Think of the 360 degree performance review of a person in an Engineering organization. It would involve gathering info from a variety of perspectives, including any direct reports of the individual, his/her boss as well as org-chart level peers and also peers from other functional groups, possibly including product management, sales, manufacturing/operations and customer support.
One objective of this Blog is to provide a 360 degree perspective on engineering leadership, ideally with specific positive and negative examples. In order to accomplish this I am reaching out to a variety of Silicon Valley professionals; I also welcome input from high tech professionals located elsewhere. Over the coming months I hope to have entries from engineers, engineering managers, managers of other functional groups, CEO’s, VC’s. I’ll even ask a few recruiters to share with us how they assess the engineering leadership capabilities of candidates they interview.
Most of such entries will include author attribution; occasionally it will make sense to simply provide the comments anonymously in order to encourage frankness.
There are many excellent engineering leaders though no perfect engineering leader exists . One person might do a stellar job of leading the actual product design and development but not be a strong advocate for the team during executive budgeting sessions. Some people would say that the only considerations for successful engineering leadership should be the ability to guide the team to well designed and implemented products. Other considerations, these people would say, are “management” as opposed to “leadership.”
How do YOU define leadership for the head of an engineering team? Does it involve only technology considerations or should success in navigating the corporate world, interacting with peers in order to accomplish the engineering teams goals etc also be factored into the equation?
Please express your opinion either in a comment to this Blog entry or by emailing your own Blog entry to jadski@jadski.com
___________________________
Jane Divinski has, since 1994, provided software engineering management expertise on a temporary basis, leading Silicon Valley teams as interim VPE, director or program/project manager. For more information see www.jadski.com.
One objective of this Blog is to provide a 360 degree perspective on engineering leadership, ideally with specific positive and negative examples. In order to accomplish this I am reaching out to a variety of Silicon Valley professionals; I also welcome input from high tech professionals located elsewhere. Over the coming months I hope to have entries from engineers, engineering managers, managers of other functional groups, CEO’s, VC’s. I’ll even ask a few recruiters to share with us how they assess the engineering leadership capabilities of candidates they interview.
Most of such entries will include author attribution; occasionally it will make sense to simply provide the comments anonymously in order to encourage frankness.
There are many excellent engineering leaders though no perfect engineering leader exists . One person might do a stellar job of leading the actual product design and development but not be a strong advocate for the team during executive budgeting sessions. Some people would say that the only considerations for successful engineering leadership should be the ability to guide the team to well designed and implemented products. Other considerations, these people would say, are “management” as opposed to “leadership.”
How do YOU define leadership for the head of an engineering team? Does it involve only technology considerations or should success in navigating the corporate world, interacting with peers in order to accomplish the engineering teams goals etc also be factored into the equation?
Please express your opinion either in a comment to this Blog entry or by emailing your own Blog entry to jadski@jadski.com
___________________________
Jane Divinski has, since 1994, provided software engineering management expertise on a temporary basis, leading Silicon Valley teams as interim VPE, director or program/project manager. For more information see www.jadski.com.
No comments:
Post a Comment