparent about their company's culture and project direction, and allowed employees to decide for themselves if they wanted to stay or go. As a result, two of the three software engineers who were not a good fit resigned and the remaining employees bought-in to the company's values and were energized.

As a new manager, a technical rock-star defied my authority.

When a new manager inherited a team with a subject matter expert who challenged their authority, they had to earn his trust. This was done by being professional, positive, and constructive, earning credibility, empowering them, defending their team, giving them the benefit of the doubt, having honest conversations, and forming strong teams. After three to five months, the manager and the expert became friends.

I got myself immersed in a completely different culture

This experience taught the author the importance of understanding the culture of the company they are working for, especially when transitioning from a tech company to a non-tech company. The author had to fight for what they wanted and adapt to the company's processes, but also learned to appreciate the cultural principles of the company. This experience has been beneficial in their current career, as they now have an understanding of the customers they work with.

How to solve a conflict between two team members

Two engineers in the same team were arguing about a technical decision, and their manager intervened by organizing a meeting and helping them to identify the problem and come up with a new solution. The manager learned two lessons from this experience: to have a good overview of the team and to help the engineers arrive at the solution, rather than providing a solution.

Lessons from hiring an engineer who doesn’t fit the company’s culture

In this case study, a technical engineer was hired despite warnings from experienced engineers that he may not be a good fit. He ended up being toxic to the team and had to be let go. The lesson learned was to listen to experienced engineers, do a test with the person, and set clear expectations that take a person's background into account.

Challenging structure when faced with an underperforming employee.

A direct report was underperforming and working on a side project without anyone knowing. Instead of terminating his contract, the manager implemented a performance improvement plan. They brought back transparency, accountability, and structure to the team with the help of a senior engineer. After two weeks, the situation had improved and the individual was performing again. This experience taught the manager that different people have different needs in terms of work environments and that it is important to provide the correct structure for engineers to perform.

Ensuring remote workers feel like part of the team.

Rainforest QA changed the way they worked to better integrate remote workers into the team. They implemented two remote weeks every six months, moved to better technologies, and increased transparency by having a weekly meeting with the exec team and an AMA section in the bi-weekly all-hands meeting. These changes helped to motivate employees and make them feel like part of the team.

I had to demote one of my engineers

A manager had to communicate changes to their team, including a demotion for one engineer. They spoke openly and transparently with the engineer, explaining the criteria for the decision and discussing their feelings. The engineer decided to stay and was motivated to work harder, becoming one of the best engineers. The lesson learned is to be prepared and thoughtful when communicating difficult news, being transparent and clear about why the decision was made.

Trusting your gut feelings when promoting engineers as managers.

A tech lead with attitude issues asked to be promoted to Engineering Manager. A committee of senior engineers and Directors evaluated his capacity and were positive about him, so the promotion went ahead. However, after three months, he started blaming people and sending emails blaming others for an outage. After multiple emails and conversations, he switched to another team. This episode showed the importance of trusting one's gut feeling.

Learn what are your employees strengths and weaknesses and play with it

A manager had to have a one-on-one with an engineer who was taking too long to complete a task. After talking to him, the manager realized that the engineer was more motivated by conceptual understanding than execution. The manager then adapted to the engineer's strengths and was able to refocus him on the task. The main takeaway is that managers should take the time to understand their employees' strengths and weaknesses and play to those strengths.

How to deal with cultural difference at work?

Working with a remote team in China resulted in a loss of time and productivity due to a mismatch between expectations and delivery. To prevent this from happening again, clear success criteria and expectations were set and a cultural training was implemented to help the US and Polish engineers communicate better.

Providing regular employee feedback

Feedback can be difficult to give and receive, so it is important to create a culture of feedback in the workplace. This will help to "inoculate" employees and make them more prepared for more serious pieces of feedback. Breaking up deeper areas into smaller, more manageable pieces will help to reduce drama and make it easier to give and receive feedback.

The importance of proper processes and tooling in remote teams.

This article discusses the steps taken by a company to transition to a remote work culture. They modified existing processes, set up a daily check-in on Google Hangouts, encouraged conversations over Slack, and used various tools for communication and screen sharing. The key lesson learned was that communication is critical for efficient remote work and keeping all employees in the loop.

Assuming the Worst: Why My Boss’ Critical Feedback Wasn’t What I Thought

After developing a good relationship with his boss and receiving positive feedback, the protagonist suddenly started receiving a lot of critical feedback. He felt vulnerable and unappreciated, and was worried that his boss had lost confidence in him. He decided to address his frustrations and come to his own defense. After evaluating his position and realizing most of it was based on assumptions, he had a successful meeting with his boss and learned the lesson to never make assumptions when dealing with others.

