An Elegant Puzzle: Systems of Engineering Management

by Will Larson

Rubrics everywhere. Every important people decision should have a rubric around how folks are evaluated. This is true for promotions, performance designations, hiring, transitions into management, and pretty much everything else! Selecting project leaders.1 Having a structured approach to selecting project leads allows you to learn from previous selections, and to ensure that you’re not concentrating opportunity on a small set of individuals. Explicit budgets. Many companies take a “spend it like your own money” approach to budgets, which often leads to large inconsistencies across individuals. Instead of saying that you’ll pay for teams to attend a reasonable number of conferences per year, specify a fixed number. Instead of maintaining a general ongoing education budget, make it explicit. Nudge involvement. Many people are uncomfortable applying to opportunities, using education budgets, asking for mentorship, etc. It’s very effective to reach out to those folks directly and recommend they apply. Even more powerful is showing them where they fall on a distribution: it’s one thing to know that you’ve never used your education budget, and something else entirely to know that you’re the only person who isn’t using it. Education programs. Create ongoing training and learning programs that are available for everyone, or, for example, for all managers.