STOP MICROMANAGING ME! - Navigating Relentless Status Updates

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all right I'm headed home from work it's Monday December 30th uh I got a topic from Reddit that's going to be about getting multiple pings per day on like status updates and I feel like this is probably something that will resonate with a bunch of people so thought it'd be good to talk through some perspectives on this uh it says it's only going to be about 30 minutes to get home which is sweet um but I'm a little bit nervous cuz I have to be on a live stream real soon and I was a little bit late after work so according to this if I make it home in the time it says 30 minutes I will have 3 minutes to go live um so we'll see how this goes uh but yeah so it's going to be this conversation about status updates uh we'll

talk about some different uh perspectives on this just a reminder for folks if you want questions answered please just comment below uh happy to talk through stuff otherwise I go to Reddit right um if you have something that's more detailed that you want to keep Anonymous that you don't want to write in a comment look for Dev leader on social media and just send me a message on whatever platform you want and then also a reminder because I'm literally rushing home to do it right now my live stream on my Dev leader which is my main Channel uh it's an AMA style um it's at 7:00 p.m. Pacific on Mondays which is hopefully what I'm getting home in time for and I'm really doubting it but we'll see cuz if I hit a if I hit a drop of traffic on the highway I'm screwed

but we'll see um okay so status updates I think the first thing that I want to kind of talk through here is like um like why people are asking for status update in the first place right I think one of the things that is really key to think through here is like this is like fundamentally Communication in in software development and uh I think usually when this happens usually maybe not always but usually it's because we have um different stakeholders that and I would say more often than not at least in my experience you have non-technical stakeholders that are looking for updates on things so and might be your engineering manager uh arguably a technical stakeholder depending on their skill set um and uh and or project managers right because project managers are generally trying to coordinate things uh either within a team or across

teams and they're looking for updates so I think one of the reasons that this happens is like is that ultimately someone is tasked with needing to provide information to someone else okay so the the reason that someone's coming to you is because they need the update from you it's more it's my experience it's more often than not that they're just doing it because they need an update to give to someone else and I wanted to kind of talk through this because like I'm I'm literally in a funny situation like that right now and I wanted to kind of walk through uh what I'm kind of experiencing and what I'm trying to do to navigate this because I am fully aware that when you have someone coming and pinging you for updates and stuff it feels like holy man leave me alone I'm just trying to

get my work done and like the more that you ping me for updates the less I want to do this work like you're getting on my nerves like I get I get what it feels like um so I'm not totally you know oblivious to that um so let me kind of explain my situation I'm currently leading uh a relatively big project that's that's cross teams uh you know primarily the the team I'm in like including the larger team so not just the teams I manage but um sort of the you know teams that report up to my manager so like primarily we're the larger group and then there's some other partner teams that uh that are involved and they have deliverables and there's interdependencies and uh and there's a time frame where all this has to be delivered within so not only is this across

multiple teams but it's also across different geographies uh and so that's at least if I am doing the math right in my head at least four different countries might be up to five so we got that going on we got the fact that it's holidays right so this project started before the holidays but obviously Christmas and New Year's and stuff like we got that going on so that's kind of an interruption so challenging part is I need updates and why do I need updates well a couple of reasons right so as someone who's coordinating the project I need to make sure that things are moving along and it's not a matter of like I don't trust the people are working and that's sort of one concept I want to call out here that I think a lot of the time people feel this way someone's

asking me for updates they're micromanaging me they don't trust I'm getting my work done right so I want to call out that like when as I'm navigating this I don't want people to feel that way right I'm trying to make it very clear to them like I'm not man these people come on come on not very good merging here but we did it um my goal is not to Ping people and say hey like I need an update from you because I think that you're not getting your work done um quite the opposite I know some people that are working on this project have several deliverables and so it's not like hey I think you're not getting your work done in fact it's like I want to make sure that you're okay like do you need any help with what's going on are you blocked

on anything cool fast lane um so you know I'm like part of why I'm asking for updates is I want to make sure that people aren't blocked and that things are progressing right I need to have etas on things because there is actually a time frame that this work has to get done within and what that means is like usually in normal development Things Are in my experience are a little bit more relaxed where if things are going to go over like cool we're going to adjust our deliverables but I don't really have such a luxury in this case so I need etas and basically the goal of the ETA and I've made it very clear with people working on this stuff the goal of the ETA is not to say hey look if you're not going to hit this ETA that you set like

