PDF Summary:The Manager's Path, by Camille Fournier

In The Manager’s Path, engineering executive Camille Fournier introduces the field of engineering management—the management of software engineers, who design and code software systems and programs. This can be a challenging field, as there’s little information available on balancing technical knowledge with management skills. Fournier seeks to close this gap, drawing from her experience as an engineer-turned-manager to identify skills and techniques that can help new engineering managers handle the transition.

In this guide, we’ll explore three main skills that can help you succeed as an engineering manager: clear communication, strategic planning, and adaptability. We’ll discuss each skill’s importance, how they evolve throughout your career, and Fournier’s suggestions for developing them. In our commentary, we’ll compare Fournier’s ideas to those of other software engineers, as well as tech business experts like Marty Cagan.

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The experts don’t discuss constructive feedback in the context of a specific role. However, they do say that you must analyze the information the other person shares, understand their feelings about that information, and empathize with them. This requires you to focus carefully on one individual, which may be easier when your team is small enough that you can give members individual attention.

Basic Skill #2: Explaining Thoroughly

Practice explaining things. Fournier says miscommunication often occurs when you assume another person knows more than they do. This leads to confusion and errors. To communicate clearly, explain your expectations and feedback in detail.

(Shortform note: Productivity experts add that making assumptions when listening to someone can also lead to miscommunication. You think you understand their point, so you stop paying attention, leading to later conflict. To avoid this, listen to the other person’s entire message and ask questions to ensure you fully understand their expectations and feedback, as discussed above.)

The mentor level is a good time to develop this skill because your mentee is likely new to the company or even the industry. The questions they ask and mistakes they make can help you recognize which information you failed to share and correct these gaps, practicing thorough explanations. In turn, the tech lead level expands on this skill by allowing you to practice thorough explanations with a larger group.

(Shortform note: To improve your explanations, recognize when your lack of thoroughness caused your mentee or teammates to need more information or make a mistake. In The Oz Principle, Craig Hickman, Roger Connors, and Tom Smith say that acknowledging how your actions contribute to a situation is taking accountability. Many people struggle with this kind of self-reflection because it’s easier to blame others than yourself—blaming your mentee or teammates for their lack of knowledge or mistakes is more comfortable than blaming yourself for not explaining well. To overcome this reluctance, consider whether you’ve been in similar situations before. Who was responsible then? Could you have done something differently to stop it from happening again?)

Communicating Clearly as a Junior Manager

As a junior manager, your communication goal is to increase trust and camaraderie between you and your engineers and among your engineers. Increasing trust and camaraderie makes your team members feel safer psychologically, which helps you and your team work together cohesively. Trust also helps you integrate new hires and give feedback more effectively.

(Shortform note: Without trust, team cohesion collapses because your team members are focused on protecting themselves instead of supporting each other, some business experts say. This can lead employees to compete with each other and refuse to communicate openly, which could make it harder to integrate new members into the team or communicate feedback. For example, in an untrusting team, Employee A won’t share information with Employee B because she’s afraid Employee B will take all the credit and she won’t be seen as a useful member of the team. Instead, she keeps quiet until Employee B’s project fails, then uses her knowledge to solve the problem and get the credit.)

Increase trust and camaraderie between you and your engineers by scheduling regular one-on-one meetings, Fournier says. By meeting regularly, you learn what kind of managerial style your engineers respond best to, what their goals are, and if they’re having any issues. This helps you know how to support them, and your individualized support in turn increases trust.

(Shortform note: When building rapport, body language is important, some experts say. Showing welcoming body language helps you connect with others by reducing conflict (making them feel safer). To help your employees feel comfortable and heard in meetings, keep your body language open and attentive: Uncross your arms, smile, and lean toward them a little. This welcoming body language may make the other person more likely to discuss their preferred managerial style, their goals, and any issues they're dealing with.)

Increase trust and camaraderie among your engineers by encouraging them to get to know each other outside work. As they learn about each other, it’ll be easier for your team members to form relationships and build trust. You can encourage this when in a group by starting a discussion about everyone's interests and activities outside of work.

(Shortform note: Encouraging your engineers to get to know each other outside work may have other benefits, too. According to Kim Scott in Radical Candor, integrating work with the rest of your life can improve your mental health and happiness. This is because work isn’t separate from the rest of your life: The time and energy you spend on work isn’t taken from your life or vice versa. It’s all part of your life. Getting to know each other can help your engineers eliminate this false divide, letting their work and home lives enrich each other instead of competing for their time and energy.)

