A Small Tech Team Manager’s Playbook — 18 years in making!
I manage a small team that manages an e-commerce infrastructure and software for over a decade. Here are five of my lessons learned that works for us very well. Your mileage may vary!
I don’t have an MBA. Just an entrepreneur at heart who runs a successful e-commerce solutions for mid-size enterprises over a dozen years. This is actually our 18th year in business! As the owner and chief software and solutions architect, I learned to practice the following management techniques.
Shrink the TODO List!
Typical managers like to grow the to do list for the team in every meeting. I learned that if I help reduce the to do list for my team Instead then the morale becomes stronger and their confidence in my Leader ship becomes stronger as well.
As a manager if I am always reducing people’s TODO list by helping them get things done in a collaborative way, I noticed staff has genuine interest in meeting with me. Why won’t You want to loose an item or two meeting with your boss and not the other way?
Delegate Often
Trust comes from delegation. Delegate responsibilities and good people will perform them well.
Automate Often
No one likes to boring tasks that can be automated. We accept a repeat job no more than three or four times. Then we start thinking about automation and if possible we automate as much as possible.
Less chores in life is a life with choice!
Avoid Micromanagement
Smart, skilled people never like to be managed in the first place. Micromanaging smart people is 100% time counter productive.
Reduce Meetings
Most people dread meetings. You can get most of what you need from others via short phone calls, chat and emails.
Find Common Connections
Chances are there are some common things that you can identify to talk about and share if you get to know people. This creates personal connections that can grow bonds between people who are professionally maintaining friendly co-worker relationships.
I have managed people who work in senior engineering role in Medium; I have managed software engineers who ranked high in Association of Computing Machinaries (ACM) contests; I have also managed people who went to state universities like I did. The range of caliber varies widely but I have always been able to get things done and haven’t received a bad review myself on exit interviews. On the contrary, I have maintained good relationships with more the. 70% of my ex-employees on a personal level. There were some bad apples but that’s expected in life.
The most important action a manager can take is to accommodate people’s life events and use adaptive planning vs hardcore, rigid ones.
Our master plans only amuse the God and none.
I continue to learn how to improve my role as a small team manager through feedback but most importantly, I care about my fellow humans who share a working relationship with me and my company.
Most people want to do a good job given the opportunity.
