In this article, I want to cover one of the primary responsibilities of an engineering manager, setting goals. Setting clear and measurable goals for your direct reports is a great way to coach, set expectations, and track their progress. It contributes to their development and team success. By developing your team, you get many benefits, such as:
- Your team improves over time, creating a compound effect on productivity and quality.
- Help individuals achieve their short and long-term career goals.
- People feel motivated and empowered, which contributes to better retention rates.
Before setting any goals, it is crucial to understand the aspirations of your direct reports. You must use your 1:1s to discuss their career path and challenge them to understand their short and long-term goals. For example, some engineers want to follow the individual contributor path (senior, staff engineer), and others prefer the management path (engineering manager, director). After clearly understanding who they want to be, it’s time to set goals and prepare them for success.
How to set SMART goals?
The first step is to agree with your direct reports that they are accountable for setting and achieving the goals. Your role as a manager is to coach and support them. You can assist by suggesting improvement areas and helping define a plan to achieve their goals.
The second step is to create a document (here is my template) where your direct reports write down the goals and keep track of the progress. Writing the goals makes them more meaningful and real. Use your 1:1s to review the progress and offer support if needed.
Finally, let’s discuss how to write effective goals. Setting goals can take time and effort. However, the SMART framework can make writing clear and structured goals easy. It is also ideal for keeping consistency across the team. Bear in mind that you can use it to set your personal goals.
The SMART framework consists of writing goals using the following formula:
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Specific - The goal must be clear and specific to maintain focus. When writing, try to answer the following questions:
- What do I want to achieve?
- Why do I want to achieve it?
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Measurable - You must be able to track the goal progress to understand when you will achieve it. It also helps keep the motivation and excitement since you can see progress over time.
- How can I measure progress?
- How do I know I have achieved it?
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Achievable - Goals must be possible to achieve. It is important to stretch our skills and abilities but remember that the goal must be realistic and attainable.
- How can I achieve this goal?
- Can I accomplish the goal based on my resources and time constraints?
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Relevant - Ensure that the goal contributes directly to your short, and long-term goals. It also needs to be appropriate to the team and company.
- How can this goal help me to reach the next level?
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Time-bound - All goals must have a deadline. Committing to a target date is necessary and helps focus and prioritise the work.
- When should I be able to complete the goal?
Example of a SMART goal: I want to learn more about designing APIs to improve my backend skills and help my team define better developer-friendly APIs by the end of Q2 2024. I will commit to reading ten pages per day of the book “Designing Web APIs” and prepare a presentation for the team.
- Specific: Learn more about designing API
- Measurable: Read the “Designing Web APIs” book ten pages per day. Prepare a presentation for the team.
- Achievable: Since the book has 200 pages, reading ten pages daily should be feasible and does not disrupt my personal life. After reading the book, I have one month to prepare a presentation for the team.
- Relevant:
- Improve my backend skills which will help me to be a senior engineer.
- Help the team design developer-friendly APIs.
- Improve my communication skills by presenting what I have learnt.
- Time-bound: Must be completed by the end of Q2 2024 (in 3 months).
After defining the goals, it is crucial to regularly check in, review progress, discuss challenges, and make necessary adjustments.
In conclusion, setting goals shouldn’t be hard and must be part of the duties of any engineering manager. Using the SMART framework ensures all goals are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and timebounded, which increases the chance of success. Finally, remember to check the progress of the goals during your 1:1s and support your team in achieving their goals.