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

> As she was finishing up her team's standup, Greeshma called for a quick moment to address the group. "I wanted to let you all know that Michael's feature demo in front of the product team yesterday went fabulously; they're quite impressed with the work the team has done, and they had a number of great things to say about your presentation, Michael." She grinned to herself as she caught a bit of good-natured ribbing aimed Michael's way as the group walked out of the room.
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> When she got back to her desk, Greeshma fired up her laptop and put together an email to Ivan, a new member of her team. "Ivan, I wanted to let you know that I noticed the story you're working on is a few days past due; can you swing by my desk at some point today or tomorrow and discuss with me what's going on? Thanks." Next, she checked with the travel team on Erin's conference trip---Erin was excited to be heading to the developer conference in Kansas City as an "above-and-beyond" reward for her work on the Astro project. Fortunately, it was all booked and tickets were in Erin's inbox. Hurrying off to her next meeting, she caught Isabella in the hallway. "Izzy, we still on for our 1:1 this afternoon? We still need to do our quarterly review---you're the last one on my list for the team." At Izzy's nod, Greeshma quick-timed it to her manager's office.
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> Ishumi waved her in as Greeshma arrived. "Come on in, G. I wanted to go over how the team's been doing on the Astro project." Greeshma smiled and pulled out her notebook.

Of all the elements that are most critical to an effective performance management program, feedback rates right near, or at, the top. Just as every agile methodology stresses feedback in almost all of its ceremonies (unit tests, standups, weekly releases, retrospectives, and so on), getting feedback to your directs is crucial. Without feedback, they can't know what to do keep doing, what to stop doing, and what new things to try doing. In fact, it may be fair to say that at least a quarter, if not half, of a manager's time is spent offering up that feedback in one form or another.

However, feedback is more than just telling your directs when they've screwed up; history has made it clear that managers who focus exclusively on "corrective action" as their feedback mechanism do not keep teams around them for long. Nor is the opposite end of the spectrum---only offering up praise---going to yield the kind of results you'd like. Knowing when and how to give feedback---and what kind of feedback to give---is crucial to a successful and productive team.

Get introduced to one of the most critical aspects of performance management: feedback. 

Introduction

Get introduced to one of the most critical aspects of performance management: feedback.

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