Managing any team is a challenge. Managing a tech team, however, is even more so. It’s not only about managing the human resources, it’s also about dealing with the technical side of things. But mostly, it’s about staying focused on the goal when it’s extremely easy to get distracted by the details. While no two teams are alike, certain principles benefit them all – large and small, local and global, office-based and remote. Julius Cerniauskas, CEO at Oxylabs explains.
Get to know the tech basics
It’s not mandatory to be a developer to lead other developers. But it’s very important to understand them, to empathize with them, and to try walking in their shoes. To be a successful manager, you must speak the language of your team.
One of the first things a tech team manager must do is getting to know the roles of their direct reports. What are the common challenges for the system administrators and what are the best practices to deal with them? How do they differ from the challenges that developers face? What jargon do they use at work? Dedicating your time to get to know at least the basics, such as the CI/CD method, will be invaluable down the line
Speak the language of your team
It might be easier to learn all the technical specifics if you join the team at the start of a new product’s development. If you come to the project later, there’s already a specific vocabulary that has been developed. Thus, be sure to read all the product documentation you might find, ask questions and absorb as much information as possible – to eventually be on the same page as your team.
Investing time in getting to know the specifics and the language of every single role in your team will allow for more effective processes and smoother relationships. For example, imagine someone saying they’ll be concentrating on the X process. If you already know the technical lingo, you’ll quickly grasp that “X” entails around an hour of routine actions that will not translate into an easily tangible result but are crucial for business continuity. Knowing all this helps you plan tasks, set priorities, and manage time.
Unleash the strengths of your team – with them on board
It’s the primary goal of every manager to spot the best qualities of every team member and make sure that those qualities are being put to good use. However, despite starting with good intentions, this might eventually become a trap.
It could be that your employee is exceptional at doing specific tasks and you find yourself always delegating those tasks to them. But what if that employee is already bored of all the repetition and wants more diversity in their job? What if they want to strengthen other skills instead of using the same one over and over again? There’s no way to find that out other than dialogue.
It’s important to practice regular one-on-one meetings with team members. “Regular” is the key word here, because only through consistency can we truly dig through the surface into real issues.
Plan, then double-check
It’s really easy to get your tech team distracted. A small bug here and there might steal the attention from the main goal the team was focused on. Therefore, another important thing to consider when planning workloads for your team is the concept of context switching.
Switching contexts is what we all do every day when jumping from one task to another. However, most are also aware that such mental switching damages our productivity, efficiency, or even work quality. According to different psychology studies, shifting between tasks can cost as much as 40 percent of our productive time. Therefore, when planning the project, make sure to allow for periods of allocated attention that are not interrupted with small ad hoc tasks.
Treat the planning process carefully. It’s always useful to double-check if the tasks are formulated in the most efficient way. For example, if there’s a task that takes a week to complete, you should consider if this can’t be split into 5 smaller tasks that could be done one after another. That would allow for a more accurate assessment of how much time it will require and would at least partially reduce the risk of context switching.
Learn as you go
Despite numerous strategies, methodologies and tools meant for tech team managers, there are no one-fits-all scenarios on how to become successful in this role fast. The most straightforward way there is through curiosity, openness, and courage to learn through trial and error.
