Project Management Techniques For Engineers

Should you try Google’s famous “20% time” experiment to encourage innovation? We tried this at Duolingo years ago. It didn’t work. It wasn’t enough time for people to start meaningful projects, and very few people took advantage of it because the framework was pretty vague. I knew there had to be other ways to drive innovation at the company. So, here are 3 other initiatives we’ve tried, what we’ve learned from each, and what we're going to try next. 💡 Innovation Awards: Annual recognition for those who move the needle with boundary-pushing projects. The upside: These awards make our commitment to innovation clear, and offer a well-deserved incentive to those who have done remarkable work. The downside: It’s given to individuals, but we want to incentivize team work. What’s more, it’s not necessarily a framework for coming up with the next big thing. 💻 Hackathon: This is a good framework, and lots of companies do it. Everyone (not just engineers) can take two days to collaborate on and present anything that excites them, as long as it advances our mission or addresses a key business need. The upside: Some of our biggest features grew out of hackathon projects, from the Duolingo English Test (born at our first hackathon in 2013) to our avatar builder. The downside: Other than the time/resource constraint, projects rarely align with our current priorities. The ones that take off hit the elusive combo of right time + a problem that no other team could tackle. 💥 Special Projects: Knowing that ideal equation, we started a new program for fostering innovation, playfully dubbed DARPA (Duolingo Advanced Research Project Agency). The idea: anyone can pitch an idea at any time. If they get consensus on it and if it’s not in the purview of another team, a cross-functional group is formed to bring the project to fruition. The most creative work tends to happen when a problem is not in the clear purview of a particular team; this program creates a path for bringing these kinds of interdisciplinary ideas to life. Our Duo and Lily mascot suits (featured often on our social accounts) came from this, as did our Duo plushie and the merch store. (And if this photo doesn't show why we needed to innovate for new suits, I don't know what will!) The biggest challenge: figuring out how to transition ownership of a successful project after the strike team’s work is done. 👀 What’s next? We’re working on a program that proactively identifies big picture, unassigned problems that we haven’t figured out yet and then incentivizes people to create proposals for solving them. How that will work is still to be determined, but we know there is a lot of fertile ground for it to take root. How does your company create an environment of creativity that encourages true innovation? I'm interested to hear what's worked for you, so please feel free to share in the comments! #duolingo #innovation #hackathon #creativity #bigideas

I've managed 100+ projects over 15 years. Here's what nobody tells you about project management: It's not about fancy tools or complicated charts. It's about turning chaos into cash. Here's seven ways to do it right: 1. Promote clear communication • Most projects fail because people don't understand their role • Define everything in writing • No assumptions 2. Manage the risks • Problems don't show up with a warning • Create backup plans before you need them • Small issues become disasters if ignored 3. Practice ruthless accountability • Track everything • Every task needs an owner • No excuses, just results 4. Support cross-team execution • Silos kill projects • Build bridges between departments • Create shared victories 5. Promote team empowerment • Micromanagement breeds mediocrity • Give clear direction, then step back • Let your people shine 6. Maximize your resources • Time is money • Talent is scarce • Use both wisely 7. Focus on results • Deliverables > Activities • Measure what matters • Align with business goals Great project management isn't about managing projects. It's about leading people to achieve something meaningful.

How to compare your eng team's velocity to industry benchmarks (and increase it): Step 1: Send your eng team this 4-question survey to get a baseline on key metrics: https://lnkd.in/gQGfApx4 You can use any surveying tool to do this—Google Forms, Microsoft Forms, Typeform, etc.—just make sure you can view the responses in a spreadsheet in order to calculate averages. Important: responses must be anonymous to preserve trust, and this survey is designed for people who write code as part of their job. Step 2: Calculate your how you're doing. - For Speed, Quality, and Impact, find the average value for each question’s responses. - For Effectiveness, calculate the percent of favorable responses (also called a Top 2 Box score) across all Effectiveness responses. See the example in the template above. Step 3: Track velocity improvements over time. Once you’ve got a baseline, you can start to regularly re-run this survey to track your progress. Use a quarterly cadence to begin with. Benchmarking data, both internal and external, will help contextualize your results. Remember, speed is only relative to your competition. Below are external benchmarks for the key metrics. You can also download full benchmarking data, including segments on company size, sector, and even benchmarks for mobile engineers here: https://lnkd.in/gBJzCdTg Look at 75th percentile values for comparison initially. Being a top-quartile performer is a solid goal for any development team. Step 4: Decide which area to improve first. Look at your data and using benchmarking data as a reference point, pick which metric you believe will make the biggest impact on velocity. To make this decision about what to work on to improve product velocity, drill down to the data on a team level, and also look at qualitative data from the engineers themselves. Step 5: Link efficiency improvements to core business impact metrics Instead of presenting these CI and release improvement projects as “tech debt repayment” or “workflow improvements” without clear goals and outcomes, you can directly link efficiency projects back to core business impact metrics. Ongoing research (https://lnkd.in/grHQNtSA) continues to show a correlation between developer experience and efficiency, looking at data from 40,000 developers across 800 organizations. Improving the Effectiveness score (DXI) by one point translates to saving 13 minutes per week per developer, equivalent to 10 hours annually. With this org’s 150 engineers, improving the score by one point results in about 33 hours saved per week. For so much more, don't miss the full post: https://lnkd.in/grrpfwrK

