# Dennis Sherman's Manager Readme **Sr. Manager, Software Engineering at Cars.com** # Motivation for this document This is my Manager README, a document that helps introduce you to my management style, philosophy, and expectations. The intended audience is anyone who reports to me. Other people are free to read it, and I am happy to receive feedback on it from anyone! Please treat it as a reference with my expectations of how I will conduct myself as a manager and what I expect from you. The information in this document should help you communicate better with me, so that we can more quickly develop an effective working relationship. Help hold me accountable to my expectations for myself, and let me know when I fall short. And as I value lifelong learning for myself as well as for others, expect the contents of this document to be subject to change as I learn. # My role As a Senior Manager of Software Engineering, my role is to remove barriers for developers and managers of developers, and help them advance their careers. I do this in the context of delivering software products to the Cars.com web site. I will sometimes fill the role of Software Architect providing guidance on the best approach to developing a solution in keeping with the rest of the company.  The KPIs my teams are accountable for vary from quarter to quarter, and are usually in the areas of visits per visitor, new visitor return visits, search engine traffic, or page rendering performance. I am accountable to deliver the results the business wants, while retaining developers who grow in skill and knowledge while delivering those results.  # My Expectations I expect you to work to the best of your ability to accomplish whatever tasks you are responsible to complete. When you lack knowledge to complete an assignment, ask questions. Lots of questions - questions are good. Good questions can be great. Great questions can be better than good answers.  I expect you to raise warning flags when you see a risk, and to be forthright when you realize you have made a mistake. Bad news delivered early is really good news, as it gives us time to mitigate damage. Tell me as soon as you realize there may be a problem.  I expect clear and prompt communication. Email should have a response within a day, Slack messages within a few hours. That response can be "Working on it" with an estimate of completion, as long as you follow up appropriately. I expect you to be on time to meetings, and an active participant in them. As a distributed workforce, we use video meetings extensively. I expect you to have video enabled for these meetings, and to attend from a minimally distracting environment. You should be aware of the view behind and the sounds around you and make efforts to prevent them from disrupting the meeting. Time off should be scheduled as far in advance as practical. My rule of thumb preference is at least a week ahead for a day off, a month ahead for a week off, more is better. At Cars.com, we send out calendar invites (All Day events, Free time) to our teammates to inform them of PTO (Personal Time Off, i.e. vacation).  We support flexible start and end to the working day, within some limits. I expect you to decide what your normal work hours are, and be consistent about them. I do not normally expect response to email or Slack messages outside your regular work hours, unless a message is explicit in requesting a response. # 1:1s One on ones ("1:1"s or "O3"s) are usually the most important meetings of my week. We will have 30 minutes scheduled on the calendar every week for one on one time. This is where we will develop and deepen our working relationship, we will work on your career progression, and we can check in on how we are working together. It is not unusual for an O3 to move on the calendar and be rescheduled, it is very unusual for me to cancel them. The standard agenda for my O3s is 10 / 10 / 10. That's 10 minutes for you to discuss whatever is on your mind. It might be work issues, a training question, finances, or your kids or pets activities. Whatever is important to you to talk about, I want to hear. The next 10 minutes is for me to do the same. I try hard  **not** to make this a mini team meeting where I waterfall information down the food chain, although I can't guarantee that won't sometimes happen. I will tell you about challenges I'm having, so you are at least aware of them and may have ideas on how to help. The last 10 minutes is for your future, where we make sure to take time to discuss your career development. And the reality is that last 10 minutes doesn't always happen, which is OK. If you end up taking 15 or even 20 minutes, that's fine, as long as I get a couple minutes for any topics that are urgent, and we check in on that career development occasionally.  