[m88m]

Thanks for taking the time to answer @kejaed. I feel like I’m nudging my team too much, I do these 1:1s on a weekly basis, but still I can’t say I find blockers and dependencies on time, and thus it prevents me from delivering my plan as I should. do you know methodologies or tools that can help me with that? Also, can you share how do you measure your teams?

[kejaed]

I'd say don't think about nudging, you are the manager / lead now, so manage and lead. Take a step back (detach as Jocko would say) and when you do find the blockers and dependencies, think about what you could have done differently to find them sooner. What questions could you have asked of yourself or your team to have sussed them out when the time would have been right?

When you mentioned 'nudging', it reminded me of when I started to move into a leadership role. I was worried about pushback, but what I found is that the team was looking for leadership, ready to have guidance to navigate the organization and management, to pull different parts together so they could focus on a) what they are good at and b) what they'd like to be working on.

Measurement is the four letter word of management isn't it? It's something I'm always working at improving. Right now our KPIs are at more of a macro rather than micro level as we navigate the successful implementation of (more) formal Systems and Software Engineering processes. These macro indicators are things that matter to be business, like on-time releases, well estimated SW development tasks, and successful customer tests & deliveries.

But those are really AS9100 / ISO 9001 KPIs, and while important to keep an eye on from a company point of view, I measure my teams by the conversations and moods at coffee and the feedback during our one-on-ones. The work will always be there, and the team is not a KPI or sprint velocity, but a group of people just trying to do their best, and if they aren't, shoving metrics or backlogs in their face isn't ever going to help, but a conversation will. Just my two cents, I probably veer a little to the EQ side of things most days.