Book notes: 97 Things Every Engineering Manager Should Know
Tags: books, management
Published: 2021-07-05 07:47:21

---
title: Book notes: 97 Things Every Engineering Manager Should Know
published: true
tags: books, management
canonical_url: https://danlebrero.com/2021/03/24/97-things-every-engineering-manager-should-know-summary/
description: Book notes on "97 Things Every Engineering Manager Should Know" edited by Camille Fournier
cover_image: https://danlebrero.com/images/blog/books/things-every-engineering-manager-should-know.jpg
series: Book notes
---

These are my notes on [97 Things Every Engineering Manager Should Know](https://amzn.to/39duWrx) edited by [Camille Fournier](https://twitter.com/skamille).

Similar to other "97 things" books, loads of useful tips on a broad range of topics in short blog-like chapters. I especially liked the chapters from [Cate Huston](https://twitter.com/catehstn).

My main takeaway:

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

# Key Insights

The number in (#) is the chapter.

* (3) As a manager, you need to fix your personal quirks, not apologize or document them.
* Highlight which items have uncertainty (== learning == mistakes == risks).
* (12) Consider doing experiments instead of making decisions.
* (10) The highest leverage activity of an engineering manager is making sure who reports to them have clarity, alignment, and understand "The Why" to "The What".
* (13) Your company culture is well-defined when you could turn away a world-class candidate because culture fit.
* (18) "Bad news test" - Given two tasks, which one would you rather be sharing bad news about? Delegate that task.
* (27) On a struggling team, start by answering two questions:
    1. How do I create clarity?
    2. How do I create capacity?
* [List of "soft" skills](https://itsyourturnblog.com/lets-stop-calling-them-soft-skills-9cc27ec09ecb).
* (33) [Ask for clarification](https://danlebrero.com/2020/04/15/on-the-importance-of-clear-communication-in-devops/#content).
* (40) To give constructive feedback, pay attention to how the person gets stuck, sidetracked or sloppy.
* (52) Management is not a promotion. It is a career change.
* (54) Train new managers.
* (59) Most of the dysfunctions come from some lack of clarity goal.
* (60) For a fixed deadline, scope and quality are always negotiable.
* (67) Emotional contagion is real.
* (79) As a new manager, listen and understand before you try to change something.
* (82) Stable teams FTW!.
* (83) 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?
* (87) Self-organizing teams: shared goal + set of rules + tension.
* (92) Complains are good: they show that you are trusted. 

# All notes

The number in (#) is the chapter.