In our one on ones I will be asking open ended questions. I really do want to hear real answers, not just "I'm good". One on ones should sometimes be a little awkward, and that's OK. Read [https://medium.com/@mrabkin/th...](https://medium.com/@mrabkin/the-art-of-the-awkward-1-1-f4e1dcbd1c5c) I take notes (on paper!) during a one on one, not because I'm "documenting" but because writing things down helps me remember them. Especially any commitments I make to you, I need to write down so I can keep track of them. Much of what I do in O3s comes from [podcasts](http://www.manager-tools.com/map-universe/one-ones), at a web site called [Manager Tools](https://www.manager-tools.com/), feel free to listen for yourself. # Personality quirks I live in my calendar and task list. I'm a follower of "Getting Things Done" (GTD) by David Allen, and prefer scheduled rather than ad hoc activities. That said, I have learned to task switch quickly and effectively, it just isn't my preference. My calendar is almost always full for this week and next week, but I'll find a way to fit you in if necessary. If you see open time, feel free to schedule it, no need to ask first. Meetings start and end on time and have an agenda. I think it is useful for colleagues to have a clue whether I'm available or not, and in a world where we are a distributed workforce, we can't look across the office to see. I use my Slack status to indicate when I'm "at work", "at lunch" and so on. Using an emoji in the status exposes it throughout Slack to anyone that hovers over the emoji. I have taken various assessments over the years, and find most of them at least somewhat helpful. To date I have been most impressed with DiSC as an effective tool to aid communication with others. (See [http://recoveringengineer.com/...](http://recoveringengineer.com/disc-model/the-disc-model-of-human-behavior-a-quick-overview/) for a pretty good text summary, and [https://www.manager-tools.com/...](https://www.manager-tools.com/map-universe/communication-disc) for an abundance of podcasts on the topic) If you are familiar with any of these, it may help you understand me better: - DiSC: I am a CD or 6127, depending on which scoring system is used. - Drivers (Bill Joy): Achievement, Order, Power - Meyers-Briggs: INTJ - Clifton Strengths: Learner, Strategic, Responsibility, Input, Analytical - Platinum Rule (Tony Alessandra): Decider I'm an intuitive thinker (that Meyers-Briggs INTJ). I will take leaps from point A to point D when problem solving, and sometimes need to be reminded to go back and cover B and C for other people. Call me out on that when you don't follow me. Make me explain so you understand. I am likely to get frustrated at that, and I will regret getting frustrated. Do it anyway. People tend to judge ourselves by our intentions and others by their behaviors and results. I aspire to judge myself by behaviors and results, and I would like you to do the same. Its difficult - you help me, I'll help you. And we'll have a much clearer understanding of each other because of it. I have a busy active life outside of work, and I encourage you to as well. I normally do not look at company communication channels outside of work hours, 8am-5pm M-F for me. There are exceptions, when I'm deeply immersed in a project, for example. Or when I know something particularly important is going on off-hours. That said, I do have bright ideas and odd thoughts at different times, and may send you email or a Slack message when that happens. As noted above, I do \*not\* expect you to respond until your normal work hours, unless the message says so.  Spelling and grammar count. I get particularly irritated by misplaced apostrophes, and I'm a firm believer in the Oxford comma. I am more tolerant of txtspk on tiny kbds for short msgs. Not in email. Not in documentation. Mostly not in Slack. My personal prioritization scale: 1) Drop what you're doing and handle this. 2) Get what you're doing to a good  stopping point, and handle this. 3) When you finish what you're doing, handle this next. 4) Put this on the list of things to do, and pick it up when appropriate. 5) Put this on the list of things to consider for action someday. # Where to focus in your first 90 days? When onboarding, in your first 90 days you should focus on People, Process, and Plans. We have a complex environment, and it will take time to get fully up to speed and be highly effective.  - People: meet the people on your team first. Get to learn their strengths and weaknesses, starting with who is the best person to ask on different topics. You will be assigned a "right seat" navigator to help guide you through the first week or so of onboarding, but anyone is fair game to answer questions. Then meet people on other teams you will be working with regularly, ask your teammates or me for guidance and recommendations on who those should be. - Process: learn the normal processes used at Cars.com for the work you need to do. Start with development, testing, and deployment practices, your "right seat" will help with that. Seek to understand current practice before suggesting changes. Using WorkforceNow for leave tracking is also an important process to understand, as is how CarsU works for training. We follow our own version of an Agile/Lean development process, and you'll want to understand what that means. - Plans: You'll want some familiarity with how we develop business cases and set priorities for our organization, and to understand the overall direction we're moving in. You may at some point be asked to participate in activities to clarify that direction or actions needed, and understanding the vision and strategy will be important. You will also want to gain familiarity with the overall technical architecture, although areas you aren't working with directly might be grey boxes in your mental model. You will also need to develop familiarity with the Cars.com business model, and the different units in the company that have roles to play.