Managing Managers Episode 30: Measuring productivity with Laura Tacho
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Sep 14, 2024 Laura Tacho, CTO at DX and a coach to engineering leaders, shares her insights on developer productivity. She explores the crucial differences between leadership and management, emphasizing the need for strong leadership skills. Tacho introduces a new productivity measurement framework that categorizes success into speed, quality, effectiveness, and impact. She encourages prioritizing continuous improvement over mere assessment and highlights the importance of developer surveys for gauging team sentiment. Essential advice for new managers navigating former peer relationships is also covered.
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Laura's Leadership Evolution
- Laura Tacho began her leadership journey as a recent college grad with direct reports in video editing before moving deeply into engineering and developer tooling.
- Her leadership evolved through open source community leadership for Docker and formal management roles over many years.
Set Clear Expectations Early
- Set clear expectations to avoid the micromanagement spiral where vague goals lead to vague results and eventually micromanagement.
- Meeting halfway between inspiration and direct coaching sets people up for success without stifling creativity.
Know What You Want First
- Leaders must clarify what they expect from their teams before expecting meaningful usage of metrics.
- Without clear leadership intent, teams won’t understand how to act on data and metrics.