Communicating Clearly as Upper Management

Once you reach upper management (we’re including Levels #4, #5, and #6 in this category), your goal shifts to maintaining regular, clear communication with your subordinates. As mentioned previously, communicating regularly helps you recognize issues as they appear so you can resolve them quickly and easily. This becomes especially important as the scale of your responsibilities grows: You’re too busy to examine every project for mistakes and must communicate with your subordinates to learn about problems before they escalate.

(Shortform note: One way to maintain communication with your subordinates is empowering them to communicate, some management experts say. Employee-initiated communication is important because employees can raise concerns that you might otherwise overlook—which grows more likely as the company’s structure increases in complexity. A clear communication chain ensures that employees at every level know who to contact about what. For example, an employee may contact their manager for general work matters but contact their engineering director if they have issues with their manager.)

One method of maintaining regular, clear communication when managing a large number of people is holding skip-level meetings. Fournier says these are meetings with the people working under your direct reports. Skip-level meetings are important because they give you a broader view of how your teams or department function. It lets you see several perspectives of how projects are proceeding and verify whether your direct reports have been honest with you.

(Shortform note: To hold a successful skip-level meeting, HR experts suggest being transparent about the purpose and process of the meeting with both the employee you’re meeting with and your direct report (the employee’s manager). For instance, if you send the employee a list of questions you’re planning to ask, send them to your direct report too. Knowing what questions and topics you’ll discuss with the employee will help your direct report feel comfortable with the meeting, while being in the dark may make them worry that they’re at risk of being fired. In turn, their manager being on board with the meeting can help the employee feel relaxed and willing to give honest feedback, since they don’t feel like they’re going behind their manager’s back.)

Skill #2: Strategic Planning

The second essential skill for engineering managers is strategic planning, which includes dividing projects into steps, assigning tasks to your team, and creating a schedule to complete them. A strategic plan accounts for the resources the project requires and accurately reflects your team’s work processes and availability, Fournier says, ensuring your projects are completed properly and on schedule.

(Shortform note: An important part of strategic planning is ensuring your team members have enough uninterrupted time to complete their tasks on schedule. While people often try to multitask, Brian Tracy explains in Eat That Frog, what they’re actually doing is task-switching—and every time you switch from one task to another, it takes your brain 17 minutes to focus on the new task. To work effectively, Tracy recommends dividing your schedule into 60- to 90-minute time slots and assigning a task to each slot. Managers can approach strategic goals this way and can give employees the space to do the same.)

In this section, we’ll walk through the career ladder Fournier lays out, examining the way your planning responsibilities evolve and her advice for planning well in each role.

Planning Strategically as a Mentor

On the first level of the managerial ladder, your primary goal is practicing basic strategic planning skills—namely, dividing a project into clear and attainable steps. Fournier focuses on describing how mentors can engage in strategic planning when mentoring interns, specifically. We’ve organized her recommendations into a three-step process:

1. Select a project that will keep your mentee occupied but not overwhelmed. Remember that your mentee is less experienced and will spend more time and effort to complete tasks. Pick simple tasks and ensure they have plenty of time to complete them.
2. Break that project into steps. Giving your mentee a multistep plan to complete the project can boost their confidence and ease them into their responsibilities, letting them focus on finishing one step at a time instead of being overwhelmed by the whole project.
3. Make sure these steps are attainable. Prepare any information or resources your mentee will need to complete these steps and, ultimately, the whole project.

Another Model of Strategic Planning as a Mentor

Fournier discusses strategic planning specifically when mentoring interns (who are usually college students), but other mentorship programs have a broader scope. For example, the Linux Foundation—a software development platform—discusses the importance of planning when mentoring both college students and people in the industry who want to learn new skills.

Linux’s mentorship practices differ from Fournier’s in a couple of other areas, too. First, instead of discussing the strategic planning process as being only the mentor’s responsibility, Linux recommends including the mentee throughout the planning process. Creating a plan without your mentee’s input can waste your time if they end up disagreeing with it.

So, complete the first and second steps of Fournier’s process with your mentee, discussing their schedule and the amount of work they can do. Encourage your mentee to be honest about their abilities so they don’t accept more work than they can complete—and so you’re both confident they can complete the project’s individual steps without being overwhelmed.

Second, Fournier discusses in-person mentorships, while Linux offers remote ones. This illustrates possible differences in the third step of the process. For instance, with an in-person mentorship, you may plan where to put your mentee’s desk, while with a remote mentorship, you may plan how to work around time zone conflicts.