Organizing an offsite meeting to align your team with your company’s objectives

To ensure that engineers understand how their work ties in with their company's goals, the author organizes offsite meetings to define the company's vision and goals, discuss successes and failures from the last quarter, and brainstorm ideas to support the company's objectives. The offsite meetings have the psychological effect of allowing everyone to be in the right state of mind and focus on the task at hand.

How to reassure your team in case of a big change

When Atlassian announced their acquisition of Trello, many employees had doubts and concerns. As a manager, the author took action to listen to their frustrations and provide as much information as possible. They also used Atlassian's values to reassure employees that the acquirer was not against them. To further reassure the most negative employee, the author asked the CEO to talk to them. This experience taught the author that it is important to give each employee personal attention during big changes to soothe their concerns.

How to react to the resignation of one of your best team members.

When one of the best engineers on the team announced his departure, the manager took time to process the situation and discussed it with the team. They offered a counter-offer, but the engineer decided to leave anyway. The manager learned that it is important to anticipate the needs of team members and to be explicit about it, to ensure that they are on the right career path.

Being direct during performance management

After a new hire on a product team at Lyft was not meeting expectations, the manager took steps to identify the issue and have a direct conversation with the employee. Through an honest and empathetic approach, the manager was able to build rapport and reconcile the situation. The lesson learned is that termination should be a last resort, and that communication should be honest and transparent while also retaining empathy.

Solving a conflict between a team of back-end engineers and a team of ops engineers

The VP of Engineering at Happn faced a conflict between the ops and back-end engineering teams. To resolve the conflict, the VP gathered an equal number of engineers from each team and had them use the "Six Thinking Hats Method" to identify action plans. The teams were able to resolve the conflict with the help of action plans and follow-up meetings. The VP learned three lessons from the experience: it's better to gather both teams in the same room, they must have a common objective, and action plans and follow-up meetings are key.

Solving a problem where team members keep being late for stand-up meetings

A team of eight engineers was struggling to meet deadlines, and their manager noticed a correlation between their late arrivals to the daily stand-up meeting and their missed deadlines. To encourage the team to be on time, they set collective goals and counted the number of times they were all there on time instead of counting the number of times they were late. This resulted in the team being more disciplined and arriving on time, leading to successful deadlines.

How to integrate employees with a different company culture?

When integrating new people into a company, Datto found that a good cultural fit was as important as a good technical fit. To ensure this, they were transparent about their company's culture and project direction, and allowed employees to decide for themselves if they wanted to stay or go. As a result, two of the three software engineers who were not a good fit resigned and the remaining employees bought-in to the company's values and were energized.

As a new manager, a technical rock-star defied my authority.

When a new manager inherited a team with a subject matter expert who challenged their authority, they had to earn his trust. This was done by being professional, positive, and constructive, earning credibility, empowering them, defending their team, giving them the benefit of the doubt, having honest conversations, and forming strong teams. After three to five months, the manager and the expert became friends.

I got myself immersed in a completely different culture

This experience taught the author the importance of understanding the culture of the company they are working for, especially when transitioning from a tech company to a non-tech company. The author had to fight for what they wanted and adapt to the company's processes, but also learned to appreciate the cultural principles of the company. This experience has been beneficial in their current career, as they now have an understanding of the customers they work with.

How to solve a conflict between two team members

Two engineers in the same team were arguing about a technical decision, and their manager intervened by organizing a meeting and helping them to identify the problem and come up with a new solution. The manager learned two lessons from this experience: to have a good overview of the team and to help the engineers arrive at the solution, rather than providing a solution.

Lessons from hiring an engineer who doesn’t fit the company’s culture

In this case study, a technical engineer was hired despite warnings from experienced engineers that he may not be a good fit. He ended up being toxic to the team and had to be let go. The lesson learned was to listen to experienced engineers, do a test with the person, and set clear expectations that take a person's background into account.

Challenging structure when faced with an underperforming employee.

A direct report was underperforming and working on a side project without anyone knowing. Instead of terminating his contract, the manager implemented a performance improvement plan. They brought back transparency, accountability, and structure to the team with the help of a senior engineer. After two weeks, the situation had improved and the individual was performing again. This experience taught the manager that different people have different needs in terms of work environments and that it is important to provide the correct structure for engineers to perform.

Ensuring remote workers feel like part of the team.

