Hi, I’m Joel

This Manager README is meant to serve as an onboarding document to my management style and general philosophies I hold. This is a living document and is intended to evolve over time. I welcome your feedback and look forward to working with you!

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What I expect of you:

• I care about getting shit done, not about "butt in the seat time". Flexibility is important to me, and I will trust you with a high degree of autonomy. In return, I expect you to focus on results, and raising issues as soon as you find them.

• I expect you to be the one moving projects forward. As a manager, I am here to help and support you with any roadblocks, questions, or escalations you may require assistance with, but ultimately (if I have enabled you correctly) you are responsible for moving the needle.

• I strive to create an environment where interruptions are minimal, and context switching is avoided as much as possible. There are scenarios where this is not always possible but when it is, I expect this to enable you to focus on moving project work forward.

• Speed matters! Solicit initial feedback early and ship often. I have found early, light-weight reviews and iterating rapidly on small chunks of work to be beneficial to successful outcomes.

• Assume good intent. This is especially true when dealing with anyone in a remote capacity where face-to-face contact is not a regular occurence.

• I expect a strong culture of communication and knowledge sharing in teams I manage. Everyone should be familiar with all technologies and processes the team supports. Some individuals will have deeper knowledge in certain areas, but everyone should be familiar with the basics of everything the team is responsible for.

• Make minimal assumptions with people, code, cultural norms, etc. Always trust but verify, and never be afraid to ask questions!

• Don't assume people who speak with confidence are necessarily right. Check (and re-check) your assumptions with multiple people.

• I expect the vast majority of our interactions to be done through broadly accessible, text-based communication channels (e.g., code reviews in GitHub/Bitbucket, questions/answers in team channels Slack, architecture diagrams and feedback in Confluence/JIRA/other sharable mediums and not email, phone, private message, etc.). There will be exceptions to this (e.g., weekly 1:1s, communicating items of a sensitive nature, items which are only relevant directly to you and me, etc.), however those should be the exception and not the rule. I view these {semi}public interactions as very valuable and use them to ensure we are all on the same page.

What you can expect of me:

• I highly value transparency and strive to be open, honest and approachable. I want you to feel comfortable asking me anything work-related. There are some things I may not be able to share, but I am committed to never lying to you.

• I follow the servant leadership philosophy. I am here to empower you to achieve both your goals and the team’s objectives, but you are in the driver’s seat!

• You can expect me to explicitly set and communicate priorities for specific work. My job is to explain both the importance/business context of the work as well as any external dependencies involved. If things are unclear, please request clarification until you feel we are aligned!

• You can expect me to have a recurring 1:1 with you. This meeting is not intended for status updates, and is meant to cover bigger-picture items like career development, strategizing on goals, or anything generally of substance. That said, this meeting is for you, and we’ll discuss whatever you like.

• Any meeting I schedule will have guest modification permissions enabled by default (i.e., you have the power to change a meeting invite)

• Work/life balance is extremely important to me personally, and something I take very seriously with anyone I manage. If you find that your workload requires you to consistently put in extra time during off-hours, then something is wrong. Please raise this immediately and we'll work together to take corrective action.

• I aim to foster a culture of experimentation and the desire to “fail forward”. Some of the greatest periods of growth and development happen as a result of rapidly iterating through experimentation and learning from failures. If you're not making at least some mistakes, you're not pushing yourself hard enough.

• Sometimes I make mistakes. If you see me violating any of the principals laid out in this document, please tell me immediately and hold me accountable. I value feedback (especially the critical kind), and am always looking for ways to improve.

Ownership and the 'why', the 'what' and the 'how'

Each item of work has a certain amount of context and an associated responsibility matrix associated with it. This section is intended to break down the ownership model of the work:

• why -- "Why are we doing this?" I own this and I am responsible for providing the broader context of why we are doing the work. I am happy to listen to [and encourage] input on this, but ultimately I am the one making the decision at this level.
• what -- "What are we doing?" We share ownership of this, and I expect this to be something you ultimately drive with input from me. Depending on both the context and the specifics of both your experience and mine, there is a lot of fungibility associated with "the what".
• how -- "How are we doing this?" You own this, and are responsible for determining how we do the thing:tm: and driving this forward. I am happy to provide input on this if desired, but my goal is for you to have as much ownership as possible and ultimately you are the one making the decisions at this level.

Dealing with conflict:

• I follow disagree and commit. Occasionally disagreements will happen. When they do, open debate is encouraged. However, once a decision has been made, everyone must commit to it and move on.

• An "us vs. them" mentality (with different teams/orgs/groups/whatever) will absolutely not be tolerated. We are all in this together, and are much stronger when we approach things collaboratively rather than combatively.

What's next:

• I've written a few things about my philosophies, but an important component of my job is adapting to your needs and philosophies. I look forward to getting to know you better, and learning more about what you expect from me as a manager!

Inspiration and references:

While constructing this document, I thought a lot about what things I valued (and didn't value) as a manager, in addition to looking to other managers for inspiration. The Manager READMEs which most heavily influenced my own are listed below:

• Michael Lopp a.k.a. Rands
• Oren Ellenbogen
• Edgar Gonzalez
• Brendan Ward