Below are some thoughts that I put together in my journey to learn how to become a better manager of engineers. The learning journey continues.

There are three main areas that need focus:

• Vision, strategy & execution
• People
• Alignment

Vision, strategy & execution

You must have a vision of where you would like the team to go. A team needs to have long term goals that fit within the organization. Imagine the most perfect version of your team. What should it do? Should it evolve to several teams? Should it focus on fewer responsibilities? Should your team build a new product or process? ..etc. The “most perfect version” of a team is subjective, it will likely differ from one person to the next. So feel free to consult your leaders, your team, you peers, what have you. However, it’s on you to put the vision together, or else your management career will devolve into a series of reactions.

Having said all that, a vision without a strategy is a work of fiction. A fancy idea that will stay an idea. Think of small incremental steps that follow your paths of least resistance to get to your vision. Those small incremental steps become your strategy. Some steps you’ll get right, others you will get wrong. Fail fast, learn, then iterate.

A strategy without execution is still akin to a work of fiction, more of hard fiction though as opposed to a fancy idea. Execution is taking action, following the steps of your strategy, making things happen, and bringing the vision to reality piece by piece. Believe it or not, but there is a big difference between planning to build a piece of software vs actually building it!

This is much easier said than done. Orgs change, priorities shift, and no vision is set in stone. You need to be acutely aware of this simple fact & to be ready to change when change is needed. Your strategy will then have to adapt. As in, you’ll have to salvage whatever you can from the existing strategy, then build newer incremental steps that align with the new vision. If you wait for too long, you’ll become stagnant, a slow wheel! Who wants that?!

People

You are responsible for the success and the growth of the people who report to you. You must deeply understand and know your people. The first thing you should know is what motivates them. Some people are motivated by praise, others are motivated by cash, others like to have big impacts. Humans are very sophisticated creatures, we don’t always know what we need or what we want.

You have to stretch your people a bit and get a feeling for their boundaries. They may be hesitant to make moves, because they might be worried of failure or blame. You have to supply an environment where it was ok to fail, but fail fast and iterate quickly. As your people grow, you grow, your team grows, and your org grows.

Stretching your people doesn’t mean pushing against their paths of most resistance. You have to align your strategy with your people. For example, if in your strategy you plan to execute heavy user outreach, don’t assign the task to an engineer who’d much prefer to stay awake at 3 AM to figure out a software bug! And no, not all engineers like to do engineering work at the wee hours of the night. And yes, some engineers actually do enjoy user outreach.

Don’t assume your people are happy. You have to take steps to first know whether they are happy, and then take steps to make them happy if they are not.

Alignment

You have to figure out how build alignments beyond your team. This not only includes other teams, but also key stakeholders, and with neighboring orgs. Key stakeholders are not just other leaders, or your customers. Key stakeholders include the scrappy technician, the genius engineer, the experienced product manager, the passionate program manager, the data driven project manager..etc. They are the ones who can actually make things happen, because they possess the ‘street knowledge’. They are the ones who know the limitations, the gotchas & the shortcuts in the technology and in the process. If your strategy does not offer wins to other teams or key stakeholders, then your strategy is wrong. Building efficient and ongoing alignment with other stakeholders and organizations is so important for your team’s growth and evolution.

You need to identify the win-wins, and incorporate it in your strategy , even if it’ll theoretically take a bit of more time. That is because win-win strategies are the most likely to happen. Win-wins mean that you win & others win too, even if you don’t get every single thing that you want. Once you identify the win-wins, share them with other stakeholders, then iterate and evolve. Make stakeholders feel included. Don’t assume they will feel included, you need to make some efforts.