you're getting punished it's again quite the opposite if you're you're not meeting the ETA I want to use that as something that we can start a conversation about you said it's going to be done in 2 weeks and we're a week into it and you're feeling like that's really not going to be the case cool let's talk about it do we need to bring in someone else to help are you distracted by some other work that we need to rep prioritize are you blocked on things right these are all conversation starters so what I'm finding is like I'm doing a lot of this Reach Out to try and make sure that I have these statuses the other reason aside from keeping people uh or helping try to prevent people from being blocked is I will have to report this to Executives it's not a choice

I don't like I'm not doing this because I'm like I can't wait to go do this and no one asked for it it's being asked of me I have to get it done and I need to understand the Lev a proper level of detail of what's being worked on and what's not being worked on so that I can report it up now I need to be clear about this with people I'm working with so that they understand like if I'm asking for updates it's not again it's not because I don't think that you're not working it's because I need to be able to speak to all of this with a sufficient level of detail and I need to report that up to Executives so so with all that said um like that's kind of why I'm doing it and what I'm using the information for

and now in practice what seems to be happening is that yes I do need to be asking people for updates but what could they also be doing like they know that I'm looking for the status updates this person's not going very fast um if they know I'm looking for the status updates and I'm doing it on a Cadence they can actually remove some of the the steps right like if they don't want me to be reaching out to them and saying hey what's your update they know that they know exactly when our sync meetings are they know that the expectation is that I'm going to be talking through those status updates with a larger audience right so we've made it very clear before we started like this is what's going to be happening in these sync meetings all you have to do is put a

brief status about how things are going if you're not meeting the ETA that's totally fine let us know what the new ETA is let's discuss if that's not going to be acceptable we need to bring in other people or or shift gears do we need to Reign on what's going on here like it's a conversation starter so I've been trying to like especially with people directly on my team because I have more frequent conversations with them I will say to them explicitly like hey look like you know I I know the stuff you're working on because we talk about this a lot more regularly if you're not able to make it to the sync meeting like that's cool give me the update like let me know the status like I'll go represent you it's totally fine but um for people that are experiencing this stuff

and it's too much right where you're feeling like overwhelmed from someone asking uh I would kind of put this put this back to you and you can kind of maybe take some more some control of the situation and what I would do and like you can do this at a polite way it doesn't have to be like condescending or you know even if you're frustrated like uh if you recall what I said a few videos ago like Step One is take a deep breath right like we got to we got to keep our cool I get it's frustrating a deep breath okay someone keeps hounding you for status updates and you're getting fed up something that you could do is go to them and say hey look I know that you're looking for status updates uh maybe we can we can look at a different

way to do this right I know that you need these updates for something could you explain to me like uh you know sort of your scenario like what are you trying to accomplish with the updates that can be helpful for you to understand right it's and you're not asking it in a way that's like uh like challenging them right like be like truthfully trying to seek to understand like hey I know you're looking for these and it seems like oh it's almost like twice a day kind of thing like what's up with that like could you walk me through like what you're going through and why you need these updates and then the second part is like okay now that I understand why you need these updates is there anything I could be doing differently that enables you to have a better understanding that is

less taxing on me because at that point you can be transparent with them like hey look the the frequent ask for updates is actually it's causing a bit of distraction and I want to make sure that I can enable you to be effective in your role but I also need to make sure that I can stay on track right so I think that there's a way that you can approach that conversation that doesn't have to be like you know fighting someone over it that you're being annoyed that you can have a respectful conversation and say I want to understand what you're trying to accomplish so that I can better enable you to do that in a way that's not going to be as disruptive to me I genuinely think that most people that find themselves in this situation where they're frustrated by like people keep

asking for updates and stuff I think that most of the time they're not stopping to have a conversation about it they're just getting pissed off and why do I think this it's because it's pretty common in my experience that people kind of have something occur and they're like it upsets me but I won't talk about it with the person not everyone but it's a pretty common pattern that I've observed over the last 12 years so in such a situation like I said I would highly recommend having a conversation with the person um because things can can improve and I don't think for my experience having conversations like this I don't think that someone who's having or on the receiving end of that is going to be like oh man get hello to this guy I can't believe they're trying to tell me to not ask

