How do you personally define and measure success in your role as an engineering manager?

Question

Anonymous · Accepted Answer

As a manager, there are a few things I am looking at the measure my progress and
improvement.
The first thing I look at is having clear measurable success metrics for the
team that aligns with the org and company and working towards meeting that goal.
My current team is responsible for delivering mission-critical messages to our
end users. We have various metrics tracking the reliability of our backend
systems and the deliverability of our messages. To make sure we are tracking our
success metrics, we do a monthly review of our core metrics and have in-person
discussions if there are any potential problems or a way to improve our metrics.
The other thing I look at is people management. There are two main areas here.
One is growing people and the other is doing performance management. For
performance management, I have continuous conversations around performance and
expectations utilizing my 1-1 time with my reports so there is no surprise when
there is a performance issue. When I had someone who was marked as below
expectation, the person agreed with the ratings because we had continuous
conversations. While the IC was improving and got back on track, the annual
performance review looked at the past year and the IC wasn’t surprised by the
rating. For growing people, I also utilize 1-1 time and discuss individuals'
short-term and long-term goals. I discuss with my reports where are growth
areas, and how we can find opportunities to help them grow. For example, I had a
mid-level engineer who was interested in improving their technical leadership
skill and getting more involved in defining and scoping projects phase. I
started inviting the IC to meetings with stakeholders and had a quick sync after
such meetings to discuss the meeting and describe why I answered some questions
in a certain way. The IC is now one of the senior engineers in the team and he
is effectively leading projects involving multiple teams.
To receive feedback and be aware of what I am doing well or need to improve on,
I do two things. I have my reports meet with my manager once a quarter where
they can provide feedback to my manager without me being present, and later my
lead will relay the feed to me with his input as well. The other thing is my
current company does pulse surveys twice a year. When the survey results are
out, I have my team get together and discuss the results and provide more
context without me being present. I review the final outcome and create action
items as needed. For example, one of the feedback I got was improving the
overall recognition of our work. I started announcing our project deliveries and
impact to the broader group.

Anonymous · Answer

When the team is happy with what they are doing, engaged, helping  each other's
success and collaborative.I can assess the team engagement in 1:1’s and try to
allocate the work based on their aspiration and skills.  When the team is on the
same page and well informed about our roadmap, goals etc by having regular team
sync’s. And deliver the goals with minimum deviations

Anonymous · Answer

Success for me is 1) goals delivered on time and in quality with  reasonable
operational load 2) satisfied employees who feel challenged, enjoy their work
and safe

Anonymous · Answer

At Auctane I would do the following:
a) How did i execute on projects and measure on Impact to customes and business
b) How did i empower my team mates to grow in thier carrer - either by help them
get promoted or switch roles
c) How did I grow personally?
By measuring these and continuly coarse correcting to be a better manager is how
i reflect as a EM

How do you personally define and measure success in your role as an engineering manager?

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