🏗 How To Tackle Large, Complex Projects. With practical techniques to meet the desired outcome, without being disrupted or derailed along the way ↓ 🤔 99% of large projects don’t finish on budget and on time. 🤔 Projects rarely fail because of poor skills or execution. ✅ They fail because of optimism and insufficient planning. ✅ Also because of poor risk assessment, discovery, politics. 🎯 Best strategy: Think Slow (detailed planning) + Act Fast. ✅ Allocate 20–45% of total project effort for planning. ✅ Riskier and larger projects always require more planning. ✅ Think Right → Left: start from end goal, work backwards. ✅ For each goal, consider immediate previous steps/events. ✅ Set up milestones, prioritize key components for each. ✅ Consider stakeholders, users, risks, constraints, metrics. 🚫 Don’t underestimate unknown domain, blockers, deps. ✅ Compare vs. similar projects (reference class forecasting). ✅ Set up an “execution mode” to defer/minimize disruptions. 🚫 Nothing hurts productivity more than unplanned work. Over the last few years, I've been using the technique called “Event Storming” suggested by Matteo Cavucci to capture user’s experience moments through the lens of business needs. With it, we focus on the desired business outcome, and then use research insights to project events that users will be going through towards that outcome. On that journey, we identify key milestones and break user’s events into 2 main buckets: user’s success moments (which we want to dial up) and user’s pain points or frustrations (which we want to dial down). We then break out into groups of 3–4 people to separately prioritize these events and estimate their impact and effort on Effort vs. Value curves (https://lnkd.in/evrKJUEy). The next step is identifying key stakeholders to engage with, risks to consider (e.g. legacy systems, 3rd-party dependency etc.), resources and tooling. We reserve special timing to identify key blockers and constraints that endanger successful outcome or slow us down. If possible, we also set up UX metrics to track how successful we actually are in improving the current state of UX. When speaking to business, usually I speak about better discovery and scoping as the best way to mitigate risk. We can of course throw ideas into the market and run endless experiments. But not for critical projects that get a lot of visibility — e.g. replacing legacy systems or launching a new product. They require thorough planning to prevent big disasters and urgent rollbacks. If you’d like to learn more, I can only highly recommend "How Big Things Get Done" (https://lnkd.in/erhcBuxE), a wonderful book by Prof. Bent Flyvbjerg and Dan Gardner who have conducted a vast amount of research on when big projects fail and succeed. A wonderful book worth reading! Happy planning, everyone! 🎉🥳

The project that led to my promotion to Staff Engineer at Meta was an internal debug tool that 500+ engineers adopted. This project didn't exist on any roadmap, and my leadership team was completely unaware of my work for the first 80% of the project's existence. This was risky: the fast track to career stagnation is working on projects that no one cares about. So if you feel stuck with lower-priority work, you only have two options: 1️⃣ Drop your work. Figure out how to contribute to more impactful projects that leaders do care about. 2️⃣ Make your work a higher priority. Make a compelling case using data, narrative, or conversation that the work you're doing is actually undervalued. The second tactic is harder and, therefore, has less competition. If you succeed at *creating* a new priority, you get an outsized amount of the credit. My full thoughts: https://lnkd.in/gKJmr6xW

