The Manager's Path: A Guide for Tech Leaders Navigating Growth and Change

by Camille Fournier

The popular management book First, Break All the Rules2 discusses several questions you can answer to help predict team productivity and satisfaction. Among them are: Do I know what is expected of me at work? Do I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right? Do I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day? For most engineers, the answer to these questions can be discerned by the speed and frequency with which they push code. If the work they need to do is clear, they know what code to write. If the tools, tickets, automation, and process are available and easy to use, they are able to get the code written. And if they’re not distracted by excessive meetings or drowning in support and incident management, they’ll get a chance to write code every day. These health signals — frequency of code releases, frequency of code check-ins, and infrequency of incidents — are the key indicators of a team that knows what to do, has the tools to do it, and has the time to do it every day.