Rainforest QA changed the way they worked to better integrate remote workers into the team. They implemented two remote weeks every six months, moved to better technologies, and increased transparency by having a weekly meeting with the exec team and an AMA section in the bi-weekly all-hands meeting. These changes helped to motivate employees and make them feel like part of the team.

I had to demote one of my engineers

A manager had to communicate changes to their team, including a demotion for one engineer. They spoke openly and transparently with the engineer, explaining the criteria for the decision and discussing their feelings. The engineer decided to stay and was motivated to work harder, becoming one of the best engineers. The lesson learned is to be prepared and thoughtful when communicating difficult news, being transparent and clear about why the decision was made.

Trusting your gut feelings when promoting engineers as managers.

A tech lead with attitude issues asked to be promoted to Engineering Manager. A committee of senior engineers and Directors evaluated his capacity and were positive about him, so the promotion went ahead. However, after three months, he started blaming people and sending emails blaming others for an outage. After multiple emails and conversations, he switched to another team. This episode showed the importance of trusting one's gut feeling.

Learn what are your employees strengths and weaknesses and play with it

A manager had to have a one-on-one with an engineer who was taking too long to complete a task. After talking to him, the manager realized that the engineer was more motivated by conceptual understanding than execution. The manager then adapted to the engineer's strengths and was able to refocus him on the task. The main takeaway is that managers should take the time to understand their employees' strengths and weaknesses and play to those strengths.

How to deal with cultural difference at work?

Working with a remote team in China resulted in a loss of time and productivity due to a mismatch between expectations and delivery. To prevent this from happening again, clear success criteria and expectations were set and a cultural training was implemented to help the US and Polish engineers communicate better.

Providing regular employee feedback

Feedback can be difficult to give and receive, so it is important to create a culture of feedback in the workplace. This will help to "inoculate" employees and make them more prepared for more serious pieces of feedback. Breaking up deeper areas into smaller, more manageable pieces will help to reduce drama and make it easier to give and receive feedback.

The importance of proper processes and tooling in remote teams.

This article discusses the steps taken by a company to transition to a remote work culture. They modified existing processes, set up a daily check-in on Google Hangouts, encouraged conversations over Slack, and used various tools for communication and screen sharing. The key lesson learned was that communication is critical for efficient remote work and keeping all employees in the loop.

Assuming the Worst: Why My Boss’ Critical Feedback Wasn’t What I Thought

After developing a good relationship with his boss and receiving positive feedback, the protagonist suddenly started receiving a lot of critical feedback. He felt vulnerable and unappreciated, and was worried that his boss had lost confidence in him. He decided to address his frustrations and come to his own defense. After evaluating his position and realizing most of it was based on assumptions, he had a successful meeting with his boss and learned the lesson to never make assumptions when dealing with others.

Organizing an offsite meeting to align your team with your company’s objectives

To ensure that engineers understand how their work ties in with their company's goals, the author organizes offsite meetings to define the company's vision and goals, discuss successes and failures from the last quarter, and brainstorm ideas to support the company's objectives. The offsite meetings have the psychological effect of allowing everyone to be in the right state of mind and focus on the task at hand.

How to reassure your team in case of a big change

When Atlassian announced their acquisition of Trello, many employees had doubts and concerns. As a manager, the author took action to listen to their frustrations and provide as much information as possible. They also used Atlassian's values to reassure employees that the acquirer was not against them. To further reassure the most negative employee, the author asked the CEO to talk to them. This experience taught the author that it is important to give each employee personal attention during big changes to soothe their concerns.

How to react to the resignation of one of your best team members.

When one of the best engineers on the team announced his departure, the manager took time to process the situation and discussed it with the team. They offered a counter-offer, but the engineer decided to leave anyway. The manager learned that it is important to anticipate the needs of team members and to be explicit about it, to ensure that they are on the right career path.

Being direct during performance management

After a new hire on a product team at Lyft was not meeting expectations, the manager took steps to identify the issue and have a direct conversation with the employee. Through an honest and empathetic approach, the manager was able to build rapport and reconcile the situation. The lesson learned is that termination should be a last resort, and that communication should be honest and transparent while also retaining empathy.

Solving a conflict between a team of back-end engineers and a team of ops engineers

The VP of Engineering at Happn faced a conflict between the ops and back-end engineering teams. To resolve the conflict, the VP gathered an equal number of engineers from each team and had them use the "Six Thinking Hats Method" to identify action plans. The teams were able to resolve the conflict with the help of action plans and follow-up meetings. The VP learned three lessons from the experience: it's better to gather both teams in the same room, they must have a common objective, and action plans and follow-up meetings are key.