I wrote this article on Medium a while back called the “Software Manager Minimum”. At the time, I was writing about the bare minimum you need to be doing as a manager and leader on a software team in order to keep your team moving forward.
In this I boiled it down to three questions you should always be asking yourself on a daily basis;
What’s the Pulse of the team?
How are we doing? Where is everyone at? Are we overloaded? Where do they need my help?
What do they Need?
Are we constrained on human or technical resources? Do we need more licenses? Are we spending too much time moving quotas around and not enough time working on the solution? How can I help them be better?
Are we working on the Right Thing?
Yes, we’re working, but are we working on the thing that Product Management needs? Are we moving the ball forward or spinning our wheels? Is what we are on, what people are expecting?
Nothing about Agile, nothing about Coding or Platforms, just those three questions – asked of yourself and answered straightforwardly and honestly (which is the hardest part).
