# 97 Things Every Engineering Manager should know

*Collective Wisdom from the Experts*

2021-04-05 | `leadership` `team-management` `communication` `mentoring`

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

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### 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.

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Another blog post with way more detailed key insights:
[Danlebrero Blog](https://danlebrero.com/2021/03/24/97-things-every-engineering-manager-should-know-summary/) ;)

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