Overcoming Bias

Removing disruptive team member[s] will vastly improve productivity and morale

In a previous role, a manager noticed that a scrum team was not working well despite being highly motivated and technically strong. After attending meetings and speaking with team members, it became clear that one senior engineer was challenging almost any proposal or decision, causing the team to hesitate and decisions to take three times longer than needed. The manager decided to remove the engineer from the team, and the remaining team of four became more productive shortly after. This reinforced the importance of staying close to a team's dynamics and identifying early obstacles to achieving smooth collaboration and an agile tempo.

Speak Up To Avoid Larger Issues

The company hired an EVP of engineering who made one of the team members a director without considering his lack of experience. This resulted in a year of disruption and damage before the team member was made an individual contributor again and someone else was put in charge. This situation taught the speaker to trust their gut and speak up when necessary.

Disagreement? Put Yourself in the Other Person’s Shoes

When faced with a conflict with a manager, it is important to take a step back and try to understand the situation from their perspective. In this case, the manager was trying to help and mentor the employee, and the employee was able to find a middle ground by trusting the manager's judgement and understanding the value of being uncomfortable.

How to Handle Cultural Differences on Your Team

An engineering manager in the Philippines faced a challenge when tasks and projects came in from the US. Filipinos have a different level of assertiveness than Americans, and this lack of assertiveness led to the engineering team becoming burnt out and not meeting deadlines. The manager realized that the behavior was due to cultural reasons, such as job security and not wanting to disappoint others, and held a meeting to align everyone and renew the company's trust in the Filipino engineering team. The lesson learned was that it is important to understand the cultural differences in order to solve the problem.

Managing Team Conflict and Helping Engineers Gain Confidence

This story is about a junior engineer who was feeling disrespected and talked over by a senior engineer. The author, a new manager, was able to help the junior engineer by listening and empathizing, coaching her on how to receive critical feedback, and introducing team practices that gave everyone a chance to speak. Through regular coaching sessions, the junior engineer gained trust and confidence in herself and the team. In the end, she became a star performer and went on to work for a major Silicon Valley company. The author learned the importance of listening, problem solving, teaching empathy, setting good team practices, and pulling rank only occasionally.

Ethics and Equality in Software Engineering

Before the pandemic, the author was scheduled to deliver a talk about ethics in software engineering. Research revealed that historically marginalized groups faced discrimination in the software industry. To create change, the author recommends unconscious bias and microaggression training, psychological safety for team members to bring up concerns, and listening with respect and empathy. Data is also important to make others aware of the inequalities in software development.