Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by bluefirebrand 1640 days ago
I'm actually struggling to think of how a good lead or manager should go about identifying these problems.

By asking people what they are working on all day? "Hey can you tell me the status of xyz please" type things?

Wander by the cubicle and peek over the shoulder?

Feels like stuff that would get people accused of being micromanagers. Honestly far better imo to just have a pre-set, teamwide thing set up.

This also involves the whole team in identifying and solving blockers rather than everything going through a lead, who could then just become a bottleneck (or a human-shaped blocker)

1 comments

> how a good lead or manager should go about identifying these problems.

Notice when things aren't getting done by the time they were estimated to be done, and notice if the person seems to be continually pushing back completion dates. After a day or two of "thought I could get it cone but couldn't", it's negligent to _not_ dig in to _why_ the person is struggling. Really not meaning to be snarky, but if a manager isn't doing this, I'm not sure what exactly they are doing.

IME most solid engineers prefer autonomy and trust over schedule and process, and would strongly resent having to spend their time in a meeting because their manager was unable to do people management.