#17 - Link Roundup, 22 May 2020
Google manager training; Goal setting; Time management when everything's a priority
Hi!
I asked last week about your team’s productivity and how it is holding up. Here and on twitter you sent me the full range of answers; it was a rough 33% split between up/the same, down, and it’s complicated. Two factors out of our control caused much of the variation: personal circumstances of team members and the type of work done. But there are some things readers have done that have helped. Scoping work tighter than before, communicating explicit expectations ahead of time, and more frequent status reporting all seem to have worked.
My organization, probably much like yours, is beginning plans for staged return of staff. One guiding principle: for now, those who can work effectively work from home will continue to do so. So more of the same for the time being.
Still, planning for the future brings thoughts of what will change in research computing. There are at least two big and well-commented on lasting changes that the pandemic will have on our organizations – remote work, and budget cuts. It’s pretty clear that the combination of those changes is going to accelerate trends in how we organize research computing. Remote work plus budget cuts will drive us towards further consolidation of research computing staff under a smaller number of organizations.
I’ll write about this more, but what factors am I missing? What are going to be the drivers in research computing in “the after times” that will be different from “the before times”?
Anyway, on to the link roundup!
Managing Teams
Google Spent Years Studying Effective Bosses. Now They Teach New Managers These 6 Things - Michael Schneider, Inc
Google’s New Manager Training - re:Work, Google
Effective Management for New Managers - Angela Riggs
I’ve written about Google’s Project Oxygen before in this newsletter — an effort that launched half-expecting to find that technical management didn’t matter ended up discovering that it very much did. Project Oxygen was the effort to better understand which management behaviours improved team performance, and their re:Work effort is their (largely public) management training material.
The Inc. article describes their new-manager training effort. Training focusses on six areas:
Growth mindset (people can develop new skills) and values
Emotional intelligence (paying attention to one’s and other’s emotions)
The uncomfortable transition from individual contributor to manager
Coaching teammates to improve
Giving effective feedback, and
Decision making.
The training material is worth going through. Sections 1-3 likely really require a facilitator, but the material on 4-6 is less hands-on and pretty solid.
None of the material is very unique, because the skills it takes to manage well aren’t specific to one company. Rigg’s series of articles covers much of the same ideas in blog-post form, but the workbook and slides are very nice for a classroom session.
The need for frequent, prompt, and behaviour-focussed feedback is nicely called out in both sets of materials. Google’s Situation-Behaviour-Impact model (“At this afternoon’s staff meeting, you arrived 15 minutes late, which broke the flow of Bob’s presentation and require extra time while we caught you up”) is very similar to seen elsewhere but well described. Rigg’s (correctly, I think) goes farther and integrates requesting change into the model.
Would re:Work or similar training courses being offered be something of interest to you, for yourself or people in your organization who are on their way to becoming new managers? Have you seen this done elsewhere? One of our readers has had training done for their team, but I think most of us are mostly left to our own devices.
This twitter thread by Rein Henrichs (@ReinH) is a nice inditement of the (likely well intentioned!) management approach of “come to me with solutions, not problems”.
Restraining ourselves as technical managers from solving our team members’ problems is hard, but their growth requires them to solve those problems. On the other hand, swerving to the other extreme of simply expecting them to solve all problems without us isn’t the right approach either.
Supporting team members with the right amount of coaching and input for each takes practice but it’s the only sustainable approach. The alternative is our team members either stressed out and not telling you about problems you should know about on one hand, or stagnating in their skills on the other.
A nice twitter thread on the why’s and how’s of Goal setting. I particularly like:
2/ Goals have three primary benefits:
Clarity: You know what success looks like
Alignment: All team members know what success looks like
Motivation: A push to achieve more than you would have otherwise
Managing Your Own Career
Time management when everything’s a priority - Elizabeth Harrin, Girl’s Guide to PM
Most of these items are things you will have seen before, but even pros routinely practice the basics:
Schedule Your Time
Know the Difference Between Urgent and Important
Understand Your Priorities
Delegate and Help
Plan at Different Levels
Know When You are Most Productive
Deal With Email
Integrate Your Schedules
Deal With Conflicts
Stay Positive
I recently tackled two things on this list. I started blocking off my schedule for tasks that require a period of focussed time; I’ve always been skeptical but it’s great. Harder for me was getting firmer with my email — setting my devices to only poll for new email hourly, and cc:s get forwarded to a different folder which I check at the end of the day. It’s been awesome.
Random
I was today years old when I learned there are code-specific command line tools for search and replace.
A nice explainer on ssh-agent
We often have to put together visualizations and explainers in our work, so I keep an eye open for good examples. This is a very cute set of visualizations (with audio) of how distortion works in music.
Google’s on-premises hybrid solution Anthos now has a bare metal offering to support bare-metal resources you’re already using.
For those of us of a certain age or older, Microsoft has just open-sourced its GW-BASIC interpreter.
That’s it…
And that’s it for another week.
Have a great weekend, and enjoy the long weekend if you have one! And when you get back, good luck in the coming week with your research computing team,
Jonathan
Jobs Leading Research Computing Teams
Senior Data Architect, Translational Science - Fate Therapeutics, San DIego CA USA
Fate Therapeutics is seeking an experienced Data and Systems Architect with biotechnology domain experience to develop and oversee implementation of an innovative and flexible data strategy / architecture to enable the storage, organization, analysis and reporting of data in alignment with the scientific objectives across various business units supporting Fate’s growing pipeline of clinical programs.
Chief Executive Officer - New Digital Research Infrastructor Organization, Ottawa ON CA
The new CEO’s role will be to launch and drive the early development of NDRIO, shaping the NFP as a high-performing, service-orientated organization that is driven by a culture of excellence and collaboration, and will enable Canada’s researchers and post-secondary institutions to remain competitive on the international stage. The CEO will work in partnership with the Governing Board and Members to create and operationalize the strategic plan that will provide a foundation for significant multi-year digital research infrastructure investment.
Manager, Engineering Computing Services - Memorial University, St John’s NL CA
Duties include team management; developing, implementing, reviewing and evaluation computer and IT systems and procedures in support of programs, faculty research, and administration; working closely with the Associate Deans, Department Heads and the Senior Administrative Officer in the Faculty to develop computing policy, objectives and long-term plans; managing help-desk, education technology and web development functions; HR development and supervision of assigned professional support staff; development and managing computer and IT systems annual budgets; preparing and presenting annual operational plans to the Faculty Management Group
Professional Specialist, Project Manager - Princeton University, Princeton NJ USA
The Department of Operations Research & Financial Engineering at Princeton University seeks applicants for a professional specialist to serve as research manager for the project “Stochastic Models, Indices & Optimization Algorithms for Pricing & Hedging Reliability Risks in Modern Power Grids”, that is funded by ARPA-E. The Project Manager will work with the co-PIs at Princeton, Professors Rene Carmona and Ronnie Sircar, and co-ordinate the research activities with various other team members and industry partners.
Senior Data Manager, Oncology - SEC, Swizerland
Manage end-to-end delivery of data management services for single/multi-service projects, ensuring quality deliverables on time and within budget, to customer satisfaction. Direct the team in areas of project planning, execution and close-out, financial management, communications and milestone deliverables.
Manager, Research Computing - Boston College, Boston MA USA
Boston College seeks a Manager, Research Computing to provide statistical consultation and analysis to faculty in all areas of Boston College. Provide statistical expertise in research projects, including grant applications, grants, papers, dissertations. Guide researchers who need statistical expertise. Supervise the work of full-time equivalent employees and graduate students as part of general oversight of a center for statistics and advanced analysis.