Draft of engineering management is hard article

content/engineering-managment-is-hard.md

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+title = "Engineering Management is Hard"
+date = 2020-04-19
+[taxonomies]
+tags = [
+    "teams",
+    "management",
+    "culture",
+]
++++
+
+# Learning to be a manager
+
+I'm about 80% manager these days. Some time ago I took on the role of Manager
+at my current place of employment. This is a role I would have sworn I never
+wanted to have 7 years ago. But life experience has a way of changing how you
+feel about certain things. Before joining this company I experienced one of the
+least competent engineering managers I had ever worked with. Up to then I had
+had some sub-par experiences but never true incompetence. I realized that I
+needed to better understand what an engineering manager needed to do. I needed
+some survival skills and the best way to do that is to learn on the job. If I
+got a chance to experience some of that in future roles I decided I would take
+the opportunity. So here I am with a role that is 80% managment and 20%
+technical. In theory I think it was intended to be 50/50 but reality differs
+quite a bit.
+
+> Engineering Management is hard 
+
+Engineering Management is **hard**. I don't think I realized just how hard
+until I experienced it for myself. Some of the problems are fundamentally
+unsolvable. The most you can hope for is to manage and mitigate the fallout.
+You can't just hack your way around people problems and management has a
+considerable amount of people problems to solve. I've been learning a lot in my
+on-the-job training experiment. I'd like to talk a little about what I've been
+learning.
+
+# Communication
+
+> You are a conduit between the needs of the business and the capabilities
+> of the engineering team
+
+In many ways being an engineering manager is about being a translator. You are
+a conduit between the needs of the business and the capabilities of the
+engineering team. Walking a fine line between what the business needs to stay
+in business and what it takes to create scalable technology is not an easy
+task. You have to tell both sides no sometimes. They usually don't want to hear
+it when you say no. I've learned that honesty, transparency, and tact are the
+among the most important attributes of a good manager.
+
+## Honesty
+
+It's important not to promise what you can't deliver for either side. Don't lie
+to your engineers about when and how you'll be able to tackle technical debt.
+Don't promise procedural changes that you can't realistically deliver. Be
+honest about what you are empowered to accomplish. Be realistic about the
+capabilities of the team to the business. Don't oversell and don't undersell.
+If you lose the trust of either side you will be ineffective in your role.
+
+> People appreciate it when you are honest about your failings
+> and diligent in addressing them
+
+Come clean when you mess up. You aren't any more perfect than the next guy.
+Sometimes you'll drop something on the floor. When it happens acknowledge that
+it was your mistake and work to address it. People appreciate it when you are
+honest about your failings and diligent in addressing them. It gives them faith
+that you will be honest with them and they can trust you.
+
+Being transparent when you can and being forthright about it when you can't be
+transparent are important. Everyone like to understand the reason for decisions
+that they don't like. If they are able to put those decisions in context it
+goes a long way toward calming them and helps them to see whether there is a
+light at the end of the tunnel or not. They understand that you can't always
+share everything with them but they appreciate it when you are honest about
+that handicap and when you share what you can.
+
+## Tact
+
+Being honest doesn't imply you need to be harsh. It is possible to deliver
+the truth without triggering an unnecessary negative emotional response. Your
+goal should be to ensure that any emotional response is derived from the factual
+content of your communication and not the method of delivery. This can be harder
+than it sounds. Trying to eliminate any emotion from you delivery can be just as
+bad as including negative emotion.
+
+> I have found that focusing on empathy is helpful
+
+I have found that focusing on empathy is helpful. Understand how your audience is
+going to percieve the news you need to deliver. It goes a long way when it's clear
+that you understand the impact the news will have. Empathy can inform which type
+of emotion you should inject in your delivery.
+
+Be sure to listen as well. In many ways listening does as much as to give people an
+impression of tact as your delivery does. Follow up you delivery with an opportunity
+to listen and see how it was recieved.
+
+# Team Culture
+
+By default culture flows from the top down most of the time. And for a team you
+are managing you are the source of that flow. You have an outsize impact on
+your teams culture. If you are negative then your team will tend to take on a
+negative attitude. If you are positive then your team will tend to take on a
+positive attitude. I've been thinking a lot lately about what you can do to
+create a good team culture.
+
+## Identity
+
+What is your teams engineering identity. Are you a quality at all costs team or
+are a ship it and fix it if it breaks in prod kind of team. Do you value unit
+testing or do you get more value from Manual QA? Is CI/CD in your DNA or are
+weekly deployments better for your team? What about developer tooling? Is it
+everyone for themselves? Is tooling first class part of your teams identity. Do
+you tend toward build or buy?
+
+> Your goal is to be in a position where you don't need to micro-manage your team
+
+You should be clear about your teams identity. This will give guide rails for
+your developers and team members. They will know what mental framework they
+should use when making decisions. This will free you from having to be involved
+in the minutia. Your goal is to be in a position where you don't need to
+micro-manage your team.
+
+## Narrative
+
+Your goal should be to craft a narrative that is positive, believable,
+consistent, and evolving.
+
+Your narrative should be positive.You don't want a narrartive that is framed as
+us vs them. Something I've seen before in engineering organizations. You want
+it to focus on how the team can be productive and make the business successful.
+
+> If you aren't honest in your narrative then the cracks will start to show
+
+A good narrative is believable. A narrative that everyone can buy into. Telling
+a story about where the company is going and how the team will be able to
+contribute to it does wonders for team cohesion. Make sure that the story is
+accurate and not a fabrication. If you aren't honest in your narrative then the
+cracks will start to show and people will start to share their own narrative. A
+narrative that in many cases leads to bad places for the team.
+
+> If parts of your narrative are in conflict with itself then the
+> team won't know how to be self directed
+
+An inconsistent narrative, will kill productivity. If parts of your narrative
+are in conflict with itself then the team won't know how to be self directed.
+They'll be backtracking all the time and it will appear to them that the ground
+is shifting under their feet. If you craft a good narrative then the team will
+have a shared story. They will know where they fit. A team with a consistent
+shared story doesn't surprise you and is self-directed.
+
+> Acknowledge that there is change and we need to adapt to it
+
+Narratives need to change and evolve. When this happens be transparent about
+it. Acknowledge that the environment is changing and we need to adapt to it.
+Acknowledge when something isn't working for whatever reason and get consensus
+on how to change it. Don't try to shoehorn the changes into the old narrative.
+Be transparent that the narrative has changed.
+
+# Potential Impact
+
+> You can be the difference between a good work environment
+> for employees and a bad one
+
+If the above challenges appeal to you then you might be interested in some
+managerial roles. The impact you can have on a team and a company in many ways
+make it worth it. You can be the difference between a good work environment for
+employees and a bad one. You have the potential to remove barriers to
+productivity for a team if you do it well. If you do it poorly though you could
+be the reason a team's productivity stalls. The risk/reward here is
+considerably different than any other role I've had. I can do great damage or I
+can be a force multiplier like no other.