One of the highlights in my week are talking to folks during 1:1s. I have a few guidelines that I follow for those interactions with my teammates: I let them choose when and how often to have their 1:1. I get to know them and their aspirations. I elaborate any company announcements, changes, or anniversaries. We create a development plan around their goals and regularly check in to see their progress. Management: 1:1 full article
Team decision making can be an easy or a hard process depending on the team dynamic. No matter what the situation is, there are two major factors that come into play: Each team member should have a voice The team should avoid paralysis by analysis Let’s geek out and create a flowchart that will drive us through the decision process using the DOT language: digraph G { problem [ label = "The problem"; shape = rect; ]; opinions [ label = "Pool of Opinions"; shape = rect; ]; vote [ label = "Team vote"; shape = rect; ]; decision [ label = "Clear Decision? Management: Decision Making full article
I sometimes find myself in situations where the concept of a leadership style is brought up. While, this discussion progresses, it usually ends up with a conclusion that leaders have different appoaches, and every leader has a style. For me, a leader should be: Honest I have committed to practice transparency with my team as transparency builds trust. Humble I have committed to FIRST listen and solicit feedback before I express my opinions. Management: Leadership Style full article
Birthdays are wonderful occasions and celebrating with your team is showing that you care. In order to make sure I follow up on every birthday, the first thing I do with a new team is setup reminders in Slack for each team member’s birth date. Management: Birthdays full article
One of the practices that I have adopted is to ask if any team member experiences a blocker or a technical challange and pair up with them for an afternoon for a hands-on technical implementation or debugging. That allows me to keep a good pulse on the team, the overall technical direction, opportunities for coaching, and getting to know people by establishing closer relationships. Here are two of my most recent experiences: Management: Pair Up with Engineers full article