# Derek Lakin's Manager Readme **Chief Technology Officer at Sidekick Money Ltd** One of the important tasks for a manager to undertake when taking on new direct reports is to set expectations (which is a two-way thing, by the way!). When I took on a new org in a previous role and a new set of direct reports, I went through this process verbally with many people, so when I read a [blog post by Matt Newkirk](https://matthewnewkirk.com/2017/09/20/share-your-manager-readme/) I was inspired to capture the two in my own Manager README. # As your Manager If you report to me, here are my thoughts, philosophies and expectations that you might find helpful. > I’m here to help and support you, to set the context for what you’re working on, and to advocate for you and the team with the rest of the company. # Feedback is very important to me I strongly believe in an open culture of feedback. Where possible, I think you should provide direct feedback, but anonymous feedback is better than none. I’m dedicated to giving you clear and timely feedback and hope that you’ll give me the same. I believe that feedback requires three attributes: - **Safety**  (you should feel safe to give and receive feedback) - **Effort**  (neither of us should feel defensive about the feedback) - **Benefit**  (giving/receiving feedback should have a positive impact) Please let me know if I’m doing poorly on any of these attributes and I’ll do the same! # I’m big on work/life balance. You’ll generally find me at my desk between 08:30 and 17:00 and unless there’s an emergency, I don’t expect to communicate with you outside of these hours with respect to your local time. I try not to respond to e-mails or Slack during off-hours and  **under no circumstances expect you to unless it’s an emergency.** # 1:1 meetings 1:1s are really important to me. I believe that these meetings are for you to set the agenda. What would you like to talk about? What’s going well? What’s on your mind? These don’t need to be status updates unless you really want to talk about project status or if there’s something you’d like to show me. If there are things that I want to ask you, I’ll do it, but this is your time. The duration and frequency are also up to you, but I generally start with 45 minutes every week and adjust the cadence once we’re settled in and used to each other based on what _you_ need. # My calendar looks scary, but I’m here for you! If you need to talk to me outside our usual meetings and see a good time on my calendar, please schedule something (you don’t need to ask first). If there’s urgency and you can’t get a meeting with me for a while, send me a message on Slack or by email and I’ll make time. # Process and Software Development I strongly believe in putting people over process and changing processes to accommodate our needs and goals. I’ve worked with and without Agile, with and without a form of Scrum, Kanban and a mixture of both. At the end of the day, these are my values: - I value **transparency** about what’s happened, what’s happening, and what’s going to happen. - I value **speed** , including proactive efforts that keep us moving quickly (e.g. writing tests, refactoring legacy code before a new feature, pairing on work to improve our code quality and bus factor) - I value **learning** and know that training up on a tech stack may not always be the fastest route to production. - I value your **time** and don’t want you to do any process that is neither beneficial to you nor required by law, policy, etc. # Fail Fast, Fail Forward We get better by doing and by trying, so figure out the smallest thing you can do, try it quickly and learn from the experience. Rinse and repeat :) It’s better to take action and do _something_ than to do nothing while you think about it for too long. (Although I said “fail”, I actually see it more as  **learning**  rather than _failing)_ # Bring me Bad News Sooner Rather than Later If things aren’t going well, let me know as early as possible. It gives us both the opportunity to take positive action (whatever might be needed) sooner. # Transparency I value transparency and will be as open with you as policy, legal and broader company/personal sensibilities allow.