Rethinking Organizational Structure and Trust

Dynamic teaming.

Teams can add or remove members with their consent, and members can join or leave teams with reasonable notice. Additionally, members can manage their bandwidth, meaning they can hold many roles. 

There is no formal process here; it's a search for a two-way fit. Organize product as people with problems and engineers as people with proposals.

Eliminate any middle-man between the people who deliver the software and those who consume it.

Managers may hesitate to try this approach because structure is often a proxy for power. Yet, this benefits everybody because it encourages stepping out of their comfort zone. Instead of living in a fixed place in the org chart, they can live in many roles where their influence is direct rather than indirect. 

Positional power is traded for reputation. 

People can find joy in the work again by getting closer to the job. 

Companies often want speed and innovation, but they run from risk and inhibit their best people. 

Companies claim to work in teams but don't trust one another. 

Companies know that how they work isn't working, but they can't imagine an alternative. 

Teams long for change but need to figure out how to get it. 

Companies are addicted to the siren song of bureaucracy. 

People can be trusted and trust one another to use judgment and do the right thing.

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Human-Centric Engineering Management

To be an effective engineering manager, you need to prioritize human-centric management.