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97 Things Every Engineering Manager should know Camille Fournier

Collective Wisdom from the Experts

April 05, 2021 - 228 words - 2 mins Found a typo? Edit me
engineering management

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 ;)


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