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

Assuming that the performance meeting doesn't directly solve the problem, it's time to get HR involved. Don't go two or three performance meetings before getting HR into the mix, by the way---letting a performance problem linger has never actually solved anything. Either you're working to solve the problem (including actively monitoring/"checking in" with your report to see how things are going at home, for example), or it's getting worse.

Looping HR in is often just as easy as sending your HR representative an email saying, "I have a performance problem with Joshua, and I'd like to get HR involved." This is, literally, their job. They have a raft of tools and ideas, processes and procedures, templates and forms, all of them geared towards handling this exact situation so that it's handled legally and correctly. Getting them involved sooner rather than later is pretty much always the right call---if they feel like it's too soon, they'll tell you, give you some advice on what to do next, and check in with you later to see how it's going.

> **Friends and allies:**
> Developers often have something of a strong dislike for the folks in Human Resources, and frankly, it's something we need to move past, particularly when you make the step into management. As a manager, HR is your friend and ally, just as the QA team or the Infrastructure team are allies of developers. Yes, sometimes they'll "get in the way" when you want to make something happen---just as QA will "get in the way" when you're trying to push dev to production. Work with them, ask them questions, consider them partners, and I think you will find that they will make your job vastly easier, not harder.

From here, HR will likely schedule a meeting with the direct report to discuss next steps, which will most likely include the crafting of an "action plan" or "performance improvement plan."


Learn to keep HR in loop in the earlier stages of the performance review to set a performance improvement plan in action.

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

Make Sure HR Is Involved