Writing in the front
* How do good project managers work and maximize the performance of a R&D team?
We’ve picked a few READMEs from R&D managers at Silicon Valley technology companies to translate.
The README is mainly used to show team members the project manager’s working philosophy and working style, so that members can quickly integrate into the team.
The README below is from Rand, Slack’s director of research and development.
Original address:
Michael Lopp (aka Rands) is the director of research and development at Slack
(Slack is a cloud-based team collaboration tool.) *
Hello, welcome to the team. Nice to meet you on Slack.
You need at least a solid quarter to figure out the team and the business. I understand how eager a newcomer is to show off when he arrives at the company. But this is a complex place, full of equally complex people. You can take it slow and start by meeting everyone, going to every meeting, taking notes and asking questions you have — especially if you don’t understand acronyms and emoticons.
Our relationship is one of the first working relationships to be defined. Here’s my “user’s guide” and how I work. It covers what you can expect from a typical week we work together, the way I like to work, my North Star principles, and my personality traits. I hope to use this document to quickly warm up our working relationship.
Normal working week
In addition to the high alert (see below), we need at least 30 minutes a week for a 1:1 (one-to-one) conversation, which is about substance only. I created a private chat group for the two of us to discuss the 1:1 topic, with easy access to the history of our discussions. When we come up with a topic, we can post it directly to this group.
We have 60 minutes of meetings within the team every week. Instead of 1:1, we have a shared document that covers the entire team agenda topics. Similar to 1:1, we do not discuss the state of the transaction, but rather the substantive issues that affect the entire team.
You can text me 24 hours a day. I’m used to responding immediately.
If I have a travel plan, I will inform you in advance. Despite the possible time difference, all our previously scheduled meetings are still on schedule.
I do sometimes work on weekends, but that’s a personal choice. I don’t force you to work on weekends. I sometimes slack off and can always wait until Monday unless something is urgent.
I use my annual leave, and I suggest you use it, too. I will not deal with work while I concentrate on personal matters.
Polaris Principle
The Polaris principle is when the team has a clear vision of moving in the same direction.
Team first. I believe that happy, transparent, efficient teams create great products, so my job is to constantly optimize the team. Managers of other teams may choose to maximize business, technical, or any other important aspect. But I also think that diversity of thought is the key to an effective team, and all the ideas are interrelated, so we need to have managers who have these different ideas, but my personal view is that the effective team comes first.
Everyone can lead. My wife often reminds me that I hate meetings for the last ten years of my career. Indeed, I’ve wasted a lot of time with bad meetings held by bad managers. As an engineer, even as a manager, I am still suspicious of managers. While I think managers are an important part of large organizations, I don’t think they have a monopoly on leadership. I try to build mechanisms and create opportunities in the team so that non-managers can lead effectively.
Look at things systematically. I am used to integrating all complex personnel and affairs into a system, and then thinking in a streamlined way. I’m very interested in seeing how these systems and flowcharts fit together. When I find inefficiencies large and small in the system, I hope you can work with me to fix them.
Be fair to the team. I believe that most people try to be fair to others, but unconscious biases can cause them to behave differently. I’m also trying to tackle prejudice, because I know it creates inequality.
Action is better than action. There is certainly value in spending long hours talking nonstop about potential directions, but I believe that taking action is the best way to start learning and make progress. Of course, this is not always true, and this strategy is often opposed by those who love to debate.
Don’t ignore every little improvement. I understand the complexity of constantly trying to improve the little things, but I also believe that quality assurance is everyone’s responsibility, and that mistakes to improve on are literally everywhere.
It has helped me a lot in my career to assume that everyone involved wants to be an active participant before starting a project.
High alert. When the company is on high alert, the team doesn’t operate quite the same as it normally does, and many of my daily practices and principles start to get exceptions. A state of high alert is usually triggered by a material threat to our company, either internal or external. During the fight against these threats, day-to-day team management, processes, and product principles become secondary matters. If the state of high alert is not obvious, I will remind everyone that we are in this state, and I will give an estimate of when it will end. If I’ve been in this state for the whole time, there’s a good chance something big has happened.