for status updates and I can't believe they want to help me like it's it's backwards right you're you're literally suggesting to them I would like to help you but I want to find a different way that's that's equally as effective for you if not better and less disruptive for me I want to give you another example there's a a project that's being done on my team and there's one of the Engineers has been making progress on this he's doing great work um but it's a it's a long project and there's multiple phases to it and um I found myself in situations where I know that I'm being asked about the status of this project and there's been a couple times where like I'll get pinged on it and then I'm like oh yeah like you know here's the latest update but like let me go

let me go reach out to the engineer and like I'll go ping him and get an update just it's a little bit more little bit more up to dat than maybe the latest information I have but I know what's happening at the same time is that there's another individual that I work with very closely and I know that he's also getting pinged on this and he's going to reach out to the engineer so now this engineer has at least two people so myself and someone else that are reaching out to him and being like hey status update hey status update and again like I think I think this guy he gets it like he's not um I don't think he's like frustrated by it yet and I think that's a key point is like I don't want it to get to that position um I'm

pretty confident that based on our working relationship he doesn't think I'm micromanaging him because he's happy to give status updates like he's making good progress on things uh we have a pretty solid like I would say like working relationship working Dynamic where he feels like he can trust me with things that's at least my interpretation of it so I don't feel that he's um expressing frustration with it but I I also don't want it to get to that so what we've done is we've basically just done like a dedicated chat between the three of us and I've explained to him hey look like I'm getting pinged on this stuff uh and it's because of higher up individuals that are kind of like looking at more of a holistic picture of some offering rings that we have a a role in like they're looking for for

understanding that and I've been able and I I will tell them like I've been able to kind of give them my updates but sometimes I'm like I'm asking you for more upto-date stuffff just in case there's anything additional so we've just created a group chat with the three of us where we can make sure that like hey if anything's coming up like you're not going to get bombarded twice now um you know it will be one of us kind of like asking uh and then that saves me too because I might see an ask in the chat I got to move over Lanes here let me in um you know then I can see if there's already an update in the chat then I don't have to ask and vice versa and overall just making sure there's clear communication because again the goal was not

to say hey we don't think you're working the goal is very much to be like people are asking us for updates and we have updates but they're looking for more um or different details right maybe there's a detail that I didn't have information on so I think just being very transparent about the reason we're asking and then making sure that there's a I don't know like a safe place to basically in my opinion I feel like that's a safe place for him to be able to push back if he's being annoyed to be like okay like let me let's address this let's get it out um and I I feel like that's I mean the group chat thing I feel like was a very simple low Tech strategy for just making sure this person's not getting bombarded um what I don't want to do is

now have someone outside of our group who say above us uh kind of going okay like I'm going to Ping them directly now too uh like I would rather kind of be the shield for that and that way if they're coming to me asking for status updates I can make sure that if I have a recent one and I feel like I can answer everything that's being asked I'll just do it so I think you know one of the meta points here that I want to get across is like there are going to be situations where you'll have managers that are micromanaging you and uh I've been pretty fortunate that almost my entire career I've never had that done um I think where I've seen like in my own experience even as a manager where I've seen that happen is that there's a level of

distrust okay so when I'm giving status updates and saying like here's what I'm doing here's how things are progressing when there's a level of distrust that's like you shouldn't do that or like you should do this instead and it's like I can tell that the person is like questioning what I'm doing to me that's where the micromanaging part kicks in where it feels really bad where I'm like well why am I even doing this work why don't you do it right like clearly you don't trust that I'm able to do this so like if I keep trying and you keep saying like oh no like not this way do it this way then I'm then I get really fed up um however when it status updates I think that starts to look a little bit different so again understanding what the status update is for

