Engineering Management Flashcards
Engineering Manager Role
- Managing Engineering Output
- Managing Stakeholders
- Managing Team
- Managing yourself
Managing Engineering Output - Core Objective
Deliver impactful & reliable output
Managing Engineering Output - Engineering Production Loop
- Work Intake
- Assigning resources
- Tracking Agile Methods
- Sign-off Delivery
- Retrospectives (the most important one)
Managing Engineering Output - Retrospectives 3 types of feedback
- Output - what we just delivered/done
- Process - how we operating
- Roadmap - what is next
Managing Engineering Output - Retrospectives turn feedback into actions
- Next action required - No action vs Next cycle vs Strategic project
- Owner - IC vs PM vs EM
- Checkpoint - when to review this
Managing Engineering Output - Impact and Team Fit
Impact - Work is aligned with a strategic objective and is measurable
Team Fit -Work is scoped for feasible delivery by the team
Managing Engineering Output - Team Fit
- Size
- Skill
- Remit - The strategi objective of the work matches the strategic objective of the team
Managing Engineering Output - Assess the impact
- Absolution Assessment - defined threshold
2. Relative Assessment - compare to other existing work
Managing Engineering Output - Team Impact Matrix
High Impact and High Team Fit: Accept
High Impact and Low Team Fit: Refer
Low Impact and High Team Fit: Enabled(Adjust scope or resource)
Low Impact and Low Team Fit: Decline (Show Empathy and offer rationale)
Managing Engineering Output - Estimation Process
Short-Sighted: Simply fulfil the request
Long-Sighted: Use Estimation to influence future work, use it as an opportunity to strategically lay the groundwork for what’s to come for their team.
Managing Engineering Output - Regular Portfolio Review
Monthly cadence is ideal
Managing Engineering Output - Regular Portfolio Review - Identifying Issues
Project Issues: 1. Diminished business case 2. User signal 3. OKR shifts 4. Tech debt overwhelm 5. Scope creep Portfolio issues: 1. Parallel projects 2. Backchannel work 3. Never ending efforts
Managing Engineering Output - Regular Portfolio Review - Escalate & Collaborate
Project issues normally go to PM
Portfolio issues normally go to the director
Managing Engineering Output - Regular Portfolio Review - Establish a PoV
Adjust: Often the favoured approach when the project has slipped on team fit. Scope vs Time vs Resources
Abandon: External or structural factors are most likely at play. Thus are generally not responsive to the lever adjustments. Planning an exit & Cleaning up Tech Debt & Celebrating the sunset
Work allocation
Junior members work on more reactive/maintenance tasks
Senior members work on long term initiatives
The optimal size for one subdomain
3
1 is too risky for that person to leave
2 has the risk of disagreeing and not making progress
Managing Stakeholders - Collaboration Specs
Why: Strategic Direction, everyone agrees on the ultimate objective
What: Work Definition, everyone agrees on what to do and how the product will look
How: Work Execution. Everyone agrees on how to build the product together
Managing Stakeholders - Tools for Collaboration Specs - Product Strategy Map
Goals
Metrics
Quality Bar
Managing Stakeholders - Tools for Collaboration Specs - Contextual PoVs
Strategic context input
Learned preferences
Blindspots
Team development
Managing Stakeholders - Tools for Collaboration Specs - Collaboration Responsibilities
- Identify key collab responsibilities
- Determine the decision-making framework
- Assign roles for all relevant parties, ownership, participation and awareness, or leave blank.
Managing Stakeholders - Decision-making framework
RACI: Responsible Accountable Consulted Informed
RAPID: Recommend Agree Perform Input Decide
Managing Stakeholders - Tools for Collaboration Specs - Comms Plan
Set regular check-in rituals to stay aligned over time
Start with why
Check responsibility matrix for collab needs
Identify what kind of communication to use, sync or async?
Managing Stakeholders - SBIIN
Situation Behaviour Impact Intent Next
Managing Stakeholders - Stakeholder proximity map
At centre Own eng team POD Product manager, Design and Data team Other Eng teams (EM) Operations (EM & PM) Business (PM) Execs (PM) Outermost