Feedback way
I firmly believe that feedback is at the heart of building trust and respect in a team.
Slack has formal feedback cycles twice a year. After we first go through this cycle, we will draft your OKR for the next review period. These are not product or technical OKRs, these are your career growth OKRs. Before our review meeting, I will send you OKR and the team’s overall feedback so you can know ahead of time.
OKR(Objectives and Key Results) is a set of management tools and methods for defining and tracking Objectives and their achievement: Objectives are managedFrom top to bottomAll the way down to the base. Intel invented this method in 1999, and it was later usedJohn DoerrPromoted to Oracle, Google, LinkedIn and other high-tech companies and gradually spread.
During our first face-to-face meeting, besides determining the OKR for the next cycle, I will also ask for your opinion on my daily work. In the subsequent review cycle, there will be a big difference. I will review you against the OKR we established before. If necessary, I will introduce a new OKR and continue to adjust and repeat in this way.
The review period is not the only time we exchange feedback, this will be a recurring theme in our normal 1:1 sessions. I will ask you for feedback on a regular basis in 1:1. No matter how many times you tell me you have no feedback, I will never stop asking.
Disagreements are feedback, and the sooner we learn how to express each other’s opinions effectively, the sooner we will trust and respect each other. Simply saying “yes” doesn’t make the idea any better.
The meeting agreed
I attend a lot of meetings every day, so I’m sharing my schedule with you. If you have any questions about the meeting on the schedule, please feel free to contact me. If it’s a private or confidential meeting, you probably won’t see anything about it, but it’s rare.
I think a standard meeting needs to include a specific agenda, expected goals, an appropriate number of productive participants, and a moderator. Whether I’m attending or chairing meetings, I want them to start on time. If I am not sure why I am attending a meeting, I will ask the sponsor to clarify the reason for my presence.
If you give me the meeting material at a reasonable time before the meeting starts, I will read it in advance and have my questions ready. If I hadn’t read the meeting materials in advance, I would have told you so.
If we meet our expectations before the scheduled time, I suggest ending the meeting early and giving the time back to everyone. If it is clear that the expected time will not be met, I suggest stopping the meeting before the scheduled time and setting a time to discuss the outstanding items.
Personal idiosyncrasies and improvements
I’m an introvert, so I’m very afraid. Which is strange for someone in my position. I think three is perfect, three to eight is fine, but after eight or more you’ll find that I’m surprisingly quiet. But just because I’m quiet don’t mean I’m not paying attention.
When 1:1 topic to chat up but still have some time left, I always like to put I recently met some interesting questions out brainstorming, although some problem sounds bizarre seems to has nothing to do with your present job, but these are some of my ideas, and may be implemented in the future.
When my requirements are not clear, you should ask me to clarify the importance of something and give more details. Since I’m probably still in the brainstorming stage, your questions can save you both a lot of time.
I also want to mention a little bit about the way you talk to me. When you need me to do something, it’s best to ask questions that I can answer very well (” Rand, can you help me? “). ). But I bristle at imperative statements (” Rand, do this.” ). I’ve been like this since I was a kid. Maybe I need to see a therapist.
I exaggerate sometimes, but it’s mostly because I’m excited about the topic. I swear sometimes, too. Sorry.
I like new things, but when I have a complete vision of how things are going to go, I may lose interest. I’m sorry. I’m getting better at it.
If I use my phone for more than 30 seconds during a meeting, please do something to alert me because I may start to zone out.
I hate it when people state opinions as facts.
I hate people who gossip, too.
The last
This README will be updated in real time. It may not be complete at the moment, I will update it often, thank you very much for your feedback.
Coding helps developers easily manage the R&D team.