𝟳 𝗗𝗲𝗽𝗹𝗼𝘆𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗦𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗴𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗦𝗲𝗮𝗺𝗹𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗦𝗼𝗳𝘁𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗥𝗲𝗹𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗲𝘀 Effective deployment strategies are critical for maintaining stability, minimizing downtime, and ensuring a smooth user experience. Whether you're rolling out new features or updating existing ones, the right approach can make all the difference. Here’s a quick look at the top deployment strategies and their use cases: 1. 𝗖𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗿𝘆 𝗥𝗲𝗹𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗲𝘀    - Roll out new versions to a small, select group before a full launch.    - 𝗣𝘂𝗿𝗽𝗼𝘀𝗲: Early issue detection with minimal impact. 2. 𝗕𝗹𝘂𝗲/𝗚𝗿𝗲𝗲𝗻 𝗗𝗲𝗽𝗹𝗼𝘆𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀    - Run two identical environments in parallel, seamlessly switching between them.    - 𝗣𝘂𝗿𝗽𝗼𝘀𝗲: Zero-downtime releases and immediate rollback options. 3. 𝗙𝗲𝗮𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗧𝗼𝗴𝗴𝗹𝗲𝘀    - Enable or disable features dynamically with feature flags.    - 𝗣𝘂𝗿𝗽𝗼𝘀𝗲: Phased rollouts and risk mitigation by toggling features without redeployment. 4. 𝗔/𝗕 𝗧𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴    - Test different versions of a feature with real users to gather data-driven insights.    - 𝗣𝘂𝗿𝗽𝗼𝘀𝗲: Understand user preferences and optimize features based on behavior. 5. 𝗗𝗮𝗿𝗸 𝗟𝗮𝘂𝗻𝗰𝗵𝗲𝘀    - Release features in production without exposing them to users immediately.    - 𝗣𝘂𝗿𝗽𝗼𝘀𝗲: Validate new features while minimizing user impact and risk. 6. 𝗥𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗗𝗲𝗽𝗹𝗼𝘆𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁    - Gradual updates across servers, ensuring continuous availability.    - 𝗣𝘂𝗿𝗽𝗼𝘀𝗲: Incremental, controlled deployment for reduced downtime and disruption. 7. 𝗣𝗵𝗮𝘀𝗲𝗱 𝗥𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗼𝘂𝘁    - Deploy in structured phases to progressively larger user groups.    - 𝗣𝘂𝗿𝗽𝗼𝘀𝗲: Controlled exposure to monitor performance and address issues gradually. Each strategy serves a unique purpose and provides flexibility to adapt to different deployment scenarios, helping teams balance stability, risk, and user satisfaction. This cheat sheet can serve as a handy guide for anyone managing or planning deployments. Which strategy has been most effective for you?

To change the reality in which we keep pushing work into the operation, things hardly move, and we’re are often late, we need to unclog the flow. We do that by controlling our WIP (Work in Process); we make sure we don’t work on too many things at the same time and avoid multitasking between them. But. With less work in process, the concern is that our throughput will go down. And that concern is valid unless we take it further.   Controlling WIP provides visibility we didn’t have before. It enables us to see more clearly where and why things are still delayed; we can locate other obstacles to our flow and remove them. We can see more clearly which resources have the largest queues of work waiting in front of them; we can identify the operation’s constraints and start managing them. Then, we get the flow going much faster and we’re able to maximize our throughput.   In production, it’s usually easier to start by choking the release of raw material, then identify the constraints, and then locate other obstacles to our flow. In project environments, it’s usually easier the start by freezing projects, then locate the obstacles to the flow, and then identify the constraints. The logic is the same. Goldratt’s Rules of Flow. #goldrattsrulesofflow #theoryofconstraints #goldratt #projectmanagement #devops #engineering #pmi

I am constantly thinking about how to foster innovation in my product organization. Building teams that are experts at execution is the easy part—when there’s a clear problem, product orgs are great at coming up with smart solutions. But it’s impossible to optimize your way into innovation. You can’t only rely on incremental improvement to keep growing. You need to come up with new problem spaces, rather than just finding better solutions to the same old problems. So, how do we come up with those new spaces? Here are a few things I’m trying at Duolingo: 1. Innovation needs a high-energy environment, and a slow process will kill a great idea. So I always ask myself: Can we remove some of the organizational barriers here? Do managers from seven different teams really need to say yes on every project? Seeking consensus across the company—rather than just keeping everyone informed—can be a major deterrent to innovation. 2. Similarly, beware of defaulting to “following up.” If product meetings are on a weekly cadence, every time you do this, you are allocating seven days to a task that might only need two. We try to avoid this and promote a sense of urgency, which is essential for innovative ideas to turn into successes. 3. Figure out the right incentive. Most product orgs reward team members whose ideas have measurable business impact, which works in most contexts. But once you’ve found product-market fit, it is often easiest to generate impact through smaller wins. So, naturally, if your org tends to only reward impact, you have effectively incentivized constant optimization of existing features instead of innovation. In the short term things will look great, but over time your product becomes stale. I try to show my teams that we value and reward bigger ideas. If someone sticks their neck out on a new concept, we should highlight that—even if it didn’t pan out. Big swings should be celebrated, even if we didn’t win, because there are valuable learnings there. 4. Look for innovative thinkers with a history of zero-to-one feature work. There are lots of amazing product managers out there, but not many focus on new problem domains. If a PM has created something new from scratch and done it well, that’s a good sign. An even better sign: if they show excitement about and gravitate toward that kind of work. If that sounds like you—if you’re a product manager who wants to think big picture and try out big ideas in a fast-paced environment with a stellar mission—we want you on our team. We’re hiring a Director of Product Management: https://lnkd.in/dQnWqmDZ #productthoughts #innovation #productmanagement #zerotoone

