Ask HN: Is being on multiple teams manageable?
4 comments
This is madness right?
My real main issue is that time just flies by and I am learning nothing and accomplishing nothing
The advice given to me was to make a mini plan for my own time and to define the role I am in myself. This confuses me because it doesn't actually solve my issue that my time is spread too thin.
People who move to senior positions often feel like the work they are doing is not as productive as they were doing before, even if they are doing OK by the judgement of the people around them.
You "sense" that one team feels let down. How does your manager feel about your work? Have you been an advocate for that team with your manager? (e.g. not just "i am overwhelmed" but "i don't have the resources to give Team X" what it needs.) Can you help team X by letting something else slide or getting people to be more self-sufficient?
You "sense" that one team feels let down. How does your manager feel about your work? Have you been an advocate for that team with your manager? (e.g. not just "i am overwhelmed" but "i don't have the resources to give Team X" what it needs.) Can you help team X by letting something else slide or getting people to be more self-sufficient?
Yes, I could let other things slide. The issue I have with that is then those things become more urgent further down the road. Or they bubble up to become more significant because they weren't addressed.
My manager feels okay/good about the work I am doing. That confuses me though because as I said I have said explicitly to her that I am not accomplishing anything. If I continue with what I am doing and the teams still have good output then it looks like I have done a good job.
My manager feels okay/good about the work I am doing. That confuses me though because as I said I have said explicitly to her that I am not accomplishing anything. If I continue with what I am doing and the teams still have good output then it looks like I have done a good job.
Then maybe you have.
After SCRUM ceremonies, time allocated for ad-hoc meetings, time set aside for some other ad hoc stuff, I only have a couple of hours per team per week.
This is madness right? I've tried to bring it up with my manager and tell her that it isn't working. I have brought up the fact that context switching destroys any productivity and that I feel that I am accomplishing nothing other than attending meetings. I have brought up that I can't properly support the engineers on the team and that I can really only give them moral support and act as a sounding board for some issues they may face.
The advice given to me was to make a mini plan for my own time and to define the role I am in myself. This confuses me because it doesn't actually solve my issue that my time is spread too thin.
I was told I could choose to attend stand-ups where I had proper updates but as soon as I tried that I had a scrum master asking if I can resume going to the meetings. There's also an expectation that I know what the teams are doing.. so going to the stand-ups make sense in that regard (especially when WFH).
I can sense one team feeling let down by me and the fact that I can't spend any time working with them. Issues come up that should have been addressed in the past but there is no time to address them.
My real main issue is that time just flies by and I am learning nothing and accomplishing nothing. I am looking for feedback to understand if this is normal in a senior(-ish) role. Am I not thinking about it correctly? Or is this a bad way to work?