You’re managing a software engineer. How can you ensure they’re making progress?

Assuming the idea of "progress" here is career progress, as opposed to project progress: Calibrate expectations to the individual engineer, setting achievable goals and stretch goals based on the career levels in your organization (and you should have career levels, even in a small shop). Be clear about what it takes to get to the next level, including specific contributions and scope of impact, and if they deliver, don't hesitate to put them up to the next level. A great way to lose a strong engineer is to move the goalposts.

Establish goals for the next 3 months, 6 months, and 12 months. Conduct weekly one-on-one meetings to assess whether your engineers have the necessary tools to accomplish their goals and if the environment is conducive to their learning needs. Providing a safe space for them to express concerns is crucial. Additionally, schedule monthly one-on-one sessions to review progress towards goals and identify any obstacles hindering achievement.

By defining clear (and small) deliverables, and having frequent demo sessions, without slides - presenting real software via command line, screen with mocked backend, and finally the entire feature.

Setting the clear goal and expectations is of paramount importance. In my opinion, it's the primary job of an engineering manager to generate clarity for your team and for your leadership in terms of deliverables and guidance for people management.

Measure outcomes in a way that can be understood and appreciated outside of your immediate organization; this strategy helps reduce bias and keeps feedback from being too subjective.

Let the work speak for itself. If you can, track progress towards completing certain features and use milestones to motivate the team. Data can also be helpful, but do not get too granular. Story point estimates are often incorrect and refinements over time are needed regardless.

Tracking and measuring outcomes provide valuable insights into the progress of a project. Here's how to do it effectively: Use Project Management Tools: Tools like Jira, Trello, or Asana can help track tasks, progress, and deadlines. Define Key Performance Indicators (KPIs): Identify specific metrics that indicate progress, such as lines of code written, features completed, or bugs resolved. Regular Progress Reports: Require regular status updates or progress reports. This keeps everyone informed and allows for early identification of any issues.

To track progress in software engineering: 1. KPIs: Measure velocity, lead/cycle times, and code quality metrics. 2. Sprint Burndown Charts: Visualize remaining work in a sprint. 3. Milestones and Deliverables: Track specific project milestones to ensure timely progress.

Trust is a big factor when it comes to measure outcome. If you have a team of high performers then you won't care how many hours or from where they developed the solution but if you have someone who isn't performing as per your outcomes then you need to set up a list of task with defined timeline as well as provide the resources necessary to get the person back to be high performer.

Honest conversation creates trust between managers and the team. Not all team members are the same so managers need to learn how to provide sometimes same message through different phrases to get the message out.

I am a strong believer of 360 degrees feedback. Always a manager should have a period reviews with his/her team members and at the same time Manager should be open to take feedback from their team members. In current world, few companies does 360 degrees feedback.

Feedback is essential for improvement and growth. When providing feedback: Timely Feedback: Provide feedback promptly after tasks or milestones are completed. Be Specific: Clearly articulate what was done well and where improvements can be made. Encourage Two-Way Feedback: Create a culture where the engineer feels comfortable providing feedback as well.

I believe that any feedback, whether good or bad, should be given promptly. If a mistake is made, it should be addressed at the time it occurs or as soon as possible so that the engineer has the opportunity to recall the motivations behind the error and have a chance to improve. If something positive is done for the team or the project, it should be praised in front of the rest of the team, ensuring appropriate recognition. Every improvement point should be addressed in the 1:1 with a clear action plan and proper follow-up. Obs.: I find it unfair for an engineer to be surprised with information during performance evaluation that hadn't been communicated earlier.

Regular 1:1s, whether weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly, often get skipped during major time crunches. Yet these meetings are the most important ones managers can have with their direct reports. Besides engineering work, what's going on in your direct report's life? What makes him/her tick? What's going well? What's not going well? Are there improvements either side can make? This should be #1.

Algo con lo que ayudo a mis equipos es proporcionando acceso a recursos como cursos en línea, seminarios web, y conferencias que pueden ayudar en el desarrollo profesional de los ingenieros. Animar a los miembros del equipo a dedicar tiempo a aprender nuevas tecnologías o metodologías que puedan beneficiar al proyecto. Por ejemplo medio dia de los viernes lo dedicamos a aprender y tener una sesion interactiva de Kubernetes para frontend developers.

Investing the learning and growth of team members is very crucial for overall success of team and project. Reserving time for team knowledge transfer sessions and trainings should be part of the team work plannings meetings. Nominations can be invited for any topic team feels or is interested in learning.

Continuous learning is crucial in the rapidly evolving tech industry. To encourage learning: Support Training Opportunities: Offer access to courses, workshops, or conferences related to their field. Encourage Certification: Support them in obtaining relevant certifications. Allocate Time for Learning: Allow time for self-study or exploring new technologies.

