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WebHack #54

Byron Lian (Wei Jhih Lian)

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Couple minutes ago…

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You just finished the handover from previous…

OK, maybe not a perfect handover from…

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Oh ! no handover ?

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Anyway, you started a new role as an EM of your team…

Here comes the first wave

Outline

Meeting !! Meeting !! Meeting !!

It usually start like this

And become like this

!?

Manager, noun.

• Textbook Definition:

An individual who is in charge of a certain group of tasks, or a certain subset of a company. A manager often has a staff of people who report to him or her.

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• Modern Translation:

An individual who races through the halls in a frantic attempt to make the next meeting on time while also answering e-mails on his or her mobile device.

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Source: Harvard Business

Reduce meeting

• Must Attend
• 1 on 1

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• Then these. Meeting can let you

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• Show team’s performance
• Know members’ current tasks – Daily huddle
• Make team development more smoother – Sprint Retrospective
• Get information from higher managers – Leader Meeting

What happen to other meetings ?

• Reduce the duration / frequency - Project sync
• Simply say “no”
• Assign to senior member / tech lead , join with them few times

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• What else ?
• Wrap up meeting earlier if there’s no more topic
• Leave meeting immediately when you are not required to stay

Next. Noticed Your Role is Changed

Relationship with members

Nothing changed ! �We still can share everything to each other

Source: Teletubbies

No thanks…�There’s something we don’t talk with Manager

Source: Teletubbies

IMO

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• The relationship between you and members should not be top to down, realize that you just have different tasks for team

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• Of course, different tasks has different authority

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Relationship with other teams

You represent the team

• Follow the standard procedure
• Instead of “no”, tell them how long and what is the cost

1 engineer 1 day

2 engineers 10 days

10,000 engineers 10 years

How about your task, also changed ?

As is

Source: Book Calculus with Applications, 11/e cover

Now

Source: Book Calculus with Applications, 11/e cover

I have to do everything !?

Source: It’s True — You Can’t Do It All

No, what your task is…

• “You” are able to provide support in anyplace

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• You need to make the final decision on your own �(Always listen to members’ advices)

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• You take the responsibility for failure

More specifically

Source: Captain Luffy by ICHIKO GRAFFITY

You free yourself from the meetings and know your role��What next ?

Team Stability – What you can do

Key point��Let’s avoid changing too many rules & things at the beginning, especially those which will disturb your members

Goal and team mission

• Set the goal and team mission

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Examples:

• Provide stable & high performance web service
• How do we achieve this ? Monitoring service ? Latest Front end tech ?

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• Sharing & training web knowledge cross the department

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List all the services and assign PIC

• Let everyone has ownership
• Rotate the PIC time by time

About trouble handling

• Set up a very simple SOP – Fix it first

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• Good to have
• Create monitoring board / alert for your service
• Logggggggg
• Put checking PRs into your daily task

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Good time to clean up some tasks / tickets

It helps you

• Know more about the hidden issue for service
• Reduce the task which no longer needed

When you talk with your Manager

• Don’t hide the trouble or issue
• Sometimes, it’s ok to say “no” with reasonable reason
• Always talk what your member did and how they did well

Even Better

A healthy environment

• Psychological safety: ��In a team with high psychological safety, teammates feel safe to take risks around their team members. ��They feel confident that no one on the team will embarrass or punish anyone else for admitting a mistake, asking a question, or offering a new idea.

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Source: Guide: Understand team effectiveness

Source: Happy employees matter

Made to measure (MTM) 1 on 1

• Frequency / Duration, customize it
• Content / Topic , customize it
• Place / Way, customize it

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• During 1 on 1
• Listen and let them talk
• Let them know your thoughts
• 1 on 1 !== project / task report meeting

Know members’ activities without asking

Help members but not at the beginning

• Let them learned from the failure (Not a big one)
• If you see they are struggling, give some hints first

Keep coding

Image Original Source

OK, I think today is enough.��But how to know that I’m doing well ?

Long for short…��Team can work well in most of cases without you !

Recap

Final thing

Any way can make team works smoothly is a good way

Thanks for the listening

Source: Orange Pieces, June 18^th 2019