# Dmitry Nekrasovski's Manager Readme

**Product Design Manager at HashiCorp**

# Motivation for this document

I hope that the process of writing this and keeping this document up to date will give my team  a base of information for us to build a good working relationship!

# My role

As the design manager for the Terraform product design team, I see my role as two-fold:

- Enable the product designers working on Terraform to do their best work and maximize their impact on the product and organization.
- Facilitate strategic impact of the Product Design function on the Terraform product experience, as well as cross-pollination of successful approaches and design pattern across the product and with the rest of the HashiCorp product line. 

When it comes to mentoring and developing people, I will work with you to develop a growth plan and coach you through it. I can play a variety of roles depending on what you need. Do you need me to hold you accountable? Do you need inspiration? Do you need help figuring out direction? Let's work together and move forward. 

Here’s a list of what I’m responsible for:

- Building trust within the team and with other teams
- Developing people
- Reviewing and managing performance
- Coaching
- Identifying potential process improvements and guiding the team to choose solutions
- Overseeing and driving projects
- Hiring of team members
- Communicating the design vision for Terraform to cross-functional partners (PM, Eng) and out to other functions within the HashiCorp organization

# What do I value most?

_Honesty_ - Be honest with me. If you are dissatisfied with your work, my performance as a manager, or anything else in your environment, let me know so we can see if there's something we can do about it. If you made a mistake, come clean so we can solve the issue and then figure out if we can avoid it in the future. 

_Feedback_ - I value feedback about my leadership style, actions, and communications. I promise you, I will consider your feedback and make adjustments if I agree. I take time to reflect on things so if I disagree, I will also let you know and propose alternative adjustments/changes. 

# What are my areas of development/growth as a manager?

- Sometimes, when you approach me with a problem, I may jump to offering solutions. I know that sometimes folks just want a sounding board or just want to be coached to find the answer. If I jump to offering solutions, tell me it’s not what you need right now. 
- When I’m under stress, I tend to be more authoritative, curt, and direct. I usually realize this soon after it happens. I will need some time to reflect and recharge with quiet time. I will apologize if I acted inappropriately. If I haven't and you believe that I acted inappropriately, please let me know promptly and directly. I promise I will not be offended, and you will not suffer repercussions as a result.

# My expectations

_Skills_

I have high expectations for you to be skilled and continually grow at your craft. We should definitely work to make sure you have lots of learning opportunities and projects to apply your skills!

_Mistakes_

When you make a mistake, it’s best to let me know right away. I’d much prefer to hear it from you before I hear it from others. I am here to support you and figure out how we can resolve the issue, move forward, and figure out what we can do to avoid similar mistakes in the future. 

_Health_

We work remotely and I expect you to take care of your health. Many people work through being sick. My rule of thumb is the following: if you wouldn’t step in an office with your co-workers because you’re sick, then you’re sick enough to take a day off and rest. I believe an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. We have an unlimited vacation policy. Please take the time for your physical, spiritual, and mental needs! 

_Partnership_

Build partnerships with other teams. This means that you empathize with their struggles and understand the root cause so you can help figure out solutions. You will also have to push back on some requests because it’s not the priority or it’s not an issue that technology will solve. Being a good partner means giving positive and negative feedback and assertively pushing back. Being a good partner does not always mean saying “yes”. 

_Communication_

There’s no such thing as over-communication, especially in a remote-first organization like HashiCorp. I know this one can be tiring, but if you find people asking you the same questions, take it as a data point and see if there are better ways to share the information. There are tons of pieces of information vying for people’s attention. If you have an important message to get out, say it, write it, slack it, and do it over and over until the message gets through. This is also where I can help, I will help you echo the message and also use my channels of communication to get the word out. 

# 1:1s

I generally structure my 1:1s with my directs in three parts:

- Updates I want to share with you (short)

- Performance feedback I haven't already provided via other comms channels (short)

- Agenda items that you want to cover (long - main part of the 1:1)

As such, 1:1 meetings are primarily your meetings. Please take time to prepare for them so that I can help you through whatever you'd like to talk about. 

I like to solve problems and sometimes you just need someone to listen. Please let me know when that is the case, otherwise, I tend to jump into problem solving mode.

# Communication preferences

I prefer that you communicate with me openly and freely via Slack, Zoom, document, or whatever. So start the conversation or dialogue first! That said, here are some of my preferences:

- For quick questions, please just feel free to use Slack. If I think we need another medium, I'll let you know. 
- For processes, I can best visualize them with documents/artifacts. 
- Here are some of the areas where I will ask questions. 
  - What's the problem? 
  - What's the context?
  - What's the business benefit? 
  - What's the user benefit?
  - What are the possible solutions you've already considered?
  - What are the pros and cons of each solution? What are the tradeoffs?
  - What do you recommend as the path forward? What is your rationale for this?
  - What biases might you be bringing to the problem?
  - Who are the stakeholders internally? What are their views on the problem? What biases might they be bringing to the table? How might we work with them to iterate on and implement the path forward most effectively?

# Quirks

I am not naturally a linear thinker. As a result, when I am reviewing a document or artifact, you may occasionally feel that I am jumping around and shifting back and forth between high-level and detailed feedback. You may also notice this pattern in our 1:1s. Please let me know if you're finding that this adversely affects your ability to communicate with me and/or act on feedback from me.

I tend to bristle at overconfident and arrogant people. I value humility and will spend lots of time helping humble people grow. However, with overconfident people I have a hard time having the same patience. 

I have the same challenge with people who are behaving and communicating in a way that isn't transparent. In our communications, I will usually err on the side of too much transparency. I encourage you to do the same.

I have a sense of humo(u)r that's best described as quirky. I also use a lot of idioms and metaphors in my communications, both oral and written. If you're not keen on either of these things, please let me know, and I will adjust my communication style accordingly.