I understand that at any level, a manager should maintain a development plan for the engineer. Having a clear plan, with aligned objectives, meeting the expectations of the engineer, team, and company. Focusing on the skills that need development. Planning trainings, courses, mentorship... This ensures that the team is engaged and knows that they are heading in the right direction. This Action promote the team health, engineer well-being, and retention of talent for the company.

Foster a culture of continuous learning and actively participate in it. Organize weekly or bi-weekly "launch and learn" sessions where you and your team can acquire new skills. Encourage learning from mistakes, as they provide valuable lessons. Embed the ethos of lifelong learning into their mindset.

If you want less trouble for yourselves, empower your team and lead from behind. This reduces dependency on the manager and also supports the growth of the software engineers. Give them autonomy but show them the path. Don’t kill the motivation by pressurising the team or interfering too much. One thing that I’ve cultivated in my team and it worked well is knowledge sharing sessions.

The constant and true feedback is very important, but the professional growth only happens if the engineering have opportunity to exercise the feedback they receive. Especially if the feedback goes beyond the professional's current responsibility, as he or she will not be able to absorb and work on those feedback doing always the same work. Therefore, managers must always look at opportunities in your teams and how they can better allocate the engineers towards their development.

Empowerment and trust gives your software engineers the power to make informed decisions, take calculated risks, and cultivate innovation. It also shows you respect them enough and not micromanage which in turn motivates them to do their best work.

Trust, in due time. Be wary of investing trust when it hasn’t been earned. You may think you are giving coders autonomy and freedom, but you might just be confusing them or leaving them behind. Beware “mushroom management” of developers: that is, “feed them crap and leave them in the dark.” Real trust is earned and bidirectional. As a dev manager, hurrying through the storming and norming phase might not be the fastest route to building long-term success.

Psychological Safety is of the utmost importance in creating a learning culture. Your engineers need to feel fully supported and completely empowered to explore solutions on their own. You can provide guard rails, but anything more than that will stifle creativity and ultimately erode your Engineers confidence.

Honest and timely feedback from your Engineers is like gold. Ideally, an Engineering Manager is a servant leader and any opportunity to put feedback into play will result in increased trust between Managers and their Engineers.

Adaptation is crucial as projects evolve and circumstances change: Iterative Approach: Embrace an iterative development process, allowing for adjustments based on feedback and changing requirements. Retrospectives: Conduct regular retrospectives to identify what went well and what could be improved. Implement Continuous Improvement: Act on feedback and make necessary adjustments to improve processes.

In the dynamic field of software engineering, adaptation and continuous improvement are vital. Embrace change, encourage experimentation, and learn from both successes and setbacks. By fostering a culture of adaptability, we empower our teams to innovate, evolve, and drive lasting success.

People are motivated by different stimulus. The Five Love Languages is a good starting point in building the own framework of appreciation. Figure out individual allergies and make sure people don't work on something they hate. Ideally there is another team member that loves doing exactly that (e.g. testing, documentation, tedious debugging and so on). "Repetition is the mother of all learning" - sometimes it takes several occasions to finally crystallize positive behavioral change. Preventing a mistake is much cheaper than fixing it, especially if it's process/behavior. "Shift left" - think before doing.

More often than not, one does not have luxury of having complete clarity about project or there are chances of finding new challenges or roadblocks which were not anticipated during feasibility or design phase. Being adaptive and improvising during such situation comes handy and is of critical importance to adjust for change and continue to innovate to deliver the solution.

1) Link work goals to personal growth. 2) Understand the strengths of the dev, and set the goals to excel in either quality/complexity of work vs volume of work 3) Maintain an enjoyable work culture 4) Value engineers time by proper planning, avoiding redundancy, showing value in every job, trust and growing engineers confidence in execution.

Give them the stage. Don't let them conclude they are just numbers and Jira reports to you. Give them the credit they deserve and chance to present what they delivered. Common mistake leaders make is constantly owning the wins from their reports. Make sure they all take enough credit for their good work. Make sure they have a connection with their plus one managers. Make sure they know they are important to you and their efforts are seen.

One way to track progress for software engineering projects is to use the Agile methodology. Implement standups, scrum meetings, sprint reviews, demos, and retros. This will help keep everyone on the same page and let leadership keep track of progress. One caveat, though: Don't go meeting-crazy! Keep meetings short and to the point and use judgement on when and how often meetings should happen. After all, no one can make progress if stuck in meetings all day.

In addition to setting goals and tracking progress, there are other ways to improve progress and increase motivation. Be interested in your engineer as a person. Ask questions about their life outside work, get to know them, their hobbies, family relationships, travel plans, etc. When someone sees you as a human living a life, not just a coworker producing specific deliverables, you trust them more. You're not afraid to ask for help and share your concerns, and you care more about your goals and your team's success.

It is important to understand and keep in mind that there is a difference between being in a team and managing it. Most importantly is that you care.