How does a good project manager work? How to help r&d team work efficiently? This has always been an important topic for CODING, and we continue to refine our CODING R&D management system to make development easier. We recently translated a selection of README articles by r&d executives at Silicon Valley tech companies. README is mainly used to show team members how the project manager works, so that they can quickly integrate into the team.

Http://bit.ly/Welcometone… Roy, director of research and development at Slack, formerly worked at Netflix.

The last README we translated was from a “democratic” manager (zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/65147030), this time the README comes from Roy, a “hardcore” manager. Roy has two readMes at Netflix and then at Slack. Here are the ones he used at Netflix. It was also one of the first executive readme documents you can find online, and many took inspiration from Roy.

Welcome to Netflix, to my new underling.





documentation

Disclaimer: The following does not apply to current managers of Netflix or any other organization.

I wanted to give you a quick overview of how I managed the r&d team at Netflix in 2016. It represents a unique blend of Netflix culture and my management style, not my approach to other organizations or other managers at Netflix. After all the joy, I left Netflix in January 2018, and since then the document has seemed unwieldy. But a lot of people want to keep referring to it, so it’s still open.

It may seem strange to write such a document, but that’s okay, we’ll have plenty of opportunities to get to know each other. This is the best way I can think of to introduce something effectively. It’s not just a POWERPOINT presentation, it’s an information bulletin. You’d better read and familiarize yourself with The Netflix culture (jobs.netflix.com/culture) before getting into the main text.

On personality conflict

I don’t think there are irreconcilable personality conflicts at work, and we all have some substantive differences of opinion, more or less. In terms of personality adjustment, I think managers should adapt to the personality style of their subordinates, after all, managers can get part of the remuneration of “compromise” in the salary.

The principle of D.R.I

, Directly Responsible Individuals Directly Responsible individual, assigning a DRI for each project, ultimately Responsible for the project’s success or failure, to further understand the recommended reading: originalfuzz.com/blogs/magaz…

I understand that principle D.R.I. means:

  • Either you make the decision or I do, but not the two of us
  • Our respective areas of responsibility will not overlap
  • I can’t overwrite your decision
  • When I disagree with you, I try to convince you
  • If I don’t believe your judgment is sound, I can fire you
  • Don’t be afraid to give your opinion for fear of being wrong

Being a DRI means

  • You don’t have to agree with anyone else
  • You don’t have to ask anyone else for permission

Being a DRI does not mean:

  • You can do things without thinking
  • You don’t have to explain why you made a certain decision
  • No one is going to tell you that you made a mistake

My job responsibilities

  • Attract and retain world-class talent (stop looking around, it’s you)
  • Coordinate internal and external resources to provide a good platform for the team

If I do something that makes you less likely to want to stay at the company, or that makes you feel like I’m dictating you instead of providing a platform, please let me know as soon as possible.

About the feedback

I love feedback. It’s the key to your success and mine at Netflix. People generally need to satisfy all three dimensions to give feedback continuously:

  • High security: Not being punished for giving negative feedback
  • Low cost: You don’t have to spend a lot of time giving feedback to superiors or arguing with others when you receive it
  • High yield: How likely it is to change behavior after giving feedback

People call me the straight Man of steel. I prioritize delivery efficiency over verbal kindness, but I also try to maintain goodwill while ensuring the right message is delivered. Because it’s my job to make sure you get my feedback in full.

Working time

  • I try not to talk about work with you outside of working hours (8:00 ~ 18:00).
  • I am sometimes lazy, please ask for leave.
  • Unless I make it clear that it’s an emergency, when I text you on my personal time, you can reply to me at work the next day.
  • Rationally, you don’t have to respond to me 24/7, even during working hours.
  • I don’t like to call you outside of work hours. If I do, it must be an emergency. At present, such cases are rare, less than 1 / year/person.
  • These are limited to when I contact you and do not include on-call responsibilities and emergency calls in production environments.

My Schedule

I’m here if you want to talk to me.

I do a lot of work here, but when you want to talk, there are few things more important than taking the time to communicate with you. So you can always schedule a conversation on my calendar. (Actually, everyone does this at Netflix; you just send in a meeting request without asking for permission.)

Is it safe to put things on your calendar? That was just a word of mouth. Below is my calendar for a random week in February 2016. Only eight Spaces are currently free on the calendar, and they will soon be filled. Don’t get too hung up on my schedule, you might not find any free time on the chart, but if you want to talk, we’ll talk. Let me know your phone number or other contact information, and I’ll find a way to drop something and talk to you.

