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

> *Janelle was excited.* She was headed into a 1:1 ("one on one meeting") with her boss, Kim, for her annual performance review, and Janelle was pretty sure it was going to be a good one. This time last year, at her previous performance review, she'd told Kim she wanted to be a Senior Software Engineer, and Kim's response had been, "Well, that's great! Show us that you know how to do what Senior Software Engineers do, and I'm ready to move you up." 
> 
> So last year, she'd worked with Marketing to get their website issues sorted out (stupid CSS issues), and then six months ago she'd written a Ruby script to help her team easily push new releases out to one of their few remaining on-premises services. On top of that, over the last four months, she mentored Michael, one of the new hires on the team, and helped him get over the finish line with a few of his stories. Overall, she felt that she was doing some of the very things that she'd seen other Senior Software Engineers at the company doing, so she felt pretty good about this past quarter.
> 
> Kimberly was, as always, a few minutes late to the 1:1. "Hi, Janelle. Sorry to be late, but you know how it is." Janelle nodded, but before she could  respond, Kim went on. "Since this 1:1 is a performance check-in, I wanted to open the conversation with telling you that I talked with Dan"---Kim's manager and thus Janelle's skip-level manager---"and he and I agreed that your performance this past quarter has been lukewarm. We were really hoping you could show us more than what you've been giving us."
> 
> Janelle felt all her enthusiasm just drain down through the floor. Her face must've shown that because Kim suddenly smiled a little tiredly. "We still like you, Janelle, we're not firing you or anything. We just... well, I know you're really interested in becoming a Senior, and right now you're just not meeting our expectations for what a Senior does."
> 
> Janelle shook her head. "I don't understand. I mentored Michael, I worked with Marketing, I wrote the push script... all of these are things that I see Guarav"---one of the Senior Software Engineers on a peer team---"doing all the time."
> 
> Kim sighed. "Yes, but those aren't actually the things we expect a Senior to be doing. We need Senior Software Engineers to be technical decision-makers, and you didn't really put yourself forward to be learning the new stuff we're exploring. We also really need Senior Software Engineers on this team to take a more active role in meeting with the stakeholders of the project, doing presentations and the like. Do you understand now?"
> 
> *No,* Janelle thought, *but what difference does it make?*

Many, if not most, software developers are intimately familiar with Janelle's experience. They believe they understand the path to promotion---the things that they are being told (implicitly or explicitly) that they need to do to move up in the ranks---only to find out during performance reviews that that's not actually what gets people promoted. It's the same basic problem as "scope creep": you think you're aiming at one finish line, only to discover that the finish line is over *there*. And, by the way, you need to go through *these hoops* while you're changing course.


Learn the great frustration (and worse) generated by the lack of clear expectations.

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

Introduction