Managing Up - The best formula to get a promotion
As a software engineer, I always wanted to be a good Senior developer and unconsciously I’ve done several of the things I’d mention here that could have got me there sooner if I knew about them instead of by instinct doing them.
I came across the concept of managing up and if you look at it in Google you’d get:
Being the most effective employee you can be, creates value for your boss and your company.
The statement above can be broken down into two major pieces
Being a self-manage person
Delivering value
So let’s start with the first one.
Being a self-manage person
It means that you know what you are supposed to be doing, you know what would be the next thing to do and more importantly, you know what you should NOT do.
So if you need to ask your boss what you should do, it’s a clear indicator that you can improve in that area.
Let’s look at examples of what things you can do depending on your role within the company.
Bad 🚫
If you’re a junior developer that completed a ticket in the sprint and you ask your manager what else you can work on?
Why is bad? Because you gave the manager more work to do, now he/she needs to go and see what ticket to assign you.
Good ✅
If you’re a junior developer that completed a ticket in the sprint, then ideally you look at the top things in the backlog and tell your manager, “Is ok if I pick the ticket XYZ?”
Why is good? You looked for something to work on next and also informed and ask for approval from your manager.
Bad 🚫
If you’re a mid developer and during the standup call someone else, maybe a junior developer said that’s block and that needs help …but you don’t offer to help
Why is bad? The manager needs to find someone to help the developer get unblocked.
Good ✅
If you’re a mid developer and during the standup call someone else, maybe a junior developer said that’s block and that needs help and you offer to help?
Why is good? First, the manager starts to notice that you’re actively involved in the meetings and that you proactively offer to help others. And secondly, that’s a good opportunity to start mentoring other developers.
Bad 🚫
If you’re a senior developer that only brings problems to the table.
Why is bad? Because you gave the manager problems and he/she might need to find ways to solve them
Good ✅
If you’re a senior developer that only brings problems to the table with a set of possible solutions.
Why is good? With your expertise, you identified problems and went beyond and also looked for possible solutions to work on and fix those problems
Delivering Value
The whole point of delivering value is to genuinely help your manager with the tasks he/she does and ideally automate them if possible. So you’re targeting to help your immediate manager.
The second thing it’s to identify problems worth solving and for this, you can ask your manager for a 1-1 and openly offer your help with different tasks that might consume his/her time.
For example, if the manager needs to create reports manually, you might help on automating the report. If the manager needs metrics about something, created them, etc, etc.
And finally, once you know what you can help your manager and you get permission, you need to do it.
Conclusion
If you’re still thinking about why this would help you grow, your manager has a huge influence on whom or not gets promoted, and certainly by helping your manager you’d ease the work and you’d become a key member to help the team be self-managed.
Also, since it’s a collaborative environment being excellent only at writing code is just a small piece, you certainly would need more skills to become a Senior, Staff, etc.
If you’re interested in what other skills to improve you can read this as well.