Software Developers on PIPs But What About The Manager?

Transcript is auto-generated and may contain errors.

Hey folks, we're going to the comments today. This one is going to be about accountability and ownership. Um, so this one someone was asking about one of the videos I posted and uh part of the conversation was around, you know, like things not not being delivered on time, that kind of stuff. And then like ultimately like what happens right so for an individual individual contributor if you're behind on a project right and like that's it doesn't uh doesn't ship on time um I had said like ultimately I'm accountable for for things on my team and so this person was saying well like what what do you mean by that right so like if uh if a person doesn't deliver their perk like don't they get like put on a PIP like a performance improvement plan, right?

And then so if that happens and then the manager like fails at the PIP or like like does the then does the manager get put on a PIP like to get uh you know either improved or removed from the company? Like what does that look like? So then they went on to say like from the job descriptions and stuff they've seen, it looks like it's an expectation of managers to be able to like to hire good talent and to be able to coach them. And and so originally when I read the comment, I I don't know why the tone I read it in was almost like uh like sarcastic, right? Uh facitious trying to say like, "Oh, what?" So if you're, you know, if you do bad on a project, you just get pipped or, you know, the manager just gets pipped because what? They can't handle their team kind of thing.

And then I think it was actually more genuine. So I I wanted to to talk through this cuz I think it's important to to understand cuz this goes back to a topic I've made a few videos about uh like basically ownership and accountability. Um, so to to rephrase what I had said in the other video around like ultimately the the team is my my accountability and the thing I'm responsible for in my job description as a engineering manager, right? Um, there's a few different facets to it and often what you will hear me talk about on this channel and when I post on social media, that kind of thing. Um it's for me the ultimately it's it's about uh you know ensuring my team can do their best work possible and helping them grow in their career.

And so that to me is the focus that to me is like what I need to do because it enables the other part of the expectations for me and that's to be able to have you know success in the areas that my team or teams like their charter. So I have three sub teams that work on a routing plane for Microsoft 365. That's currently my sort of area of ownership. And so for those three areas, they all have their own charter, right? If they didn't, they would maybe just be the same thing, right? Like why why would there be three separate sort of sub teams if they didn't have their own charter? uh not not just because we want to split some people up to make it organized some way like there's a reason they focus on different things they're part of a larger charter

which is part of a larger charter and so on and so on until it's part of just Microsoft so for me I am responsible for those charters and so for example um one of the areas that I own is the firewall technology so that charter looks different than one of the other sub teams I have. They're both part of routing and managing traffic, but the charters are different. So, in like because as an engineering manager, I am responsible for people that means that sorry, I'm responsible for people, which is, you know, one of the primary parts of my job. It's not the only thing I do because I'm also responsible for those charters. And so when you hear me talking about managing and leading teams, the way that I have found in my career to to do the best and have the most success in whatever charters I'm given is to ensure that the people are able to do their best work possible.

And I say that because the other way, you know, to exaggerate is like, okay, well, disregard them, put no time and energy into them, not give a about their careers, not care about how engaged they are, and just be like, well, if the other part of this is the charter for these teams, like, I'll just do it. I'll just get it done however I need to get it done, right? So, either I'm doing it or I'm forcing people to like do crazy amounts of work. Whatever. I don't know why this person stopped like 15 car lengths back. What are you doing? You're making me nervous. Very strange. Um, yeah. So, like that that's how I approach management and leadership. So, at the end of the day, like I can't just have one or the other. So, you could if I uh kind of play devil's advocate for the the focus that I was saying, right?

If I was like, hey, I'm just going to focus on people's careers and like uh you know, they're helping them ensure they can do their best work possible and somehow that's not going to deliver on the charter. like I could maybe find ways to do that somehow. Um I think it would be super unnatural that that wouldn't lead to them just doing really well in our focus areas. But um if that were the case, say we're missing every single milestone, we're not even delivering on our charter. So people are doing awesome work, but it's not even related to what we're doing. like I would be failing at my job because I am responsible for those charters. Okay. So I have responsibility and ownership over like sort of different facets of this. So to kind of bring it back to what this person was saying.

So you know if a employee an engineer right so an individual contributor is assigned a project and they're failing to deliver on their milestone milestones and sorry in the final deliverable like don't don't they just get put on a PIP and said no um it's not not like a hey didn't work so like therefore you get pipped. Um there's a bunch of different reasons why that could happen to get put on a PIP. Uh but also there's a bunch of different reasons why a project might miss uh delivery date, right? And many of those are like outside of people's control. And it depends on um you know on on what's being built on uh you know the the team the technology um like so many factors like you have big project there's five teams that you're dependent on they all slip for some reason you

have an external dependency outside the company they're behind so your date slips um there's many reasons why a project may not go as planned and that's just quite literally what it means oh these wipers um to be working in, you know, in the real world. It's not just contrived scenarios. It's like these are just real things that happen. And so when it comes to people taking accountability and ownership on the projects, when things aren't going according to plan, we don't just say, "Oh, guess that's just how it is. I guess there's nothing that can happen. guess I'll just sit back and and wait until it kind of course corrects itself. Because if you're taking ownership and accountability, you're communicating to other people when that's happening, you're looking for alternative solutions because you like if someone said this is the date and this is what's expected like they're expecting you to do that.

And if you cannot, you need to communicate that. You need to be working on alternatives. You need to be getting creative and uh potentially one of those solutions is when you're communicating back to stakeholders saying like, hey, can this date move? or saying, "Hey, if we keep this date fixed, um is there a reduced subset of what can be delivered or can we, you know, use an alternative implementation that we didn't agree on in order to work around this?" Like, you need to be taking accountability and ownership for finding alternatives, right? And if we go back to what I was saying about a team's charter. So let's say I'm having that kind of conversation with everyone on my team, right? They're all working on different projects. Let's say um even if they're paired up working on things like let's say they're working on different projects and so I'm having this conversation with people.

