The Manager's Path · A Guide for Tech Leaders Navigating Growth and Change by Fournier, Camille -- Read -- Imperial Library of Trantor

Index

Acknowledgments Introduction

How to Read This Book O’Reilly Safari How to Contact Us

1. Management 101

What to Expect from a Manager

One-on-One Meetings Feedback and Workplace Guidance Training and Career Growth

How to Be Managed

Spend Time Thinking About What You Want You Are Responsible for Yourself Give Your Manager a Break Choose Your Managers Wisely

Assessing Your Own Experience

2. Mentoring

The Importance of Mentoring to Junior Team Members Being a Mentor

Mentoring an Intern

Listen carefully Clearly communicate Calibrate your response

Mentoring a New Hire Technical or Career Mentoring

When you are a mentor When you are a mentee

Good Manager, Bad Manager: The Alpha Geek Tips for the Manager of a Mentor Key Takeaways for the Mentor

Be Curious and Open-Minded Listen and Speak Their Language Make Connections

Assessing Your Own Experience

3. Tech Lead

All Great Tech Leads Know This One Weird Trick Being a Tech Lead 101

The Main Roles of a Tech Lead

Systems architect and business analyst Project planner Software developer and team leader

Managing Projects Managing a Project Decision Point: Stay on the Technical Track or Become a Manager

Imagined Life of a Senior Individual Contributor Real Life of a Senior Individual Contributor Imagined Life of a Manager Real Life of a Manager

Good Manager, Bad Manager: The Process Czar How to Be a Great Tech Lead

Understand the Architecture Be a Team Player Lead Technical Decisions Communicate

Assessing Your Own Experience

4. Managing People

Starting a New Reporting Relationship Off Right

Build Trust and Rapport Create a 30/60/90-Day Plan Encourage Participation by Updating the New Hire Documentation Communicate Your Style and Expectations Get Feedback from Your New Hire

Communicating with Your Team

Have Regular 1-1s Scheduling 1-1s Adjusting 1-1s

Different 1-1 Styles

The To-Do List Meeting The Catch-up The Feedback Meeting The Progress Report Getting to Know You Mix It Up

Good Manager, Bad Manager: Micromanager, Delegator Practical Advice for Delegating Effectively

Use the Team’s Goals to Understand Which Details You Should Dig Into Gather Information from the Systems Before Going to the People Adjust Your Focus Depending on the Stage of Projects Establish Standards for Code and Systems Treat the Open Sharing of Information, Good or Bad, in a Neutral to Positive Way

Creating a Culture of Continuous Feedback Performance Reviews

Writing and Delivering a Performance Review

Give yourself enough time, and start early Try to account for the whole year, not just the past couple of months Use concrete examples, and excerpts from peer reviews Spend plenty of time on accomplishments and strengths When it comes to areas for improvement, keep it focused Avoid big surprises Schedule enough time to discuss the review

Cultivating Careers Challenging Situations: Firing Underperformers Assessing Your Own Experience

5. Managing a Team

Staying Technical Debugging Dysfunctional Teams: The Basics

Not Shipping People Drama Unhappiness Due to Overwork Collaboration Problems

The Shield How to Drive Good Decisions

Create a Data-Driven Team Culture Flex Your Own Product Muscles Look into the Future Review the Outcome of Your Decisions and Projects Run Retrospectives for the Processes and Day-to-Day

Good Manager, Bad Manager: Conflict Avoider, Conflict Tamer

The Dos and Don’ts of Managing Conflict

Challenging Situations: Team Cohesion Destroyers

The Brilliant Jerk The Noncommunicator The Employee Who Lacks Respect

Advanced Project Management

Project Management Rules of Thumb

None of this is a replacement for agile project management You have 10 productive engineering weeks per engineer per quarter Budget 20% of time for generic sustaining engineering work across the board As you approach deadlines, it is your job to say no Use the doubling rule for quick estimates, but push for planning time to estimate longer tasks Be selective about what you bring to the team to estimate

Assessing Your Own Experience

6. Managing Multiple Teams

Managing Your Time: What’s Important, Anyway? Decisions and Delegation

Delegate Simple and Frequent Tasks Handle Simple and Infrequent Tasks Yourself Use Complex and Infrequent Tasks as Training Opportunities for Rising Leaders Delegate Complex and Frequent Tasks to Develop Your Team

Challenging Situations: Strategies for Saying No

“Yes, and” Create Policies “Help Me Say Yes” Appeal to Budget Work as a Team Don’t Prevaricate

Technical Elements Beyond Code Measuring the Health of Your Development Team

Frequency of Releases Frequency of Code Check-ins Frequency of Incidents

Good Manager, Bad Manager: Us Versus Them, Team Player The Virtues of Laziness and Impatience Assessing Your Own Experience

7. Managing Managers

Skip-Level Meetings Manager Accountability Good Manager, Bad Manager: The People Pleaser Managing New Managers Managing Experienced Managers Hiring Managers Debugging Dysfunctional Organizations

Have a Hypothesis Check the Data Observe the Team Ask Questions Check the Team Dynamics Jump In to Help Be Curious

Setting Expectations and Delivering on Schedule Challenging Situations: Roadmap Uncertainty

Strategies for Handling Roadmap Uncertainty

Staying Technically Relevant

Oversee Technical Investment Ask Informed Questions Analyze and Explain Engineering and Business Tradeoffs Make Specific Requests Use Your Experience as a Gut Check

Assessing Your Own Experience

8. The Big Leagues

Models for Thinking About Tech Senior Leadership What’s a VP of Engineering? What’s a CTO? Changing Priorities Setting the Strategy

Do a Lot of Research Combine Your Research and Your Ideas Draft a Strategy Consider Your Board’s Communication Style

Challenging Situations: Delivering Bad News Senior Peers in Other Functions The Echo Ruling with Fear, Guiding with Trust

Correcting a Culture of Fear

True North Recommended Reading Assessing Your Own Experience

9. Bootstrapping Culture

Assessing Your Role Creating Your Culture Applying Core Values Creating Cultural Policy Writing a Career Ladder Cross-Functional Teams

Structuring Cross-Functional Teams

Developing Engineering Processes Practical Advice: Depersonalize Decision Making

Code Review The Outage Postmortem Architecture Review

Assessing Your Own Experience

10. Conclusion Index

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