Planning Strategically as a Tech Lead

Once you become a tech lead, it’s important to recognize when tasks can be completed simultaneously (rather than consecutively). This lets you effectively divide tasks among your teammates and complete projects faster. This may be difficult for you because you’re used to working independently as an engineer: As an individual, you can't complete tasks simultaneously, so you’re used to completing tasks consecutively.

To recognize when tasks can be completed simultaneously, consider how much each task relies on other tasks. Some tasks must be completed in a linear order because the first task forms the base that later ones build on, Fournier says, but others don’t rely on each other and can be completed simultaneously.

For example, say you’ve broken a project into Tasks A, B, and C. Task A is coding the base functions of an app, Task B is creating visuals, and Task C is adding ad capabilities (which let you show ads within your app and earn money from advertisers). Task A must be completed first because the other elements are built around the app’s base functions. Thus, you tell your team to finish Task A first. Tasks B and C can be completed simultaneously since your engineers don’t need completed visuals to start coding the ad capabilities and vice versa. Thus, once Task A is done, you have your team work on both Tasks B and C.

Identifying and Tracking Task Reliance

While Fournier presents tasks that must be completed linearly and tasks that can be completed simultaneously as a dichotomy, project management experts add more nuance. They describe four degrees of task reliance and simultaneity:

• Degree #1: Task A must be completed before work can start on Task B (as Fournier describes).

• Degree #2: Work must start on Task A before work can start on Task B, but Task A doesn’t necessarily need to be completed first.

• Degree #3: Task A must be completed before Task B can be completed, but work doesn’t necessarily need to start on Task A first.

• Degree #4: Work must start on Task B before Task A can be completed.

In the latter three degrees, Tasks A and B can be worked on simultaneously, but in different ways than Founier lays out. These variations in reliance can make creating a strategic plan difficult for any manager, but especially for those who aren’t used to completing tasks simultaneously (such as tech leads who are new to directing teams). Methods like Gantt charts (horizontal bar charts showing project timelines) can make this process easier by providing a clear visual method of tracking your team’s progress.

Planning Strategically as a Junior Manager

When you become a junior manager, you help select projects for your team, as discussed. Part of this responsibility is turning down projects that would overwhelm your team or stop them from completing their other tasks. Fournier says engineering managers often have to turn down projects when their superiors—for instance, the company’s owner or board of directors—lack technological knowledge and therefore propose unrealistic projects.

(Shortform note: Turning down unrealistic and overwhelming tasks is economically and personally important, one study says. Overworked employees are less productive, have worse physical and mental health, and struggle to manage their lives outside of work. This is relevant to you as an engineering manager, as over 20% of people in computer and mathematical science work over 40 hours a week, on average, while almost 15% work over 45 hours a week. Turning down unrealistic and overwhelming tasks can ensure that your team members don’t follow this pattern and instead work a healthy and productive number of hours.)

Fournier discusses a couple of important elements of deciding when to turn down a project:

1. Understand how much work your team can reasonably complete. Your team won’t be 100% focused on completing new projects all the time. Make sure you factor time for other activities—such as meetings and system maintenance—into your scheduling so you can accurately assess whether your team can accept a new project.

(Shortform note: You may struggle to factor these activities into your team’s schedule if you consider them less important than your team’s engineering-related projects. Some business experts say that less important tasks are easy to neglect because our brains forget information we don’t consider important, making room for what we do consider important. You can better remember these tasks by forming associations and triggering reminders. For instance, you may classify meetings and system maintenance as “administrative” and then schedule a daily block of time to complete administrative tasks. Then, whenever you look at your schedule, you’ll see that block of time and remember all the tasks you’ve put under the administrative heading.)

2. Figure out what you can cut from your projects. Sometimes, you’ll be able to partially accept a new project: You can complete it, but only if you cut some features or deadlines from the new project or your existing projects. Thus, you need to know which elements of your new and existing projects are truly necessary and which are less important. If you can’t cut anything, you’ll have to turn the new project down.

Avoiding Ineffective Projects

Other software experts add that you might have to turn down projects from your superiors because they’re ineffective, as well as potentially unrealistic. Software is often used to automate company processes, letting computers handle simple tasks while employees focus on more important ones. However, this kind of automation (called robotic process automation or RPA) only works with simple, fixed processes. Automating complex or unstable processes wastes time and resources, as your team must constantly fix errors and update the software.