(Translator’s Note: The original picture has been blurred out)

About the fire

Are you worried about getting fired? Rest assured, during your first three months on the job, you’ll have a high degree of suspicion that you’ll be fired at any moment. Ask the engineers who have recently joined Netflix if they have experienced this fear. It’s very likely that at least two of you will say yes, and it’s perfectly normal to be afraid. If you’re nearing the end of your three months at Netflix, you won’t have to worry about getting fired. Unless I have told you explicitly and directly that you are in danger of being fired.

About my firing record. I have been a R&D manager for more than three years until February 14, 2016, during which time:

  • Nine people were recruited
  • I got two guys reassigned
  • Three people were laid off

What interests me is how employees won’t be surprised when I fire them for performance. I’ve been very successful with that so far. It’s mainly because OF my outspokenness that you won’t be surprised.

Performance appraisal table

I think everyone who reports to me is at one of three specific performance levels at any given point in time.

  • Green: There may be some things you want to improve, some things I want you to improve. But if you don’t change anything, that’s fine. You can work here as long as you want considering our present employment requirements.
  • Orange: What you’re doing is holding you back in the long run. If you don’t change things, then you probably won’t end well and you need to change things.
  • Red: In the short term, your trajectory is blocked, and we have a specific window of time to change it. You and I will discuss exactly where the problem is and how to fix it.

Sometimes I realize with hindsight that you are actually orange and not green, but red is never a term of hindsight. If you ask me, “Am I in a red state right now?” And I would say, “Well, if you have to ask, the answer is no.”

Is it orange? Get ready for your next job. Just kidding. The orange state is completely recoverable. In the last three years, my performance as a RESEARCH and development director has gone orange two or three times, but I’ve bounced back each time. My ability to bounce back quickly from orange has increased my superior’s trust in my ability to get things done and correct myself. The same goes for my men. If you fall into an orange state, you can work hard to recover, and once you get it back, it will increase my trust in you.

Even going into the red doesn’t necessarily mean being fired. There are others who have fallen into the red, fought their way out and found success at Netflix.

If you’re still working here, it’s because I still believe in you. If I lose confidence, I will not waste my time managing you, but will give you a rather generous severance package – firing you.

self-knowledge

My strengths:

  • Give you feedback often, both positive and negative. (In other words, I’m frank)
  • Make sure my message gets across. (In other words I’m straightforward)
  • When I receive feedback, I act on it, not in one ear and out the other.

My known weaknesses:

  • I have been accused of taking an extreme view of “providing support, not pointing fingers”.
  • Until you prove that you have the ability to do something without me telling you what to do, I will not be silent. (If you have a question or ask for advice, I’m still here to help.)

About 1 to 1

Our team’s 1:1 includes meetings of varying frequency and length (1 hour per week or 15 minutes biweekly). For new hires, we start with a high frequency, long meeting 1:1, which is just for you. Unless you want to report transaction status updates, we don’t talk about transaction status on 1:1. Any one of us can be five minutes late. Being five minutes late is not uncommon in our company, but I try not to be late.

About frank

I may be asked to keep things secret from you by a specific date (like managers knowing about stock options changes a week before they’re announced), which has only happened once in my three years running the team. I can’t be asked to lie to you, it hasn’t happened before and it won’t happen again (and I’ve never been asked to). We tend to be transparent and frank, you can ask anything and I’ll answer most of the time, but in a few cases I won’t answer you. But I promise I won’t lie to you.

The last

If you report to me (directly or indirectly), you will have the permission to edit this document, which I specifically give you.

Translation postscript

Roy is an impressive leader due to the overall meritocratic team atmosphere at Netflix. Roy encourages independent decision-making, places great emphasis on being honest with each other, and places a high value on feedback. He keeps only high performers on his team, but he also values the progress of his subordinates. There are many ways for developers to grow, including technical architecture, pre-sales solutions, operations support, and so on. In terms of R&D project management, CODING also has several ideas to share with you:

  • Strengthen collaboration between r&d teams and break down barriers and departmental walls. Combined with agile development philosophy, CODING provides comprehensive and highly flexible task collaboration tools. From user stories to requirements pool management, task breakdown, defect management, test management, covering the entire agile R&D management needs, provide comprehensive and detailed statistical reports for project managers, help improve team r&d efficiency, and achieve Scrum iterative development.
  • Automatic r & D process, reduce the duplication of labor. CODING provides tools for continuous integration into automated deployment: automated build, automated test, build management, and deployment delivery. Support rapid iteration of projects to ensure software stability, continuous build and release. It can seamlessly connect to third-party operation and maintenance management tools and support multiple software delivery processes, enabling continuous delivery of DevOps applications throughout the process.

CODING makes it easy for developers to become managers.