Management is at its core the traits that it takes to organize a team to achieve a common goal. That privilege usually goes to someone with the title ‘manager’ but in non-hierarchical rapidly scaling teams that is usually not the case. Everyone manages something in their scope that requires the support from your team and those above you in the org chart.

Starting from your sphere of control you can help explain the constraints of a given situation and identify what is within and outside your sphere of control. From this starting point we can fully communicate what you need from all facets of your team and organization. You can provide better support by elaborating your constraints and negotiating the efforts in making a successful project delivery. This talk will lead you through all the essentials of how to support your team and organizational goals by managing up to those who can benefit from your knowledge, managing sideways to team members and being receptive to the directives of others.

Key Takeaways:

Knowing what is and what isn’t in your control
Explaining constraints in your scope and communicating that to management
Delivering and Receiving lateral communication and feedback from other teams
Establishing yourself as a subject matter expert that people in your organization feel comfortable listening to for advice and working with at any level in the org chart

Keywords
management, scaling, discovery, agile, distributed teams, productivity,

How is your talk relevant to our audience?
Managing up can apply to anyone from junior developers to seasoned project managers since communicating goals and objectives is everyone’s responsibility. This is especially true for people with subject matter expertise that need to explain constraints and critical information to other members of their group who may not have that knowledge. In fast growing companies that kind of communication can help avoid bottlenecks in project planning and support mutual cooperation as everyone is empowered to provide feedback on a project. The audience at LeadDev can definitely benefit from that knowledge since controlling every aspect of a project is exhausting and unproductive.