Fournier focuses on how you can handle problematic projects as a junior manager, accepting, editing, or turning them down as they’re requested. In contrast, these software experts recommend a companywide solution: People from the engineering department should be involved in the initial decisions on which processes to automate (which projects to request, in Fournier’s framing) along with the company’s top leadership. That way, they can ensure that all projects are effective (and, arguably, realistic) before the request is sent to individual teams, instead of negotiating and altering the project afterward.

Planning Strategically as an Engineering Director and Manager of Large Groups

As you’re promoted and your responsibilities grow, prioritization becomes increasingly important to the planning process. Fournier says it’s easy to neglect some responsibilities once you reach these levels because you’re so busy. Prioritization ensures you complete the most important tasks, so if you do run out of time, only minor tasks go unfinished.

To prioritize, focus on completing tasks that are both urgent and important. Urgent tasks must be addressed immediately, whereas important tasks are essential parts of your job but are often overlooked because they’re less time-sensitive than urgent tasks. You can have tasks that are both urgent and important, either one, or neither.

Once you’ve completed tasks that are both urgent and important, Fournier recommends doing tasks that are important but not urgent. For example, if you’re a CFO, reviewing the accounting department’s financial reports is important, as it lets you fine-tune your financial strategy. This task may go uncompleted, though, if the company is small enough that you don’t have to submit the reports to the government—you don’t have a deadline, so it’s not obviously time-sensitive. In contrast, attending a meeting that doesn’t actually require your presence is urgent but not important: You have limited time to attend, but your job won’t be affected if you don’t. Since attending the meeting is obviously time-sensitive, you’ll be tempted to prioritize it anyway.

Fournier particularly recommends this method when you’re promoted to engineering director, since this promotion often leads to a sharp increase in responsibilities. However, she also stresses the importance of continuing to prioritize as you move to managing large groups and your responsibilities continue to grow.

Prioritizing With the Eisenhower Matrix

The method Fournier recommends for prioritization is also known as the Eisenhower Matrix. It was developed by Dwight Eisenhower, a former US president and general, and popularized by writers such as Stephen R. Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

While Fournier explains the basic functions of the matrix, other business experts add more detail. For instance, some experts say an important step in using this method is defining more specifically what “urgent” and “important” mean—in other words, what characteristics you look at to determine whether a task is urgent or important. Urgency can include factors like the specific time frame in which a task needs to be completed or the pros and cons of delaying a task. Importance can include factors like the probability of succeeding at the task or how much of a competitive advantage completing the task would create.

In addition, other experts go into greater depth about how you should handle each type of task:

• Complete tasks that are both urgent and important today or tomorrow, since they’re so important.

• Schedule a time to complete tasks that are important but not urgent so you have a deadline and can’t keep delaying.

• Delegate tasks that are urgent but not important—the task is important to someone, just not you.

• Ignore tasks that are neither urgent nor important.

Covey says that effective people focus on important but not urgent tasks. This initially seems to contradict Fournier’s suggestion and the above advice to prioritize important and urgent tasks. However, Covey says the goal is to schedule and complete important tasks before they become urgent, essentially eliminating the “urgent and important” category. Doing this gives you enough time to properly complete important tasks, instead of rushing.

None of these experts recommend this prioritization method for a specific role, implying it can be used by anyone. However, since it’s designed to prioritize among many tasks and requires the delegation of urgent but unimportant tasks, it fits well with an upper management role.

Planning Strategically as a Senior Manager

As discussed, your specific title and responsibilities as a senior manager depend on your company. However, one of your tasks may be setting the company’s technology strategy (especially if you’re in the CTO position). A technology strategy is a plan for how the engineering department and the company as a whole will develop in the future, Fournier says. A strong technology strategy helps the company withstand change and remain successful long term.

To create a strong technology strategy, you must predict several ways your department and the company could develop. This includes predicting what problems may appear, what new directions your superiors might steer the company in, and how your department’s choices might affect the rest of the company. Then, create contingency plans to handle each of these situations, so that no matter what happens, you’ll be prepared.

For example, you may predict the following developments:

1. One of your suppliers goes out of business.
2. Your superiors decide to switch the company to a subscription payment model.
3. The engineering department decides to switch to a new coding language.

Therefore, you create the following contingency plans:

1. You build a database of potential suppliers from which to choose replacements if needed.
2. When teams are between projects, you have them adjust the company’s infrastructure to support a subscription model if needed.
3. Going forward, you only hire engineers who already know the new coding language to ease the potential switch.

