Comment by kejaed | Hacker News Reader

Comment by kejaed | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

Were you a team member on this team before you were promoted to lead? If so, it's going to be a tough road ahead because you are going from a peer / co-worker relationship to a manager & direct report relationship. These are tough transitions to make, and a reason the military will often transfer someone who is newly put into a leadership position.

Have you started to train yourself as a lead / manager? A couple of resources I've found useful in the switch have been Manager Tools [0] (book, site, and podcast) as well as The Manager's Path [1].

While his shtick can be a bit thick at times, I enjoyed Extreme Ownership by Willink [2], if only because it codified a lot of thoughts I've had for a long time. I've worked with a lot of military and defence so the stories and life views he teaches through didn't throw me, but I know it does for some people so YMMV.

I have found that the Manager's Tools suggestion that the single best thing you can do is have weekly one-on-ones with your team to be true. It can be tough, especially if you still have a lot of your IC responsibilities alongside your new team lead roles, but it is truly remarkable how much more insight you can get into what your team is thinking from holding these sessions. This is they crystal ball you are looking for. And remember, the weeklies are about your team members, not about you (refer to manager tools).

[0] https://www.manager-tools.com/products/effective-manager-boo...

[1] https://www.amazon.ca/Managers-Path-Leaders-Navigating-Growt...

[2] https://www.amazon.ca/Extreme-Ownership-U-S-Navy-SEALs/dp/12...

+1 for [0] and [1]. Exactly what I settled on when jumping in to these roles and both great for giving you enough comfort to start acting.

Now I have to have a look at [2] and see if it's as good, too :)

I also struggle with being the product manager at the same time and also stretching beyond my team in that role, even if in my team it's just ~5 directs for now.

found a good summary for [2], guess that will do for me: https://thepowermoves.com/extreme-ownership/

Thanks for taking the time to answer @kejaed. I feel like I’m nudging my team too much, I do these 1:1s on a weekly basis, but still I can’t say I find blockers and dependencies on time, and thus it prevents me from delivering my plan as I should. do you know methodologies or tools that can help me with that? Also, can you share how do you measure your teams?

I'd say don't think about nudging, you are the manager / lead now, so manage and lead. Take a step back (detach as Jocko would say) and when you do find the blockers and dependencies, think about what you could have done differently to find them sooner. What questions could you have asked of yourself or your team to have sussed them out when the time would have been right?

When you mentioned 'nudging', it reminded me of when I started to move into a leadership role. I was worried about pushback, but what I found is that the team was looking for leadership, ready to have guidance to navigate the organization and management, to pull different parts together so they could focus on a) what they are good at and b) what they'd like to be working on.

Measurement is the four letter word of management isn't it? It's something I'm always working at improving. Right now our KPIs are at more of a macro rather than micro level as we navigate the successful implementation of (more) formal Systems and Software Engineering processes. These macro indicators are things that matter to be business, like on-time releases, well estimated SW development tasks, and successful customer tests & deliveries.

But those are really AS9100 / ISO 9001 KPIs, and while important to keep an eye on from a company point of view, I measure my teams by the conversations and moods at coffee and the feedback during our one-on-ones. The work will always be there, and the team is not a KPI or sprint velocity, but a group of people just trying to do their best, and if they aren't, shoving metrics or backlogs in their face isn't ever going to help, but a conversation will. Just my two cents, I probably veer a little to the EQ side of things most days.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com