/Leadership

Performance Management: The Rising Tide

- James Stanier tl;dr: A good performance management system includes: (1) Clear definitions of performance expectations for each role. (2) Regular performance review processes - self-assessment, manager assessment, peer feedback. (3) Calibration to ensure fairness and consistency across the organization. (4) Performance Improvement Plan process for underperforming employees. (5) Compensation process tied to performance outcomes. James discusses how this generates a power curve over time. 

featured in #502

Engineering A Culture

- Bryan Cantrill tl;dr: Bryan, CTO at Oxide, discusses fostering a culture of "openness, curiosity, and communication,” sharing some implementation details: (1) Uniform compensation, even if it might not scale indefinitely. (2) We are writing intensive, but we still believe in spoken collaboration. (3) We have no formalized performance review process, but we believe in feedback. (4) We record every meeting, but not every conversation. (5) We have a remote work force, but we also have an office. (6) We are non-hierarchical, but we all ultimately report to our CEO. (7) We don’t use engineering metrics, but we all measure ourselves by our customers and their success. 

featured in #502

Using Metrics To Measure Individual Developer Performance

- Laura Tacho tl;dr: Laura reframes this into another question that leaders need to ask to evaluate reports: “what data are you going to use to evaluate my performance?” Her high level advice, which the article dives into: (1) Determine how you want to measure performance first, then find metrics to measure what's important to your company. (2) Focus on outcomes over output, using output metrics mainly to debug missed outcomes. (3) Watch out for metrics encouraging the wrong behaviors. (4) Metrics alone aren't enough - you still need active performance management and feedback. 

featured in #502

Using Metrics To Measure Individual Developer Performance

- Laura Tacho tl;dr: Laura reframes this into another question that leaders need to ask to evaluate reports: “what data are you going to use to evaluate my performance?” Her high level advice, which the article dives into: (1) Determine how you want to measure performance first, then find metrics to measure what's important to your company. (2) Focus on outcomes over output, using output metrics mainly to debug missed outcomes. (3) Watch out for metrics encouraging the wrong behaviors. (4) Metrics alone aren't enough - you still need active performance management and feedback. 

featured in #501

How To Talk About Deadlines At Work

tl;dr: For both managers and direct reports. For managers: (1) Encourage your team to be honest about timing, especially high performers. (2) Temporarily “over-correct” to convince your team it’s safe to push back, celebrate their behavior when they do so. When they feel comfortable, become tactical. For reports: (3) Speak up at the first sign that you might miss a deadline. (4) Wes shares scripts of what to say. (5) Suffering in silence is not useful. 

featured in #501

How To Talk About Deadlines At Work

- Wes Kao tl;dr: For both managers and direct reports. For managers: (1) Encourage your team to be honest about timing, especially high performers. (2) Temporarily “over-correct” to convince your team it’s safe to push back, celebrate their behavior when they do so. When they feel comfortable, become tactical. For reports: (3) Speak up at the first sign that you might miss a deadline. (4) Wes shares scripts of what to say. (5) Suffering in silence is not useful. 

featured in #500

An Evolutionary Approach To Staffing Software Product Teams

- Patrick Roos tl;dr: “A common pitfall that many companies face is the temptation to staff a product team quickly and from scratch with a large number of mostly external developers.” Phase (1): Lay the Foundations with a minimal team i.e. 1-3 entrepreneurial engineers and domain expert (2) Expand with precision: 1-2 engineers who match the culture and work ethic. (3) Scale through specialized feature teams. 

featured in #500

Tracking Engineering Time

- Jacob Kaplan-Moss tl;dr: How should a manager discover what their team is working on and figure out if time is being allocated correctly? Jacob shares his playbook: (1) Measure the time engineers are spending using story point, ticket counts. This doesn’t need to be super-precise. (2) Split that time into “buckets” that map activities that influence output. Jacob starts with 3 buckets: features i.e. time spent developing new things, debt and toil i.e. time spent on routine tasks. (3) Agree on the appropriate ratios for each bucket, and then adjust over time to influence the outputs you care about.

featured in #499

Friction Isn't Velocity

- Will Larson tl;dr: “It remains the most common category of reasoning error that I see stressed executives make. If you’re not sure how to make progress, then emotionally it feels a lot better to substitute motion for lack of progress, but in practice you’re worse off.” Will highlights this with examples. 

featured in #499

Leadership Requires Taking Some Risk

- Will Larson tl;dr: Will discusses the scenarios when taking risks make the most sense as a leader. “Taking direct, personal risk is a prerequisite to taking ownership of interesting problems that matter to your company. A risk-free existence isn’t a leadership role, regardless of whatever your title might be. Indeed, an uncomfortable belief of mine is that leadership is predicated on risk. The upside is that almost all meaningful personal and career growth is hidden behind the risk-taking door. There’s a lot of interesting lessons to learn out there, and while you can learn a lot from others, some of them you have to learn yourself.” 

featured in #498