Predicting the Future in Business

In Only the Paranoid Survive, Andrew Grove agrees that predicting the future and creating contingency plans is important to remaining successful. However, while Fournier discusses this task in the context of one department, Grove takes a companywide view. He assigns the role of predicting the future to the company’s top leadership and recommends they monitor every part of the company so they can factor all potential changes into their plans.

To make company-wide predictions, Grove offers a broader range of areas to consider. In addition to predicting potential problems, new directions, and the effects of your department’s choices on the company, he suggests considering the following:

• Future competitors: Tracking newcomers to your industry lets you prepare to defend your successful position if they grow large enough to be a true competitor.

• Government policies: Tracking government policies before they’re implemented lets you prepare for changes in your industry’s requirements and laws.

• Adjacent businesses: Tracking progress in adjacent businesses (for example, a battery store and a flashlight store) lets you recognize when another industry is about to go through a change that could affect you, so you can prepare to adapt.

Skill #3: Adaptability

The third essential skill for engineering managers is adaptability, the ability to handle and create change. This is an important skill for people in the technology industry because the field is constantly evolving, and you must keep up with these changes to succeed. Fournier says adaptability is a skill you’re likely suited for because you’re already used to the technology industry’s constant evolution. You can apply that mindset to your managerial style, helping your team and the company become more flexible and successful.

(Shortform note: Some business experts say adaptation is essential for all industries, not just the tech industry, because change is getting faster and more ubiquitous. It’s difficult for company leaders to guide their companies through such uncertainty— especially in industries that don’t continually evolve, as their leaders aren’t used to handling change. To adapt to fast, ubiquitous change, embrace continual learning: Learn new things whenever possible, and use that knowledge to improve the company. By modeling this behavior, you encourage your subordinates to do the same and make the whole company more adaptable.)

In this section, we’ll discuss the two aspects of adaptability you’ll need throughout your career as an engineering manager: handling change and creating change.

Handling Change

You’ll have to adapt frequently as you climb the managerial ladder. Often, you’ll have to adapt because your superiors requested you start a new project, requiring you to change your schedule and plans, Fournier says. If you can’t turn your superiors down, you must reevaluate your plans and make new ones that allow you to incorporate their request.

To ease this process, Fournier says to expect and plan for change. Break your projects into mini-projects, so if you do have to abandon the final steps, you still get value from the steps you completed along the way. Say, for instance, you’re assigned to make an app with detailed visuals. You expect change, so you break it into mini-projects: A simple version of the game, with the base code and simple visuals, and the full, detailed version. Your team completes the first mini-project, so when your superiors request that you start working on a new project, you can pivot to the new project and release the simpler version of the game, ensuring the company gets some value from your work.

When Change Becomes Damaging

While change is an important element of success in many industries, some business experts warn that too much change can be damaging. Bosses who constantly change their goals—which in the software engineering industry often translates to requesting new projects—are difficult to work with. For instance, they may blame you for not meeting their expectations when doing so was impossible because those expectations kept changing.

Experts suggest two methods of handling this kind of change: First, ensure you understand your boss’s expectations by raising specific queries—for instance, what are the exact features they want to be included—and recording their responses. Second, regularly check in to review your boss’s expectations. These methods ensure you have as much information and time as possible to make the adapting process easier.

In addition, these tactics may help you follow Fournier’s advice to break your project into mini-projects: You can use the detailed information from your questions to make sure the whole project’s most important elements are completed in the first mini-project. Plus, knowing immediately when your boss’s priorities change can help you determine whether you have time to complete your current mini-project or if you must abandon it immediately.

Creating Change

Fournier says that as a senior manager, you’ll likely become responsible for creating positive change in the engineering department, as you gain more control over how that department operates. You can create positive change by combining your knowledge of technology with your understanding of the company as a whole. When you understand the company’s overall goals and issues, you can direct the engineering department to adapt in ways that help the company meet those goals and resolve those issues.

For example, say your company is having trouble filling a high volume of orders. You direct the engineering department to develop a new computer system that organizes the orders in a way that’s easier to use and understand. Changing the system helps the sales departments fill orders faster, which improves the company by increasing customer satisfaction and profit.

(Shortform note: The process Fournier describes is a holistic business approach—the practice of looking at a company as a whole when problem-solving or making decisions, rather than considering departments separately. This is a relatively new business approach, some business experts say, though holistic health (paying attention to your whole body to stay healthy) has been practiced since the 4th Century BC. In addition to helping you meet your goals and resolve issues, using a holistic business approach can help you understand how different departments impact each other and improve consistency across your company.)