Common Management Scenarios

Management
Common Management Scenarios
LinkedIn Article

The following are a set of common management scenarios. Each scenario includes a problem statement, several actions that can be taken to resolve the problem, and any results that I have experienced personally in a management role.

General Management

Accountability & Ownership

Problem: improve team accountability and sense of ownership

Actions:

  • Be consistent in messaging and encourage ownership and accountability
  • Setup systems and processes to hold employees accountable
  • Set clear expectations and agree on next steps

Results:

  • Increased team morale by encouraging ownership

Communication & Collaboration

Problem: improve communication and collaboration between team members and between teams

Actions:

  • Meet regularly with the team and over-communicate
  • Encourage feedback and set up a suggestion box
  • Organize team-building exercises
  • Establish communication conventions
  • Encourage knowledge sharing

Results:

  • Created suggestion box with 1-3 suggestions per sprint

Product & Project Management

Planning & Prioritization

Problem: improve process and work prioritization

Actions:

  • Implement a prioritization framework that will set up specific priorities for features vs operations vs other requests
  • Implement request workflow by creating and distributing workflow for how requests should be made to the team
  • Streamline on-call rotation for the team with the manager filling in during holidays

Results:

  • Introduced a data-driven prioritization framework boosting team velocity by 15%
  • Decreased operations backlog from 123 to 26 requests within 1 month
  • Reduced the team workload by 20%

Product Quality

Problem: improve software quality for the product

Actions:

  • Implement design reviews by spending 1 hour per sprint to review system design for all features in development
  • Implement code reviews where all code must be code reviewed before acceptance
  • Explore using Test Driven Development by encouraging the team to develop code-level test cases before development

Results:

  • Reduced system latency for initial load from 60ms to 50ms via design reviews
  • Improved the change failure rate by 20% via code reviews

Employee Management

Conflict Resolution

Problem: improve conflict resolution within the team

Actions:

  • Take immediate action
  • Communicate with the team and actively listen to their concerns
  • Focus on the problem and not the people
  • Develop a plan to address the issue

Results:

  • Address all conflicts quickly with a plan to improve
  • Decreased conflicts over time

Performance Management

Problem: improve mentoring of the team and address performance issues

Actions:

  • Meet weekly for 30mins for 1:1 with each team member to discuss performance updates
  • Address any performance issue as soon as possible in a constructive learning approach

Results:

  • Addressed all performance issues with the team

Mentoring & Development

Problem: improve team member development and growth

Actions:

  • Set goals for each team member and include development items
  • Meet weekly for 30mins for 1:1 with each team member to gather feedback and discuss career goals
  • Followup every month on goals in 1:1 meetings

Results:

  • Increased team morale by 50% through career development
  • All team members include development goals every year

Team Management

Remote Team Management

Problem: improve remote team management

Actions:

  • Setup tools for online collaboration and document sharing
  • Setup processes to manage communication, work hours, reachability
  • Over communicate as much as possible
  • Focus on performance and output for performance

Results:

  • Increased team morale through better communication

Team Dynamics

Problem: improve team dynamics, vision, and morale

Actions:

  • Implement team identity where team should create an identity including a team name and define the responsibilities of members
  • Implement team vision & mission by working with the team to develop a vision and mission used to drive the team’s focus and development
  • Implement monthly team meetings for 30mins

Results:

  • Increased team morale by 50% by focusing on career development and feedback
  • Conducted comprehensive team evaluation resulting in targeted improvements increasing team performance by 40%

Technology

Technology Updates

Problem: keep technology up-to-date and sunset legacy systems

Actions:

  • Implement plan to review current technology every 6 months
  • Implement plan to update or replace systems including creating end-of-life where needed

Results:

  • Created plan to sunset legacy systems within 9 months