Gain insights into performance management for engineering teams. Discover how to set clear expectations, design performance metrics, and provide constructive feedback to enhance team productivity and accountability.

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A manager is responsible for assigning tasks to the team members, keeping tabs on the progress, and analyzing their performance. A good manager must know their strengths and use them accordingly.

This course covers the essentials of performance management in engineering teams. You’ll learn the importance of setting clear expectations and the difference between individual and collective accountability. You’ll learn the importance of performance metrics and design them for your team. Next, you’ll explore ways to keep your team motivated and provide each team member with constructive feedback. You’ll learn how to decide when to let a team member go, including planning for a successor.

By the end of this course, you’ll have learned to apply processes and practices to monitor the performance of your team. You’ll be able to provide timely and constructive feedback to your team, including performance reviews. In addition, you’ll be able to balance a team with members having varying performances and competencies.

Effective Performance Management for Engineering Teams

If you're like many new managers, you won't like this chapter. It's all about failure! It's all about having to pull that employee aside who---if you're having regular 1:1s---you've come to get to know pretty well and probably even like as a person, and telling them they're not measuring up. They're failing! And it's partly your fault, too---so you're failing too! Failure to the left of us, failure to the right of us....

In truth, though, corrective actions, when taken in the right light and with the right attitude, provide opportunities for people---both your direct and yourself---to get better at your respective jobs.

For your direct, it's an opportunity for them to address something that may have been holding them back at other jobs: their understanding of how to write quality code, their process of figuring out what tests to write, their interactions with their fellow team members, any or all of these things might have kept them from promotions and raises in previous (and current) roles. Until their manager points out that their behavior is not measuring up to standards, though, and provides the necessary space and expertise to improve, they'll continue to flounder and *never know why*. Or, worse, know that what they're doing isn't sufficient, but *never learn how to improve*. Each of these are a core recipe for burnout. By addressing the problem head-on---and by providing solid guidance on how to improve---you're actually rescuing them from a very dark and ugly place inside their head.

This isn't all entirely just for your team members, though. By taking the time to improve your team---by establishing a fair and objective standard/expectation, and then holding them to that standard---you are more likely to earn their loyalty and their respect, which will in turn help grow the psychological safety of the whole team. Think about it: we've all been at those companies where there's that one person who simply can't get into trouble no matter what terrible things they do, and it's a constant source of complaint and a hit to morale. When you make it clear that everyone---*everyone*---is to be held accountable, you signal to the rest of your team that this is truly a level playing field where anyone can excel.

And when you demonstrate, by your actions, that you are willing to put the time and effort in to help your team members meet that standard, you are showing that you're "in it with them." When you do this, you're building a loyalty that simply cannot be "incentivized" no matter how much or how rich the incentive is.

It may not always feel like the "fun" thing to do, but like many hard things, it's the right thing to do, and it yields significant benefits if done right.

Remember this advice when dealing with a poor performing individual: corrective actions provide an opportunity for improvement and growth.

Introduction

Overview of Performance Management

The Need for Clear Expectations

Accountability

Metrics

Motivation

Feedback

Performance Reviews

Corrections

Termination/Separation

Rewards

The Development of Talent

Conclusion

Advice for When You Apply These Ideas