An Elegant Puzzle: Systems of Engineering Management

by Will Larson

For every problem that comes your way—an email asking for a decision, a production problem, a dispute around on-call, a request to transfer from one team to another—you must pick one of three options: Close out. Close it out in a way such that this specific ask is entirely resolved. This means making a decision and communicating it to all involved participants. This strategy is a success if this particular task never comes back to you; and your goal is to finish this particular task as quickly and as permanently as possible. Solve. Design a solution such that you won’t need to spend time on this particular kind of ask again in the next six months. This is often designing norms or process, but depending on the kind of issue, this might be coaching an individual. With this option, your goal is to finish off an entire category of tasks. Delegate. Ideally, this is to redirect the ask to someone who is responsible for that kind of work, but sometimes it is a one-off. If you can’t close out a task or solve it, your only other option is to delegate it to someone who either has the specialized skills to close/solve it, or who can work in the system.