97 Things Every Engineering Manager should know Camille Fournier

The main takeaway

As a manager your work is to create clarity, clarity, and more clarity.

Key Insights

• As a manager, you need to fix your personal quirks.
• Consider doing experiments instead of making decisions.
• “Bad news test” - Given two tasks, which one would you rather be sharing bad news about? Delegate that task.
• On a struggling team, start by answering two questions:
  • How do I create clarity?
  • How do I create capacity?
• Ask for clarification.
• To give constructive feedback, pay attention to how the person gets stuck, sidetracked or sloppy.
• Management is not a promotion. It is a career change.
• Most of the dysfunctions come from some lack of clarity goal.
• For a fixed deadline, scope and quality are always negotiable.
• Emotional contagion is real.
• As a new manager, listen and understand before you try to change something.
• Good interview questions:
  • What have you learned in the past six months?
  • Tell me about the time when you failed and what you learned from that?
  • Do you have the skills, expertise and experience to perform the job?
• Complains are good: they show that you are trusted.

Another blog post with way more detailed key insights: Danlebrero Blog ;)