Category: Manager

One of the first steps I have taken as I transition into my management role is to set up one on ones with my team.

I’m not completely integrated with the team yet. We are planning on doing a slow transition from my Development Lead role on my current team to Software Development manager on my new team. This gives my current team a chance to train some new people, have me train them in things I was doing, and for me to slowly hand off my responsibilities. Because of this lack of integration, it feels a bit strange to be scheduling 1-on-1s with people who don’t “officially” report to me but I figured it was a good foot forward first step.

The one-on-ones will give my new team a chance to talk to me, to get to know me, and for me to get to know them. I can get a feel for what they are concerned about, what they feel has been working on their team and what they feel has not been working. I can also hopefully help ease any anxiety or worry they have about me moving into a leadership position.

Really looking forward to meeting the team and starting to fill in the picture.

It’s finally happening! I am transitioning into a software development management role! I have been treading water as a software development lead for quite a few years while waiting for this to transition into management and it is finally happening!

This won’t be my first transition into management, but it feels like it might be my final transition into management. I don’t think I will move back into a dev role after this one, so this is going to be a unique experience. As such, I want to try and capture my thoughts, feelings, and the things I learn along the way as I try to do the best I possibly can in my new role as manager.

Some things that have been going really well that I would hope happen with all new managers:

• My manager has set down with me and gone over their expectations and asked me for my expectations. This is where we discussed things like I have an expectation that I will not be a “working” manager. No coding for me. I’m all in on people and project management at this point. This was a FANTASTIC discussion and was a great start!
• My manager has scheduled many meetings with 1) the team to introduce me 2) product to go over each of the supported products and to introduce me 3) meetings to go over the current dev rituals/process and 4) meetings to go over what he’s hoping to see from me in the next few months. FANTASTIC!

Having those things happen gives me a lot of hope and have already opened up the door for dialog. Just knowing what’s even being expected of me is such relief.

Due to the size of my current dev team, the plan is for me to slowly transition into this new role over the next six months so I’ll make sure to write about that as well. Currently at 25% on the new team, which has been mostly used up by just going to some meetings but starting in July will be shifting to 50%. This is going to be a fun and exciting journey!

If anyone has any questions or things they want me to share/write about, please ask! I’m hoping to catch the things I find important or interesting as I walk this path, but would love to know what you are wanting to hear about!

And so it begins…