Some projects maybe there's a couple that are like perfectly on plan. some others are slipping for different reasons whether it's other teams uh external dependencies whatever it is and so I'm you know coaching people helping them work through these challenges where they're like hey we need something else right maybe in some cases we're coming up with um internally we're working on a different design where we can say can't rely on that technology it's not going to be available in other cases we're working with another team uh trying to say, "Hey, look, like you guys are blocked. Like, we're waiting on you. We can help. Like, let us help you get this complete so it's on track, right? So, we're looking for these alternatives." Um, like it's it's in my best interest to be helping people on my team do this because if they don't, right, if they don't, then we're not sort of meeting the expectations of what our charter is, what our responsibilities are, and what we're supposed to be delivering on our team.

So if there's other teams or other stakeholders that were expecting this of our team, like yeah, their point of contact based on whatever the partnership looks like might be that they're talking with one of the engineers on my team, but if that engineer is having challenges and again not saying it's be their fault. I'm saying they're having challenges on meeting the expectations for the project. you know, that other partner team or whoever might I would expect they're going to come to me and say, "Nick, like we've been, you know, we're expecting this delivery to be met." So, like, you know, Bob or Sally on the team, like, yeah, even if they've been doing great, right? It's totally uh normal that a partner might say like Bob or Sally has been doing great but like this project is not is not on track right now and

like we're concerned right in other cases they might say Bob or Sally like maybe they haven't been present or they're you know they're not doing a good job whatever it's almost like irrespective of that the point is that they're saying we we have this expectation that this is going to we met, we agreed on this. You know, they have other people that they or whether it's uh customers or other partner teams where they're like, we're expecting this so that we can help them. So, they're going to come to me at the end of the day if something's not being met, right? to to give you maybe a more abstract kind of approach to this. I was mentioning one of my sub teams is responsible for firewall technology. And so you might imagine that if I was like, okay, well there's, you know, lots of different things that would be involved in that.

And so as we're road mapping things, let's let's assume let's just assume we we never have partners or anyone that's asking us for features, support or whatever, we're just like we get to build what we want, right? And so I set the direction of the team that we're going to work in these areas. people are working on stuff and uh you know repeatedly we have different types of cyber attacks that are happening and and repeatedly were just like floundering and unable to do anything right I would fully expect that my manager my skip level manager and whoever else are coming to me and saying hey something's got to like what what the heck is going on right and if at that point I'm like whoa that my my employees are very smart and they're doing well and like they're delivering lots of good things. It just so happens that they're not related to anything on the firewall or that kind of technology.

Like that's not going to line up well. So like I should be held accountable for that. I have ownership of that area. And so that might apply to me where if I'm uh you know consistently failing to be able to to do that, they might say this person seems unfit for the job. Maybe they're like maybe I'm doing well with helping people, but on the technology side like it's just like this isn't right. So maybe I'm put on a PIP, right? Like how do we get Nick to actually, you know, perform properly in this role? So different levels of like um accountability and ownership but at the end of it like I'm ultimately responsible for the things that are my team's charter and with that said like it bubbles up another level right so yes I'm responsible but like if I let's just let's keep exaggerating the scenario right so I'm I'm helping my team do their work, but it has nothing to do with our charter.

And I keep doing that, and no one seems to notice, and nothing's actually making progress in the areas that I own. If if my manager was just like completely unaware of that for an extended period of time, you know, months, years, like he's ultimately accountable for the the parts, right? it like that accountability bubbles up or it should be bubbling up, right? He has expectations of me. I'm saying he in this case because my manager is a is a man. And then my skip level has expectations of me and my manager. So the final part of this is like just as I'm getting close to CrossFit here when it you know the last part of this person's comment was around like hiring and coaching and like yeah like I I am expected that if I am able to hire because I have um allocated uh you know headcount to be able to do so that I am hiring good people.

If I like save it, I keep having headcount and every time I hire, I'm like, "Oh, like I I keep getting, you know, bad hire after bad hire after bad hire and I have to keep like letting people go, someone might start to realize like maybe maybe you actually need some help with hiring. Like maybe you're not doing a good job at this." Um, and the same thing for coaching, right? Like this is why uh just to go back to the earlier comment, well you just put someone on a pit, right? Like they didn't do a good job. Like I am responsible for making sure that I can coach and mentor people. That doesn't mean if if you know someone doesn't succeed, you know, getting through their their PIP successfully and then being retained, that doesn't mean that like therefore Nick needs to be put on a PIP or get fired.

that just might be that that's how that plays out. But if I'm not doing anything, right? If I, you know, say I have someone who is supposed to get some support, like they need some assistance uh in terms of their performance and I just neglect that for forever, then someone would say, "Well, you're not doing your job, Nick." like that's literally in your job description is to be able to to coach and mentor others. So I need to be held responsible for that. So yeah, that that is absolutely an expectation is to be able to it's not just growing a team in the sense of like adding people. It's growing people in terms of uh their their capabilities and their ability to perform. It's both. But obviously I can't just grow a team in terms of number of people if uh I don't have the ability to hire because I don't have headcount.

So anyway, hope that helps. It's just like a bunch of different levels of accountability and ownership at the individual level uh myself as a manager and then that would kind of go up the chain and it's on the people side and then also on the charters for the team which are maybe more product or technical deliverables. So hope that helps. I thought it was a good question to talk through. Thanks for asking. If you got questions, leave them below in the comments or go to codemute.com and you can submit stuff anonymously. Take care.