# Tudor's Manager Readme

**Lead Software Developer at Tutorful**

# Motivation for this document

One of the first things I learned as a leader was to make no assumptions. As a result, I want to make sure that everyone receives the same message about my role in the team, what I value and what my expectations are!

Whilst this document is aimed at new joiners, I hope that other people on the team will find it handy too! If you have any feedback or any questions, please drop me a message, and let's have a chat!

# 🙆‍♂️ My role

- To make sure we have clear weekly and quarterly objectives that we stick to and achieve!
- To make sure you have everything you need  **to be your best possible self** (e.g. mentorship, training, feedback) **.**
- To share my experience and knowledge with everyone on the team. 

# 

# ❤️ What do I value most?

- **People first**  - I firmly believe that strong relationships are a driver for success within a team. Ultimately empowering the team to set bolder goals, offer each other honest feedback, and think outside of the box!
- **Honesty & transparency - ** Sometimes things don't go to plan, and that's okay! Let's have a chat when that happens and find a solution together! I'm here to support you!
- **Feedback - ** I'm constantly trying to learn new things and improve how I work so I love feedback: please give me a lot of it (especially things you think I can do better). **🙏**
- **Collaboration - ** I value people who work collaboratively and help others grow in the process.
- **Passion ** - I love it when people are passionate and share their passion with others. If you read something interesting do share it with the team!
- **Gifs -**  no further explanation needed. 😇

# 🙏 My Expectations

- **Be kind, helpful, and understanding!**
- I am always open to listening to new ideas, suggestions, or feedback. Please do let me know if there's anything we can do to make our lives easier / better!
- **Be responsive** , especially to your team members. Remember that you are not the only one working on something important. Sometimes your quick answer will save someone a lot of time waiting or investigating.
- **Be engaged in meetings - ** online meetings especially are tiring. Please bring your critical and creative brain to meetings! It will help us consider everyone's opinion and get the best possible output. Having your camera on facilitates "reading the room" for the person chairing, so it will be appreciated but not required.
- **Keep the team in the loop** - whether you are progressing well or you are working on a challenging task be transparent about it! It is always helpful if anyone in the team can provide an overall update on the projects we're working on. 

# 👨‍💻 Technical Expectations

- I am quite precious about PR reviews. I find them critical to keeping projects moving and I also see them as a great tool to **build codebase awareness** and **share knowledge**. Please do spend appropriate time reading PRs you get tagged in, offer feedback/advice when appropriate, and  **ask questions** when you are not sure.
- I also like PRs to be reviewed in a **timely manner**. No one likes to wait for their work to be reviewed or have to ask multiple times for someone to review their work.
- Please don't take PR comments personally! Initially, you might get a lot until you get used to our way of working but as time passes you'll get fewer and fewer! 
- **Know the basics ** - internal build and deployment tools, basic Docker commands, etc.
- **Know your tools ** - take the time to learn your IDE and other development tools so you can make **your** life easier.

# 🍑 1:1s - Direct Reports

I run 1:1s biweekly with people I manage directly and, usually, I try to run them using the following structure: 

- The first 10 minutes are for introductions, general chitchat, and catching up.
- In the middle 10 minutes, I usually try to cover things that I want to speak to you about. Things such as feedback, updates about processes, or business changes.
- In the last 10 minutes, I want to hear about what's important to you now! This can be anything from ideas on how to improve how we work, feedback for me, things you want to learn or explore, or problems you are currently facing.

**Please do spend some time thinking about how we can make this time best for YOU! ** If this format does not work for you then please let me know and let's find an alternative!

My "door" is also always open so if there's anything that you want to discuss, you do not have to wait for the next 1:1. Drop me a message and let's arrange a catch-up at your earliest convenience!

# 

# 👩‍🏫 Training and development

- I allocate 1 day a month to uninterrupted training and development. During that day you should spend your time working on things you feel like you should improve on or things I have suggested in 1:1s and/or reviews. \* 
- We have a training budget of £500 so please use it to your advantage. This can be anything from a subscription to video content, books or a conference. I will always do my best to support you with any training you might need. 
- Have you learned something cool recently? Please share it with Peach devs and/or the engineering team. It can be as simple as a link on Slack or a presentation. 
- Finally, the best way to learn is by teaching others. Please help anyone in the team that is stuck by guiding them to a solution. 

_\* On rare occasions, depending on deadlines, I might ask the team to move the training and development day._

# **🏃‍♂️ Sprints:**

- Monday - Thursday we do standups at 9:30
- We run 2-week sprints with goals for Development, Product and Design
- Story writing 
  - Lead, PM and designer meet to write high-level requirements and ACs

- Future planning
  - We evaluate as a team potential ideas for future sprints every two weeks 
  - Designs are presented to the whole team and everyone has the option to provide feedback   
  - We decide what experiments we want to run next and what metrics they need to meet to be a success
  - Potential for the PM to run brainstorms

- Backlog refinement & sprint planning
  - The team reviews which stories to put in the sprint
  - The team reviews ACs
  - The team decides on goals for the next sprint (1 goal per function) 

- Kick-off 
  - This meeting was not adding any value so it has been replaced with a Slack message on #peach\_squad
  - The message should follow the template which includes: what was achieved in the previous sprint, what are the goals for the new sprint, links to the new design, and any important metrics.

# **📆 My schedule:**

- Nowadays I aim to start work sometime between 8-9 am and finish around 5-5:30. If there's anything I can help with feel free to drop me a message. 
- Sometimes you will notice that I work in the evening or at weekends. I try to keep this to a minimum but when it happens this is usually a personal choice.  **I do not expect anyone to work outside of work hours unless there is something urgent. On the rare occasion something urgent happens, please do make sure you start late / finish early on another day. ** I might Slack you, but that's only because I don't want the message to be forgotten. Unless the message says URGENT, it can always wait until the next working day.

# 🧘 Useful links:

- [Developer handbook](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_VILQa6YfQkwXrdBzd-qbkrK8MS21U9cZEozk0X5Jwg/edit#gid=0)
- [Skills matrix](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_VILQa6YfQkwXrdBzd-qbkrK8MS21U9cZEozk0X5Jwg/edit#gid=0)