Hey friend,

I gave a talk at Refactor DX ↗ on Creating a Culture of Psychological Safety. The talk went really well, and many asked me many questions, which is always amazing. It was a full house! 🔥

Since I work for myself, meeting you all is always the highlight of my day. So, never hesitate to say hi or even ask me to grab a coffee, as I always love chatting with you!

Some of the questions were quite interesting, so I wanted to address a couple here as this will also benefit you.

How do you build influence when the org is focused more on Delivery than Quality and Engineering Practices?

This is a tricky one. You are an Engineering Manager, so the key 🔑 to building an influence is to grow your impact.

First, I'd like you to try to understand existing Engineering practices and learn some historical context. What does the VP of Eng care about? What are they pushing for? Could you try to gauge the Eng goals so you know where this can fit?

You should work with your co-leads, i.e., product and design, or anyone else to establish good practices.

💪 Lead by Example and share your team's success and learnings so far.

🔢 Provide some stats on why compromising quality can hurt us and you are making these conscious choices together.

Once you have done that - gauge where the gaps are 💡. This is a much bigger problem: a lack of Engineering practice.

✔️ Work with your manager and see how you can build these practices together.

🤝 Does your manager have the same understanding as you? What do these standard practices look like? Can you build a roadmap of practices together? You need to slowly turn the ship to see the change.

💛 Engage Leadership Support: Identify influential leaders who understand the importance of quality and engineering practices. Seek their support and sponsorship to gain traction for your initiatives.

👍 Collaborate with Delivery Teams: Work closely with delivery teams to understand their challenges and pain points. Offer practical solutions and improvements that can enhance both delivery speed and quality.

Lastly, be patient, as change takes time, but it will happen if you persevere.

🧰 The Engineering Leader's Toolbox

• ​My Slides from Refactor Conference on Cultivating a Culture of Psychological Safety​
• A great book on User Story Mapping​
• ​Developer to Leader: A program to help you learn how to lead a team successfully and grow into a successful Engineering Manager.

👉 What are your goals?

This newsletter has grown quite a bit since I started it a few months ago. I'd love to get to know you a bit better. Can you please click one of the links below to best describe your situation,

• ​I'm a developer and curious about Engineering Leadership​
• ​I'm an existing Engineering Leader​
• ​I am confident I want to grow into an Engineering Leader​
• ​I'm a Technical Lead / Team Lead but want to manage a team​
• ​I'm not a developer, but the content seems relevant to me​

Thanks,

Ankita

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