Tech leadership: lessons learnt

As engineers we often prefer hard facts over the fluffy stuff. As a manager most of our impact is through soft skills. How does an engineering manager find balance the between the worlds of data-driven team metrics and the people skills required to get the best from their team.

In this talk, Dale shares some of his hard-won lessons managing an ever growing engineering team using a variety of processes like kanban and lean product development, and tools like metrics, coaching, autonomy and guard-rails.

Dale is co-founder and CTO of Nomanini, a local fintech startup that helps informal merchants across Africa thrive.

Transcript

1. Dale Humby, Nomanini
   dale@nomanini.com
   Tech leadership
   Lessons growing a dev team
   

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2. Dale Humby
   CTO
   co-founder
   Nomanini
   Cash payments
   In Africa
   

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4. About this talk
   

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6. What is a start-up?
   “A startup is a human institution designed to
   deliver a new product or service under
   conditions of extreme uncertainty.
   Eric Ries
   http://www.startuplessonslearned.com/2010/06/what-is-startup.html
   

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7. Why have an engineering team?
   

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8. Goals of an engineering team
   Respond to rapidly
   changing competitive
   landscape
   Provide a stable,
   reliable, secure service
   to our customers
   

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9. What is the output of a manager?
   

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10. What is the output of a manager?
    Output of their team
    +
    Output of the
    teams they influence
    

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11. How do you increase output?
    + Motivation + Skill
    

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12. The 1st lever: Motivation
    

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13. The 1st lever: Motivation
    

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15. Scrum: 1 month sprints
    

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16. Scrum: 2 – 1 week sprints
    

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17. Scrum (2011)
    

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18. 1 story sprints…?
    

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19. Kanban
    

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20. Feedback loops
    

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21. Kanban
    Dev team promise (SLA)
    Work will be deployed to production
    within 1 week of starting
    

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26. SLA
    

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27. Importance of Work in
    Progress (WIP) limits
    

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32. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
    

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33. The 2nd lever: Increasing skills
    

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34. Task relevant maturity
    Low
    Task oriented
    ● What
    ● When
    ● How
    Medium High
    Individual oriented
    ● Emotional support
    ● Encouragement
    Objective oriented
    ● With monitoring
    

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35. Complexity, Uncertainty, Ambiguity
    Time
    Complexity, Uncertainty,
    Ambiguity
    “Junior”
    

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36. Complexity, Uncertainty, Ambiguity
    Time
    Complexity, Uncertainty,
    Ambiguity
    “Junior”
    “Mid”
    

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37. Complexity, Uncertainty, Ambiguity
    Time
    Complexity, Uncertainty,
    Ambiguity
    “Junior”
    “Mid”
    “Senior”
    

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38. Complexity, Uncertainty, Ambiguity
    Time
    Complexity, Uncertainty,
    Ambiguity
    “Junior”
    “Mid”
    “Senior”
    

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39. Complexity, Uncertainty, Ambiguity
    Time
    Complexity, Uncertainty,
    Ambiguity
    “Junior”
    “Mid”
    “Senior”
    

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40. Complexity, Uncertainty, Ambiguity
    Time
    Complexity, Uncertainty,
    Ambiguity
    “Junior”
    “Mid”
    “Senior”
    

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41. Complexity, Uncertainty, Ambiguity
    Time
    Complexity, Uncertainty,
    Ambiguity
    “Junior”
    “Mid”
    “Senior”
    

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42. Complexity, Uncertainty, Ambiguity
    Time
    Complexity, Uncertainty,
    Ambiguity
    “Junior”
    “Mid”
    “Senior”
    

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43. Complexity, Uncertainty, Ambiguity
    Time
    Complexity, Uncertainty,
    Ambiguity
    “Junior”
    “Mid”
    “Senior”
    

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44. Increasing skills
    ● Pair programming, Code reviews
    ● Self study
    ● Coaching, 1-on-1’s
    ● 360’s / peer review
    ● Skills assessment
    ● Medium-term career development
    ● Formal courses
    

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46. 3rd lever: Decentralised control
    Rapid
    response
    

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47. 3rd lever: Decentralised control
    Rapid
    response
    Alignment
    more difficult
    

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48. 3rd lever: Decentralised control
    Rapid
    response
    Alignment
    more difficult
    ● Focus on the outcome: Why not how/what
    ● One main effort
    ● Consistency of decision making
    ● Trust through experience
    

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49. Key takeaways
    ● Output of a manager
    = Output of their team
    + output of neighbouring teams
    ● Tools
    ○ Increase motivation: Build a racetrack: Metrics
    ○ Increase skills: Tailored mentorship program
    ● Decentralised control works well for extreme
    uncertainty
    

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50. Books worth reading
    Thank you
    dale@nomanini.com
    

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51. Innovation
    http://web.mit.edu/6.933/www/Fall2000/teradyne/clay.html
    

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52. Complexity, Uncertainty, Ambiguity
    Time
    Complexity, Uncertainty,
    Ambiguity
    “Junior”
    “Mid”
    “Senior”
    

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