# Sean Trane Sciarrone's Manager Readme

**Technology Leader at Consulting**

# Motivation for this document

This document serves to introduce myself, describe who I am and my management style, preferences and tendencies. It also serves to set expectations between us and answer important questions that you are likely to have.

# Who I am

I was born in Florida, **grown outside New York City** , and currently thrive in North Carolina. My many loves include; art, music, nature, culture, cosmos, comedy, history, basketball, cooking, and living near the ocean.

# My role

My role is to **help engineering teams to succeed** at becoming better workers and better individuals—while building performant, secure, and highly scalable web applications, services and platforms. My aim is to build a strong culture and foundation to facilitate productive teamwork. My credo; _we cannot truly succeed unless we succeed together._

# What I value most

I value honesty and hard work above all. **Hard work is the transactional cost of all progress** , and honest transparency is key to the improvement of knowledge. We must work hard to continually progress, and we must  **continually share accurate information to better our knowledge**.

Care and concern for others is also a fundamental quality of a good team member. I can seldom do without it in my teams. The principles that I lead with, and live by, require a dedication to cooperation. Compassionate individuals will thrive because  **empathy for our peers helps drive cooperative efforts**.

# What I value least

I have **no patience for apathy and poor work ethic**. I prefer individuals who are enthusiastic about working hard to become a more impactful member of their teams, and better people.

**Fear of failure is valueless. Failing faster is the key to succeeding faster.** If we must fail 3 times to succeed the 4th time, then let us fail as quickly as possible so that our success may be expedited. There is no downside to this principle. Success is not the absence of failure, it is _success in spite of failure_—past and present. We must accept failure without fear to continually improve and achieve our success.

# How I handle conflicts

I preemptively manage conflicts by **focusing on workflows and ways of working**. I believe that individuals who know exactly what they should be working on, and how they should be working it, tend to have less conflicts. Nevertheless, **conflicts are a fundamental part of business** , management and communication. They _will_ happen.

I try to mitigate conflicts using **patience, understanding and diplomacy** in all matters. Timely resolution of conflicts is critical to success, so I expect all conflicts to be handled with immediacy.

# My weaknesses

Recognizing one's weaknesses is fundamental to self-awareness. I know, without being told, that I am; a **perfectionist** , frequently **too verbose** , and  **stubborn** about principles, standards and practices. These can be qualities, but they can have the tendency to annoy others. Especially those that I have high expectations of.

You can help me by **reminding me**  **of your iterative plans** for success, **let me know that you understand** what I'm communicating (before I get too wordy), and **give me information** to help mold and develop my principles and standards.

# My expectations

I expect all team members to be accountable for their time. **Your work schedule should be known by everyone and strictly adhered to for their benefit.** Any absence should always be proceeded with notifications to all team members. Conversely, your personal time is your own—I do not support overworking. I do expect you to spend some of your personal time learning new things, but your work should not exceed your working hours.

**Slack** _it_. Don't email _it_. I'm not declaring email evil, it's still essential for events and notifications, but email is not a tool I support for team communication. Most **communication** should be conducted in **Slack**. We use public channels for team discussions. We use private channels for protected information and 1:1s. If you need to **call someone** , call them on **Slack**. Need a **chat room** for a **meeting** , use **Slack**. Need to conduct team engagement (ie; **voting** ), use **Slack**. Need to supply **notifications** , use **Slack**.

Teams are expected to **maintain [strong feedback loops](https://www.oreilly.com/ideas/4-personal-and-tool-based-methods-for-creating-strong-feedback-loops)**, they are critical to self-evaluation and growth. Each individual should be soliciting constructive feedback from at least 1 colleague every 1-2 months. Everyone should **receive feedback from at least 6 different colleagues every year.**

Every individual is expected to spend 10% of their work schedule either learning something applicable to their job, or working on innovation/improvement projects of their choosing. Product owners and team managers are expected to spend this time developing and refining specs for innovation/improvement projects, so that team members can select from them every week.

# My principles

- [Agile methodologies](https://www.agilealliance.org/agile101/12-principles-behind-the-agile-manifesto/) for workflow management.
- [Cynefin framework](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynefin_framework) ([video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7oz366X0-8)) for decision-making.
- _[Definition of Ready](https://www.agilealliance.org/glossary/definition-of-ready/)_ follows the [INVEST framework](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/INVEST_(mnemonic)).
- _[Definition of Done](https://www.agilealliance.org/glossary/definition-of-done/)_ requires everything to be;
  - secure according to [OWASP standards](https://www.owasp.org/), 
  - passing rigid tests in automated CI plans, 
  - documented for both maintainers and users, 
  - deployable to production using [SEMVER](http://semver.org) and, 
  - if warranted, implemented using a [feature toggle](https://martinfowler.com/articles/feature-toggles.html).

- All software development should practice [TDD/BDD](https://medium.freecodecamp.org/test-driven-development-what-it-is-and-what-it-is-not-41fa6bca02a2) and follow the [Twelve-Factor App methodology](https://12factor.net/).
- Everything that _can_ be scripted and automated, _should_ be scripted and automated; [infrastructure-as-code](http://infrastructure-as-code.com/), pipelines-as-code (CI/CD), ..._everything_-as-code. 
- The majority of an entire software environment should be capable of being destroyed and rebuilt from source with 100% automation. This is essential to not only automate releases and prove reliability but also mitigate threats and perform disaster recovery.  

# 1:1s

1:1s are held, at most, every week for 30-minutes. These meetings are for you. They are intended to discuss important topics and have informal conversations, at your discretion. They are not for status updates. We maintain a private **Slack** channel for all discussions, status updates, and as a record of our discourse. Basically, if it's information shared between us, **Slack** it.

# Personality quirks

I'm really passionate about the things I care about. I can probably seem intense at times. This can put others in "listen-only mode" and certainly not the reaction I prefer. I love debate and I love to challenge my perceptions. I prefer open discourse and would rather debate than have a one-way conversation.

I'm probably a little too confident. Not in the "I can do anything" way, but in that nothing seems to worry me too much, confident that everything will turn out fine—even if it isn't. If I seem unconcerned about something intense, it's probably because I am comfortable with a measurable amount of uncertainty, or I've just internally subdued any emotional reaction.

I have a metaphor or simile for everything. Even some that don't make sense. Because I make them up. Sometimes it's a win, sometimes a swing and a miss. And yeah, I make a lot of sports comparisons too. Sorry. I find a lot of parallels between sports teams and business teams, and I can't help myself.

I've been known to swear occasionally, talk with my hands a lot and speak with a really purposeful tone. I'm Italian. I grew up around NYC. I may have a hard edge but I assure you; I have a soft, out-of-shape core. =)