Over the past two years as a manager, I have been learning what it means to help a team do good work. Some of that learning came from my own experience, some from conversations with other managers, and some from books and research about software teams. I am still figuring things out, but my understanding of the job has changed.
The idea I keep coming back to is simple. My job is to make it easier for people to do their work. That means understanding what gets in their way, helping them find a clear direction, and giving them the time and support they need.
It sounds obvious when I put it like that. In practice, it is easy to get pulled into other things.
Technical work, for example, can feel much more comfortable than management work. A broken configuration gives you something specific to investigate. When you fix it, you can see the result. Understanding why a colleague is unhappy after three months in the team is much less straightforward. There may be several reasons, and finding them takes time, patience, and a willingness to listen.
I can see why managers are tempted to spend their time on problems they already know how to solve. But if that takes up most of the day, who is looking after the team?
There is another part of the role that I think deserves more attention. Being a manager changes your relationship with people. You can be friendly and work closely together, but your words carry a different weight when you also influence someone’s performance review, pay, or career. Good intentions do not make that difference disappear. I need to remember it when I ask a question, suggest an idea, or invite someone to disagree with me.
That is part of why trust matters so much. People need room to use their judgment, ask for help, and say when something is not working. They also need time to think. A manager can say all the right things about trust and still make good work difficult by filling the week with meetings or constantly changing priorities.
I have come to see protecting people’s time as a basic form of respect. An interruption may take only a few minutes on my calendar, but it can cost someone else much more. They have to leave a problem, deal with the interruption, and then find their way back into what they were doing. If that happens throughout the day, there may be very little time left for focused work.
Changing direction has a similar cost. Sometimes priorities really do need to change. But each change asks people to put something down, understand a new problem, and decide what to do with the work they have already started. Before asking the team to switch, I think it is worth asking whether the change is necessary and whether I can explain why.
A colleague described leaving a busy office because it had become too noisy. At home, in a peaceful setting, he got more done in one day than he had during the previous two days in the office. Different people need different things from their workplace, and noise or other distractions can affect some people much more than others. I do not think there is one arrangement that suits everyone. The useful starting point is to listen.
How I think about productivity. Better tools and automation can help, especially when they remove repetitive work. But they cannot make up for unclear priorities, constant interruptions, or a team that feels unable to speak openly.
Pressure cannot solve those problems either. A team may rush to meet a deadline, but some of the cost appears later. Less careful design, more cleanup, tired people, and work they do not feel proud of. Real emergencies happen. People sometimes need to make an extra effort. What worries me is when that becomes the normal way of working, with no time to recover or deal with what was left unfinished.
People need a pace they can keep up, and they need to feel good about what they are building. That is much harder when every task is urgent and quality is always the first thing to give way.
Of course, giving people space does not mean leaving them without direction. Teams need shared ways of working. A useful process helps people coordinate, remember important steps, and avoid repeating mistakes. The trouble starts when following the process becomes more important than the work it was meant to support.
I think the same is true of metrics. Numbers can help us notice a problem or understand whether a change is helping. But once people feel judged by a number, that number can start shaping their behavior in ways we did not intend. A team asked to deliver 50 story points every sprint may get better at reporting 50 points without getting better at solving the customer’s problem.
I want measurement to lead to a useful conversation. What are we trying to improve? Why does it matter? What would progress look like, and what do we need to protect along the way? The team should understand why we are measuring something and have a say in whether it is useful.
Looking only at individual numbers also misses a lot of what makes a team work. Someone may spend time explaining a difficult part of the system, helping a colleague get unstuck, or sharing context that prevents a mistake. Their own task list may look less impressive that week, while the whole team benefits from their help.
I want people to have a reason to help each other, rather than feel that every hour spent helping will count against them. Shared goals make that easier, especially when people understand why the goal matters and can help decide how to reach it. A goal on a slide is only a starting point. It becomes useful when the team can connect it to their everyday decisions.
Building that shared understanding takes time, and it is easy to damage. Too many projects split people’s attention. Unnecessary approvals slow them down. Deadlines agreed without their input can leave them feeling unheard. These may look like separate issues, but they all affect whether people feel able to do good work together.
This does not mean everything should stay the same once the team is comfortable. People also need chances to learn, try ideas, and take on new challenges. I like the idea of making small changes that the team can learn from. Try something, see what happens, and adjust. Leave enough room for an experiment to fail without making people afraid to try the next one. And when a demanding piece of work is finished, take time to recognize it and recover before moving straight into the next rush.
A plan may make sense to a manager while leaving the team with personal questions. Will I be able to do this? Will my skills still be useful? Will this add more work? Has anyone thought about how it will affect us?
Teams are often comfortable with change once they understand why it is happening. That does not make every change easy, but it gives people something they can understand and discuss.
For me, that means explaining the reason, listening to concerns, and allowing time to adjust. It also means being thoughtful about early announcements. Sharing an unfinished idea can seem helpful, but if people have enough information to worry and too little to understand what it means, it can create more uncertainty. I want to be clear about what is decided, what is still open, and when people can expect to know more.
After several years, I do not have a formula for being a good manager. I do have a clearer sense of where to put my attention. The conversations that help me understand people, the priorities that help them decide what matters, and the everyday obstacles that make their work harder than it needs to be.
The question I want to keep asking is: What is getting in this team’s way, and what can I do to help?
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