I think goes a long way so instead of us making assumptions like you know this this project manager a pain in the ass uh every time they come around they're just asking me for status updates like I don't like working with this person now cuz they're always bothering me like I do think that there are ways to turn that around and it involves a conversation that could be uncomfortable but I could almost guarantee you that if you just have the conversation and try to say hey look I know that you're like you're probably trying to get status for someone or for some reason like you know could you talk me through that and then like can we come up with a a more sustainable approach for this um I would find it very difficult to believe if someone was like nah like screw you so

that's my recommendation if you find that you're getting blasted with uh status updates requests um the the final thing and I kind of hinted at it earlier is like I'm trying to promote if you don't want me reaching out to ask for you ask you for status update sory the precedent has been set that like and people are very aware at least I believe they're very aware that um I have to report out status for the project that I'm doing as an example so I've made the precedent very clear so it's not a micromanaging thing it's I need to have the updates so I can report them out so if you don't want me bothering you like you you know exactly where to go and how to update things for status so we don't need a ton of detail if your update is literally things

are at the exact same spot that's an update that might mean I need to have a conversation if we're reaching the ETA and it's still at the same point but that's an okay update I'm not going to be mad by that I just need to know right and I think that's maybe a point of confusion for some people or a fear right so if you're like hey if I need to give an update and things haven't moved in two days am I going to get in trouble um so I mean I can't speak for every engineer that's out there um and I can't speak for every engineering manager but I will say that I try to be very clear with Engineers that when I'm talking about status updates my goal is not to to trap you in a corner to say you told me this

date and we're about to hit that date or we've just passed that date and you didn't deliver it like shame on you like absolutely not my goal is to use the ETA to understand the trajectory I I try to be as clear as I can about that because I want to make sure that if things are off course like there's tons of stuff that's outside of your control tons if you have a dependency on another team and they've come up and said like we can't get that done I'm not going to come after you and say like oh you're the worst software engineer no like I want you to be able to say hey look that team they just said they can't get it done now like you know as soon as you know be transparent with me let me know let's see if we

can shift gears and take a different approach or whatever we need to do maybe I have to get involved and push back on their team or something I don't know the whole point is that it's an opport for a conversation so one of the first things I said in this talk was communication right and I think that sometimes people you know it like the communication part's a bit of a bit of a struggle bit of a challenge um but ultimately like I think we just have to make sure that we're enabling our our teams this is like a you know responsibility on engineering managers and and Senior Engineers on the team like we need to be able to enable a space for people to have conversations like this um so if you're listening to this and you're like well that sounds like bull crap advice

because I could never talk about this stuff like something to think about right is that an environment you want to be in is that something that you can try to improve right can you have conversations about that to kick you know even with your manager maybe to say Hey you know it's challenging to have conversations like this I don't know depends but um communication is a huge part of software development and I think that when we shy away from it and we think that there's no way I could have a conversation about this like it's such a missed opportunity for things getting better so instead of being in this situation where like oh people are asking me for updates like this all just sucks I hate people that that do this like instead of that can we have Aver ation about it the the or

the the Vlog entry I did on meetings I think that was this morning like same concept right you're going to meetings and you hate the meetings they're distracting you think they're useless talk about what the meetings are maybe that meeting is not serving the purpose anymore and that's okay like meetings evolve over time so if it's not serving the purpose anymore have a conversation about it but if we're not talking about things they're not going to get better okay I'm done ranting so that's uh I think what I wanted to say about that topic um you know I I'm sorry for folks that feel like they're kind of Trapped in a situation where like they're bombarded by this stuff but I I do recommend have a conversation about things if you feel like you can't have conversations and the environment is doesn't enable it you

I think you have a a choice of do you try to actively improve that or is it time for a different environment easier said than done I understand something to think about so amazingly I made it home almost I at the lights but I made it home on time unless this light never changes in which case I'm screwed I got about 7 minutes before I'm live but if you're watching this or listening to it unfortunately right now is yesterday for you which means you have to wait till next week to watch the next live stream but that will be on my Dev leader YouTube channel so like I said at the beginning of this every Monday at 700 p.m. Pacific I do a live stream if you want to know what the topic is going to be you can go to weekly. deev leader.com it's totally cool I'm not offended um if you just want to see what the topic is I put it out Saturday mornings at 5:00 a.m.

bright and early um so you can check it out Saturday Sunday uh or you know Monday the day of and like I said weekly. deev leader.com entry um so there's that and then you can see what the topic is and I made it home I'm going to have to rush upstairs so let me go ahead and back up before this person hits me and we did it okay thanks folks I'll see you next time take care