Buying Turnips every week made me a better Manager
Not many people buy Turnip every week, but I do.
Every time I go to the checkout counter with a bag of Turnips. Most of the cashiers look at Turnip, look at the long checkout line and nervously start flipping through their little booklet. Turnips are not a common item and no one remembered the checkout code for it.
One day I decided to ask and remember the checkout code. Now, when I see that confused look on the cashier's face. I go "4812", they just type it in disbelief and their face lit up.
My checkouts are much smoother now.
It got me thinking, what are "Turnips" for an Engineering team?
There are tools, processes, or features that are relevant for any engineering team once in a while. No one is interested in learning those. But when they break or need attention, you see panic around the team. Your team runs around finding guidance or any helpful information "The checkout code".
Proactively look for "Turnips" of your team
Don’t just wait for someone to raise the alarm. Proactively look for any process, knowledge, or skills that can potentially be a “Turnip” for your team and work on filling the gap.
The code coverage report is broken. Who owns it, where is the configuration, who has admin access to the code coverage tool?
The major functionality is changing. You need to make sure your “Getting Started” guide reflects the changes. But, who updates the getting started documentation for your product?
The customer reported a bug in your seldom-used custom report feature. The customer uses it once a year, today is the day and they need it right now! Does anyone on the team even know if this feature exists?
Learn the "checkout codes" and enable the team
Being a Manager, make sure you learn all those occasional tools, processes, or features. Once the time comes you should be able to guide the team. It helps you build trust with the team and you add a ton of value to the team. Just make sure you are not the bottleneck, so document and disseminate the information.
Make sure there are designated primary and secondary owners for any tools that the team is using. Add a quick start guide for these tools to your onboarding checklist.
Publish and distribute-list of all external contacts on a shared location. Educate the team about where to look for this information. Another candidate for the onboarding checklist.
Encourage the team to learn different customer persons and be able to use the product as a customer. We started sending our engineers to user research sessions run by UX and PMs. Engineers had some eye-opening experiences, we never knew the different ways customers can approach a feature.
Best Managers proactively look for gaps in process, knowledge, or skills and work on filling them.