My takeaway is that nobody cares about how many (or how little) hours you dedicate to something, but about your impact.
I'll try to apply to myself the idea of negotiating my level of investment in different workstreams. I never thought about it this way, instead, I was just jumping wherever I was needed.
I'd love to read more about how to make sure that your low level of investment in some workstream makes the most impact possible. I think it would be very easy to plan for that 20% time investment and when things go wrong you end up stretching yourself.
Thanks Fran! Agreed, impact is the most important thing
> I'd love to read more about how to make sure that your low level of investment in some workstream makes the most impact possible.
For me in this particular case, I focused on "high leverage" work like reviewing code and coordinating the overall workstream. Working through others was the main way I was able to lead without spending a lot of time executing on projects
If I am a entry level engineer or I haven't gotten those higher up positions, how can I protect my time on unimportant tasks that are thrown on to me. Do I do a worse job that gets the job done but doesn't require a huge investment or do I push that work on to others. But the thing is I am entry level I don't really have the power to push things to people under me because I am at the bottom. Is the strategy to not to get put in that position in the first place when it comes to planning and communication to my manager on the things I would like to take on.
It depends. In some cases, you can't avoid work that is assigned to you that isn't impactful. For that work, I'd try to get through it quickly (with solid quality of course)
> Is the strategy to not to get put in that position in the first place when it comes to planning and communication to my manager on the things I would like to take on.
Yes, that'd help. You will have more influence over what is worked on during planning. Imagine you found something more impactful to work on and could communicate why that is to your manager. If you're convincing, they should be receptive given that they just want to maximize their team's impact.
Company culture also plays into this dynamic. At Meta, planning is often engineering-driven. We have a lot more influence over what we do as a result. If your company is more top-down, it may be more challenging to control what you work on.
Makes sense, do your work with good quality so that you are known to be responsible and take care of tasks to build that credibility. And for your impact work you want to ideally drive for that stuff during planning. In my current job it is more of a top down style but there is room for me to bring up ideas like automation ideas etc. Do you think that is a way I can fill my plate with impactful ideas because most of the stuff that gets passed to me is very mundane as an intern.
> In my current job it is more of a top down style but there is room for me to bring up ideas like automation ideas etc
Yes definitely, if you have ideas that will help with team goals or problems the team is facing that are better than what is planned you should bring them up.
You can also chat with your manager that you want to start thinking critically about what the most impactful work is to do
> stuff that gets passed to me is very mundane as an intern
This is to be expected as an intern since you're still building your fundamentals so I wouldn't worry too much
Is manager communication a big thing when it comes to getting impactful stuff and getting promotions. And is it manager communication or manager transparency because I think their is a small but important distinction there. In the fact that when it comes to manager communication I pick in choose how and what I tell my manager to paint the best advantaged picture where as transparency is telling everything how it is. Or is the optimal path somewhere in the middle.
Great post Ryan!
My takeaway is that nobody cares about how many (or how little) hours you dedicate to something, but about your impact.
I'll try to apply to myself the idea of negotiating my level of investment in different workstreams. I never thought about it this way, instead, I was just jumping wherever I was needed.
I'd love to read more about how to make sure that your low level of investment in some workstream makes the most impact possible. I think it would be very easy to plan for that 20% time investment and when things go wrong you end up stretching yourself.
Thanks Fran! Agreed, impact is the most important thing
> I'd love to read more about how to make sure that your low level of investment in some workstream makes the most impact possible.
For me in this particular case, I focused on "high leverage" work like reviewing code and coordinating the overall workstream. Working through others was the main way I was able to lead without spending a lot of time executing on projects
Love it, working through others. I'll bring this up with this wording in my job too, this post has really expanded my vocabulary :)
"You can’t say no to everything but explaining why work isn’t impactful should help you get some time back."
Something I recently came across.
Though, I proposed a simpler solution than the complexity involved.
I should've instead asked what immediate value addressing tech debt in that situation would bring to customers compared to other work we got in place.
It's so easy to forget the customers in midst of hardcore engineering.
Yep, "focus on impact" :)
I would like to add two links that may be of interest:
How to manage tasks as a product manager (or developer): https://www.leadinginproduct.com/p/how-to-manage-tasks-as-a-product
Prioritizing Quality, not Tasks alone: https://www.leadinginproduct.com/p/prioritizing-quality-not-tasks-alone
If I am a entry level engineer or I haven't gotten those higher up positions, how can I protect my time on unimportant tasks that are thrown on to me. Do I do a worse job that gets the job done but doesn't require a huge investment or do I push that work on to others. But the thing is I am entry level I don't really have the power to push things to people under me because I am at the bottom. Is the strategy to not to get put in that position in the first place when it comes to planning and communication to my manager on the things I would like to take on.
It depends. In some cases, you can't avoid work that is assigned to you that isn't impactful. For that work, I'd try to get through it quickly (with solid quality of course)
> Is the strategy to not to get put in that position in the first place when it comes to planning and communication to my manager on the things I would like to take on.
Yes, that'd help. You will have more influence over what is worked on during planning. Imagine you found something more impactful to work on and could communicate why that is to your manager. If you're convincing, they should be receptive given that they just want to maximize their team's impact.
Company culture also plays into this dynamic. At Meta, planning is often engineering-driven. We have a lot more influence over what we do as a result. If your company is more top-down, it may be more challenging to control what you work on.
Makes sense, do your work with good quality so that you are known to be responsible and take care of tasks to build that credibility. And for your impact work you want to ideally drive for that stuff during planning. In my current job it is more of a top down style but there is room for me to bring up ideas like automation ideas etc. Do you think that is a way I can fill my plate with impactful ideas because most of the stuff that gets passed to me is very mundane as an intern.
> In my current job it is more of a top down style but there is room for me to bring up ideas like automation ideas etc
Yes definitely, if you have ideas that will help with team goals or problems the team is facing that are better than what is planned you should bring them up.
You can also chat with your manager that you want to start thinking critically about what the most impactful work is to do
> stuff that gets passed to me is very mundane as an intern
This is to be expected as an intern since you're still building your fundamentals so I wouldn't worry too much
Is manager communication a big thing when it comes to getting impactful stuff and getting promotions. And is it manager communication or manager transparency because I think their is a small but important distinction there. In the fact that when it comes to manager communication I pick in choose how and what I tell my manager to paint the best advantaged picture where as transparency is telling everything how it is. Or is the optimal path somewhere in the middle.