* (1) Make one if four 1-2-1 a retrospective:
    * Beforehand both write down : what work, what not, ideas for change.
* (2) How to know you are a good manager:
    * Problems be handled without you.
    * Team delivers consistently.
    * Honest and meaningful feedback, both directions and between team members.
    * Team is ok with failure.
    * You have time to do strategic work.
    * What kind of advice you are asked for?
* (3) As a manager, you need to fix your personal quirks, not apologize for them.
* (4) Effective roadmaps:
    * Impact on users.
    * Metrics and hypothesis.
    * Consider specifying what we deliberately decided to leave out.
    * Highlight which items have uncertainty (== learning == mistakes == risks).
* (7) Career:
    * Specialist: opportunity to work on most difficult technical problems.
    * Generalist: opportunity to work on most difficult business problems.
    * Dont think I agree completely with this, but I see the logic and know examples.
* (8) Structure when communicating with Executives:
    1. I am telling you about X because of Y.
        * Why is worth the executive's time.
    2. Details of X.
    3. I need you to do Z, so that X because of Y.
    * State a clear goal for the meeting.
* (10) The highest leverage activity of an engineering manager is making sure who reports to them have clarity, alignment, and understand "The Why" to "The What".
    * Write at least weekly a message to you team to connect the What to the Why.
* (12) Consider doing experiments instead of making decisions.
* (13) Your company culture is well-defined when you could turn away a world-class candidate because culture fit.
* (18) "Bad news test" - Given two tasks, which one would you rather be sharing bad news about? Delegate that task.
    * Share openly what your responsibilities and goals are, what has been delegated, deprioritized or simply wont get done.
* (19) Manager roles is not about being a shit umbrella, but to provide context for the team to understand the problem and come up with better solutions.
* (23) Management skills to make a team productive:
    * Project management:
        * Break down scope to ship frequently.
        * Minimum viable product.
        * Risks and bottlenecks.
    * Balance product delivery with sustainable engineering.
    * Prioritization.
* (27) On a struggling team, start by answering two questions:
    1. How do I create clarity?
        * Not vision, but something more immediate and based on today.
        * The more concrete, the more difficult is to get everybody to agree, as there is less room for multiple interpretations.
        * Examples:
            * Take stock on ongoing projects: purpose + timelines.
            * Scope milestones for each project.
            * Articulate priorities and rationale behind them.
            * Make project status visible.
    2. How do I create capacity?
        * Sense of overload, often unevenly distributed across the team.
        * Too much WIP?
        * Align people to work they want to do.
        * Give people clear feedback.
        * Who is doing the estimation and deadlines?
* (29) Growth path is an intrinsic motivation. To create:
    * What motivates you? What are your values?
    * What demotivates you? What you dont want to do?
    * What are your strengths? [Not only technical](https://itsyourturnblog.com/lets-stop-calling-them-soft-skills-9cc27ec09ecb).
    * What are your goals? What results and impact? What skills to learn?
    * What is the concrete action plan for getting you there?
* (33) Ask for clarification.    
* (34) Be intentional about how you design the team rituals.
* (39) 1-2-1 are reportee driven.
* (40) To give constructive feedback, pay attention to how the person gets stuck/sidetracked or sloppy.
* (52) Management is not a promotion. It is a career change.
* (54) Train new managers:
    * Good habits.
    * Appropriate skills.
    * Safe avenues of practice.
    * Understand when to be a friend and when a manager.
    * In conflicts, when to step in, when to take an unbiases stand and when to escalate.
    * When and how give feedback.
    * Asses if what you are doing make you happy.
* (59) Most of the dysfunctions come from some lack of clarity goal.
    * Whatever definition of accountability you are using, the first place to apply it is to yourself, and your leadership team.
* (60) For a fixed deadline, scope and quality are always negotiable.
* (63) A team is a cacophony of stories:
    * Stories are typically incomplete, but rarely wrong.
    * Managers are uniquely positioned to shape the stories that people tell.
    * Repetition is an important tool for spreading stories.
* (66) Performance issues, 2 types:
    * Event-based: 
      * Transitory.
      * Give support.
    * Systematic:
        * Inability to follow through.
        * Team dynamics.
        * Lack of motivation.
        * Constant exhaustion.
        * Unclear goals.
* (67) To be effective, you need to learn to manager yourself before you can manage others.
    * Emotional contagion is real.
* (76) Commitment shared by the entire team.
* (78) As a manger your voice has weight.
* (79) As a new manager, listen and understand before you try to change something.
* (82) Stable teams FTW!.
* (83) 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?
* (85) Clearly define and communicate your priorities:
    * Being a manger should be the top one.
    * Define what average successful week looks like. It is quite different from what a dev one looks like.
* (87) Self-organizing teams, 3 conditions:
    1. Clear shared goal.
    2. Set of rules: few and simple.
    3. Tension: short-term reason why the team should make the effort on self-organize now rather than later.
        * Time pressure.
        * Challenge.
        * Reward.
    * At an org level:
        * Goal -> Vision.
        * Rules -> Culture.
        * Tension -> Motivation.
* (92) Complains are good:
    * Show that you are trusted.
    * Help find problems.
    * Are feedback.
    * Show what the complainer values.
    * Opportunity for coaching the complainer to grow.
    * Opportunity for empathy.
* (94) What you do with a new hire's ideas is critical for the behaviour of that new hire.