Welcome to TeamCraft
Welcome to TeamCraft, a weekly1 newsletter on technical team management.
In the last fifteen years, I have held technical and managerial roles in a variety of settings—enterprise, non-profit, tech startups, academia—which exposed me a rather interesting set of manager profiles.
Within this set, some were technically sound, few of them great salespersons, others kind human beings, and the rest unremarkable (managers, that is).
I began studying this variation in an informal way, writing down the pros and cons of every manager profile I reported to. In some cases, I had to do this retroactively—my managerial style has evolved (and continues to do so), leading to situations where I emphatise with a decision of a manager some years after the fact.
I did take the transition from senior IC to manager quite seriously. I am a reader, so I wasn’t concerned about finding and consuming literature about the topic2. However, I was concerned that it won’t be enough; in the same vein of reading about parenting as a first-time parent. The chances of a textbook theory-meets-reality moment happening was too high for my comfort.
When I started to have line reports, then teams, and later whole departments, it gave me an opportunity to establish baselines. Whenever I receive some feedback—in either direction—I’d ask “What was your previous experience like [with your previous manager]? How would they handle [this situation]?”.
I found the bar to be quite low. I assumed I’d do well—the good ol’ I must be better than average cognitive bias—but turns out, if you simply act as a normal human being, you improve on the expectation. Check out the about page, which lists the management principles I adhere to.
This is what led me to start this newsletter. I’d like to write a book on this topic within the next couple of years. I have seen many similar blogs later abridged (or expanded) as a book, and I like this writing approach for several reasons:
First, selfishly, it provides me with opportunities to understand my audience and adapt my writing accordingly
Second, the content is out there sooner and often, maximising its potential impact on others
Third, I may never get to write the book, so for now, WYSIWYG.
Hope you tag along.
/G
The cadence is probably aspirational.
There are great resources out there, though. That will probably be the topic of the first proper newsletter post.