I don't class conflict as a "waste" because not all conflict is bad...but unresolved conflict can be VERY wasteful in organizational improvement efforts. As a Lean and Leadership Coach, I have worked with companies to develop systems and skills to reduce harmful conflict, in order to make continuous improvement a reality. People ask me - how do you know there's conflict in the first place? Do we have to assess it in some way? Short answer yes. The problem has to be visible. My own approach is to ask questions that help me understand it through my 1:1 interviews as part of my Discovery phase. Here's what I (and many studies) see as the 5 of the main causes of workplace conflict...and how to resolve them 👇 👉 Communication Conflict: Studies have found that 39% of workplace conflicts arise from communication differences. I coached 'Joan' who told me that she and her direct report ('Jim') only interact when there's a problem. They both want the same results, but they don't spend time together proactively figuring out how to get them. Resolve it through: ✔️ Holding regular 1:1 and team check-ins ✔️ Reviewing communication and information flow as part of process improvement efforts ✔️ Improving meeting management 👉 Values Conflict: Research indicates that 18% of conflicts are due to clashing values. I see it in teams all the time- 'Mark' valued speed and 'Greg' valued precision. It turned into personal conflict as they were both too set on their own values, to try and understand where the other is coming from. Resolve it through: ✔️ Focusing on shared goals and common ground. ✔️ Respecting different viewpoints ✔️ Investing in people and leader development, to develop these skills in everyone. 👉 Resource Conflict: Studies found that 33% of workplace conflicts are due to too much work without enough support or a clash over differing cross- departmental priorities. A simple example- the Sales team rush orders to hit targets but Operations burns out trying to deliver. Resolve it through: ✔️ Being fair and transparent about resources. ✔️ Prioritizing tasks when resources are limited. ✔️ Working together to find creative solutions. 👉 Personality Conflict: One study found that a whopping 49% of workplace conflicts are attributed to clashes between personalities or egos. This comes down to how people behave, how they judge others and their level of EQ. Resolve it through: ✔️ Learning about different work styles. ✔️ Investing in personal development ✔️ Investing in team EQ development and team bonding 👉 Role Conflict: Unclear roles and responsibilities can cause confusion and disputes. Approximately 22% of workplace conflicts is said to stem from unclear roles. Resolve it through: ✔️ Clearly defining roles and responsibilities. ✔️ Reviewing job duties regularly and using them in 1:1's. ✔️ Discussing and fix any role overlaps. How should we be dealing with conflict in our organizations? Leave your thoughts below 🙏

"𝗪𝗲 𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝗶𝗻𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻𝘂𝗲 𝗯𝘆 15% 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝘆𝗲𝗮𝗿." Many product teams hear this from leadership, and then immediately jump to brainstorming features.  𝗕𝘂𝘁 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗶𝗳 𝘄𝗲 𝘁𝗼𝗼𝗸 𝗮 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲𝗱 𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗮𝗰𝗵? I came across this fantastic chart that perfectly illustrates how to connect high-level business goals directly to tangible customer opportunities and UX metrics. It’s a masterclass in building a coherent product strategy. Here’s the breakdown: 1️⃣ 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗚𝗼𝗮𝗹 𝗖𝗮𝘀𝗰𝗮𝗱𝗲: It starts with a broad 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗻𝘆 𝗚𝗼𝗮𝗹 (e.g., Increase revenue with stable NPS) and narrows it down to specific 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁 𝗚𝗼𝗮𝗹𝘀. This provides clarity and focus. 2️⃣ 𝗜𝗱𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗳𝘆𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗟𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘀: Instead of guessing, we identify the primary business impact levers. To increase revenue, do we need to focus on 𝗔𝗰𝗾𝘂𝗶𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 (more paying customers) or 𝗘𝘅𝗽𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 (increase average contract size)? This is a critical strategic choice. 3️⃣ 𝗙𝗶𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 "𝗪𝗵𝘆": This is where it gets interesting. We move from what is happening (e.g., low retention) to why it's happening. The chart points to crucial insights like "New users aren't reaching the 'aha' moment" or "New users aren't upgrading." 4️⃣ 𝗘𝗺𝗽𝗮𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘇𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗨𝘀𝗲𝗿: The framework forces us to translate business problems into 𝗖𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗿 𝗢𝗽𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁𝘂𝗻𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗲𝘀. "New users aren't upgrading" becomes "Everything I need is in the free plan." This shift is vital for building products people love. 5️⃣ 𝗠𝗮𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝘁 𝗠𝗲𝗮𝘀𝘂𝗿𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲: Finally, we connect these customer opportunities to concrete 𝗨𝗫 𝗠𝗲𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗰𝘀 like Engagement, Comprehension, or Visit Frequency. Now your design and engineering teams have clear, measurable targets that ladder all the way up to the company's top-line goal. This approach transforms product development from a feature factory into an impact-driven engine.