Team Managers at Brainly
Introduction
In The Brainly Model teams are a cross-functional group of people with all of the core skills and experience necessary to deliver on a typical project that the team might encounter.
A typical team might consist of multiple engineers with different domains of specialization, i.e. front-end, back-end, data-engineering, machine learning, etc. as well as designers, data analysts, QA, and any other type of technical or non-technical role which might be needed to deliver on the work expected from that team.
In The Brainly Model, each team has a single responsible individual that we refer to as the Team Manager. All team members report to the Team Manager. The Team Manager is responsible for the team’s output, and the individual contributions of each team member.
We organize teams in this way to optimize for project level collaboration and communication while also minimizing logistical overhead and “domino effect delays” caused by dependencies across teams.
“Team Manager” is a role, not an organizational title, …
… for example some of the most common organizational titles to perform the role of Team Manager are “Manager, Product” and “Domain Lead” but we have employees with many diverse titles including VP and Director who perform this role at Brainly today.
Each of these titles comes with a set of expectations and responsibilities independent of those defined for the role of Team Manager however a career track exists at Brainly for persons who exclusively perform the role of Team Manager. This career track is owned and managed by our Program Management Team within the Ops Department and contains titles such as Delivery Manager.
Regardless of their title, every person in the role of Team Manager shares a cross-company definition of responsibilities and expectations as a Team Manager. This singular and shared definition for Team Managers supports operational consistency with an emphasis on the factors which are crucial to the health of high-performing teams and Brainly’s core value of Delivering With Quality, while also leaving room for Departments to optimize their processes and organizational structures according to their own needs.
Team Managers are responsible for …
… managing the people on their team (People Management), the team structure, workflows, and processes (Team Design), the value created by their team (Goal Management), and the delivery of that value by their team (Delivery Management).
People Management includes handling time-off requests, performance reviews, compensation adjustments, employee goal settings processes, and holding regular 1-on-1 meetings with their reports for the development of the team members into productive and effective Brainly employees and team members. This includes defining a career development plan for each of their team members and facilitating the continuous progression and updating of this plan.
This does not mean that the Team Manager needs to be an expert or a coach in the domain that their reports work in (i.e. engineering, QA, design, data analysis, etc). The Team Manager may work closely with the Center-of-Excellence Teams and the Engineering Managers to identify career opportunities, paths, and hard skill development opportunities for their reports.
Engineering Managers may support Team Managers in the development of employees for any and all engineering and QA roles that might be embedded within a team.
The Design Center of Excellence supports Team Managers in the development of employees for any and all design roles that might be embedded within a team.
The Data Analyst Center of Excellence supports Team Managers in the development of employees for any and all data analyst roles that might be embedded within a team.
The Operations Organization supports Team Managers by defining what is expected from employees in the role of Team Manager and helping employees in this role improve their delivery on these expectations through assessment of needs in this area and the coordination of training and resources to help Team Managers.
In The Brainly Model these supporting mechanisms are crucial in order to allow the Team Managers to focus on developing the team collaboration skills of their reports, to build high-performing teams, and ultimately to deliver value with their teams.
Team Design includes defining the roles on the team, the workflows and tools of the team, and how those team members work together to create value.
The Team Manager is not expected to be an expert in defining the roles on their team. They *are* expected to have a solid understanding of the type of work and deliverables their team will be producing. The Team Manager then works closely with the Center-of-Excellence Teams and the Engineering Managers to identify the skill sets their team members should have and the level of proficiency the team members should be working at. Through this collaborative process a team staffing plan is created.
Once the team is formed the Team Manager is expected to work with the Center-of-Excellence Teams and Engineering Managers to continuously assess and improve the performance and design of their team. As the work expected from the team evolves and changes, so should the design of the team.
There are many mechanisms at Brainly to deliver on an evolving team design — including but not limited to — professional mentorship, upskilling, and adding new roles to the team.
Goal Management includes understanding and aligning with the goals of the Department that the Team Manager is working in. The Team Manager is expected to work with their team to continuously assess, identify, and propose solutions and projects that align with the goal of their department.
Delivery Management includes a diverse group of tasks and responsibilities related to the logistics of delivering on an approved project.
The details of how this is done is largely dependent on the needs of the team and the needs of stakeholders of the team’s work. In some situations it will be more important to focus on a working process which allows for frequent check-ins and rapid course correction based on stakeholder feedback. In others, there is minimal need for stakeholder review and few, if any, opportunities for course correction need to be accounted for. It’s up to the Team Manager to assess and define how they will manage the deliverables of their team while meeting the needs and expectations of their stakeholders to be informed and contribute feedback during a project lifecycle.
With that said, all Team Managers at Brainly are the single responsible individual for their team’s deliverables and fulfilling the project commitments of the team.
