The Managers Goal - Enable Team Productivity

I am not management expert and it is beyond my expertise to layout the value of management for an organization. On the other hand I am engineer on a software engineering team and I do have some clear ideas on what I want from management and what I believe most of my peers also would like. It all boils down to this, an engineering manager should enable his team to get work done.

For most engineers a large part of their motivation is the desire to be productive. The more a manager enables this the better everything works. Not only does more work get done, engineers are more satisfied and they have a better perception of and relationship with their manager.

Management Responsibilities

The nature of management, or any other discipline primarily concerning people, is such that you can’t define exactly what that means for most situations. I believe this is a large part of the reason that a few managers are horribly bad, a small proportion great, but most find themselves somewhere in the middle. Though I am sure I am missing some key points here are a few things that I believe are the responsibility of a manager. Depending on the organization some of these may fall to other roles but someone needs to get them done and the manager should at least make sure they are being achieved.

Within the Team

• Engaging engineers in appropriate planning, but not stifling them with it.
• Fostering a collaborative environment.
• Rewarding achievement.
• Where needed dealing with employees who are holding back the rest of the team.

Within the Organization

• Removing organizational road blocks to progress.
• Being an a voice representing the team to the rest of the organization.
• Listening to the orgnaization and appropriately sharing themes and key details with the team.
• Being a catalyst and enabler for cross-team collaboration.
• Representing the team in organizational planning.