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Become an Effective Software Engineering Manager

Introduce Yourself to Your Team

Explore how to introduce yourself effectively to your software engineering team, focusing on informal one-on-one meetings that foster open communication. Understand how to gather valuable insights on team dynamics, projects, and challenges to build a strong foundation for successful management.

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First things first: it’s time to say hello. Working to improve the productivity and happiness of your team will take up much of day-to-day life as a manager. The relationship that you form with them is the foundation on top of which everything else is built. You’ll want to meet each of them in the most natural way possible, like in person or via a video call, rather than relying on email or chat software. You’ll also want to take the time to meet them all one-to-one, rather than just introducing yourself in a group setting. This is because you’re going to begin gathering information from all around you, and you’ll want to create a safe, private environment for each of your team to share their thoughts openly and honestly.

Meeting with your team members

Ask each staff member for thirty minutes of their time at their convenience this week. Whether you want to meet with them in a private room or go and grab a coffee is up to you, and only you know what feels best in the context of your workplace and your team. However, you’ll want to keep the meeting informal because the two main aspects that you want to uncover will emerge best as part of an open conversation:

  1. You’ll want them to describe what the team is responsible for and what they are currently working on.

  2. You’ll also want to invite their opinion about what they like about the team and what is going well compared to what they currently find most challenging and needs improving.

These are broad questions, but given that you’ve only just started and that you’re their new manager, you’ll begin to uncover all sorts of information about your team.

For example, you will likely find out:

  • Details of the current project(s) and how clear their objectives are

  • Knowledge, or confusion (!), about who is accountable for particular decisions, such as the priority of work and the roadmap

  • How they feel about their job

  • How they feel that their team is perceived within the department and the company

  • Their enthusiasm for their current project and what they like and dislike about it

You might even find out the secret to fixing your squeaky chair.

Breaking the ice

One of the hardest things that I had to deal with when transitioning to management was improving my conversational skills. Growing up, I found it easy to have in-depth conversations about subjects I knew a lot about but hard to have chatty interactions filled mostly with small talk. As a result, I found talking to new people challenging. As you can imagine, getting to know people for the first time was tough.

In your initial meeting with your staff, there’s a technique to make breaking the ice easy: just ask open-ended questions that allow them to do most of the talking, and let the information that you want to discover come up naturally. Think of it as trying to keep the thought bubble over their head at all times. We’ll learn more about this coaching technique in a later chapter How to Win Friends and Influence People.

For example, try these questions:

  • How’s your week going?
  • What are you working on at the moment?
  • What was the last thing that the team shipped that you were really proud of?
  • What would you say the team is primarily responsible for?
  • How are your teammates doing?
  • What’s your favorite thing about working here?
  • What about your least favorite?
  • What’s the one thing that nobody wants to speak up about?
  • What’s something that you think I could help you with?

You can use any or all of these, but they’re useful if the conversation dries up or if the other party isn’t naturally chatty like I used to be.

You’ll find that as you begin to spend time with your staff, you’ll uncover numerous issues and conflicts in their current situation, ranging from communication to stress, interpersonal issues, and beyond. These are great starting points for you to start contributing to make their experience at work better. Make sure you’re capturing the key themes using a notebook, laptop, or whatever you choose. We’ll look at this in more detail in a later chapter called Manage Yourself First.

End your initial meeting by thanking them for their time and letting them know that you’ve written everything down. Repeat any actions you’re going to do for them for confirmation.

Don’t worry about doing anything right away. Just keep it written down, and let the week continue to unfold. I’m sure you’ve got plenty of introduction activities to keep you busy.