Everything we do goes through software. Lives constantly depend on software and by extension, engineers. This is plenty of reason to start thinking about a universal set of ethics and quality standards.
2. Own your responsibility
Machines can’t take responsibility for their malfunctions. It always has to be the people programming and supervising them. There is no place to deflect responsibility for the consequences of our work to our managers or our companies.
3. Start with quality
The biggest ethical issue in the software world is companies releasing low quality software. The cornerstone of any kind of software ethics should be setting up universal standards to define clear qualitative expectations for different types of software.
You’d think this goes without saying, but teams and companies often fall into the mindset of adjusting the work to their own preferences over the customer’s. Always keep your customer in mind.
2. Drive decision making down
The people in the frontline are closer to the customer than executive leadership, so they can often make better decisions regarding the frontline work. Empower them to do so, minimize executive involvement and watch productivity go way up.
Looking to put customer obsession into action? We bring you a case study from @minarets, VPE at @Mailchimp about doing just that via an engineering event.
Amazon made this a well-known company value. The idea is simple: prioritize the customer’s needs and experience, then work your way backwards through the product and the teams, all the way to yourself.
2. Getting buy-in from leadership
Selling your initiatives internally is a key part of a leadership job. When you’re planning a customer obsession event, the first people you need to involve are your cross-functional peers. Make sure they understand the goals.
A director's job is very different from a frontline manager. Many fail the transition, and it can take years to master the role even for those who succeed. Prepare by learning about the expectations and count on a bumpy journey.
2. Examine your motivations
Be honest with yourself about your motivation for getting this promotion. Chasing a paycheck or more control aren’t bad things, but they can lead to a negative mindset. However, the best motivation is looking to unlock more of your team’s potential.
Here’s a taste of Joseph’s priority list about standardizing processes:
1. Deployment process
Make sure that your deployment is repeatable and consistent regardless of which developer is doing it. Document it first, and when it’s done, you can automate it in large parts.
2. Monitoring
Monitoring gives your engineers metrics about the code’s performance in production. There are great tools out there that are easy to set up, and save you a lot of time and energy in the long run. Make sure to have it send your team a message when something breaks.
A virtual offsite event can fulfill the same function as its in-person counterpart. You can do team building, unpack your values, align your team or hold a game day. It works.
2. Don’t even try the same activities
A virtual event often holds more potential distractions for the participants than an in-person one. So you need to make an effort to make the online activities engaging. A series of frontal presentations is sure to lose everybodys’ interest.
In a dual leadership role, give equal attention to both your teams. Neglecting to put out fires on one team can be just as harmful, as paying too close attention to the other, and not giving your team room to grow.
2. Give space to your teams
Giving space to your teams to do their jobs isn’t just going to help them grow, but you as well. When you’re not busy with getting involved in the frontline work, you have more capacity to focus on your leadership role, and get better at it.