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The life of analytics lead or “I figured you would do it yourself”

There was a comment to my last article :

“Or sometimes you meet responsible people with honest eyes, discuss a work plan, create agreements. And ... then people do nothing, or drag out the process, or make a dumb look. And you stand and think which of us is a fool? ” .

Once I was absent, a colleague replaced my role as lead, and we got the following correspondence:

Roman: It's hard to manage people).
He set a completely simple task, as a result, all three did differently, and none did as it was written in the task (written, not spoken, but written))) ...
Hope: Ahah
Hope: Vooot
Nadezhda: Sometimes I don’t do anything with my own hands, but so get tired during the day that I think it would be better to sit and do a point task.
Roman: Well, yes, it’s difficult to synchronize.
And it’s hard not to set a task, but to convince and understand that everyone has read it at least correctly, understood correctly. For example, it seems obvious to me several times to read what they wrote to you, and, if in doubt, ask. But how can I do it not as it is written and answer about the implementation is not clear to me). And here the most difficult thing in the work of a leader is to respond to this inadequately and adequately.

All this prompted me to think of a new article.

At first glance, it might seem that the leader of analytics (or maybe the leader of testers, the leader of development) is some kind of person who gave out tasks and kicks everyone in terms of their completion, and only organizational moments and processes in the department lie entirely on the shoulders of the department head and on project managers.

I’ll tell you what the leader actually does every day and .... drum roll .... optional (unexpectedly, yes?).

Disclaimer: the article is based on my humble experience, if there is something to enrich the stories - please comment, chat!

I want to start from afar. At the start of my analytic career, the leader of the group was a girl who has the most experience in analytics. Naturally, this does not mean that she knew everything. And she doesn’t say that she handed out tasks as a teacher: like you do it, but I will check whether it’s right or not, and give a mark.

As I understand it now, she received tasks from the leadership in one form or another, she sought an understanding of goals and expectations, deadlines, and broadcast to us. How exactly will you do - she certainly did not tell. Even then, I realized that you need to independently come up with several solutions and go with them to accept one of them. But there was such a case that I either hurried, or didn’t want to invent something myself and immediately went with the question: what shall we do? I still remember how she rises from a pile of her papers and heaps of open applications on her computer, looks at me and says with displeasure "Well, in general, I figured you would do it yourself." I had to do, and so responsibility was born.
I hope you understand that of course I still had mistakes in behavior, but there were already fewer of them. And there were several people like me in the lead, which means with each their own approach and the frequency of “bringing to feelings”.

So, the first thing that a leader does consciously or unconsciously, is to teach his colleagues to be responsible and proactive.

It even seems to me that consciously is more difficult than not consciously. You just keep silence every time, so that your colleagues offer ideas, and every time you force yourself not to get into work.

In this regard, I really like the presentation by Alexander Orlov on delegation (Stratoplan company, they have articles here and have their own forum on their site).

Further, the story was the same with the same girl: it was necessary to prepare the status for certain works, she said in words in what format and said by what time everything should be ready.

I figured out how to formalize the result and gave it out exactly at the time set by it. I wonder what happened next? Then I heard that another analyst Ekaterina (let's call her that) did everything right, but you, Nadezhda, didn’t. Look, Hope, how Catherine works and be like her.

Of course, my vanity was hurt. I didn’t understand how it was like that: did Catherine just do the work “from the fence to the dinner”, and now I have to equal her? And then I was upset that the lead had to quickly transform my report, and she apparently did not plan to do this.

What are the conclusions?

I have these:

  1. , , , , -;
  2. .

So, the second thing a lead does every day is it sets unambiguous tasks with a deadline for their implementation, checks how they are understood, depending on the degree of trust, uses one or another type of control (periodic, iterative, final - everything is also cool for Stratoplan to tell about it) .

There were still interesting moments in that team of analysts, but I would like to go by the time I became the leader over the development group.

I did not code, I was just too charged and motivated. And of course, as you can guess, not all the developers in the group liked my appointment. Especially for those who are ten years older than me and have eaten not a single project.

It all started from the first days of my assumption of office. The most inveterate public tried to hurt me in every possible way and somehow undermine my fragile authority. I couldn’t find anything better than to write a letter to him about the following in my mail (unfortunately, I can’t find the original anymore):
“Hi, Daniel (let's call him that). Life is complicated, and now it turned out that I was assigned the role of lead over this area of ​​development. I see that you are a strong team, but you have your own problems, and this is normal. I really want to help you solve them so that the work is calm and harmonious. If you already have some unjustified expectations from me as a lead, let's discuss them constructively. ”

Then there was a correspondence from which I realized that the main motivator for an employee is the salary, and apparently for him I became another person who makes decisions on it. This could not but sadden him.

So, the third, for which the leader is responsible, is the motivation of employees, including the escalation to their superiors about a monetary increase. And this is difficult.

Most likely, something interesting can be found in the management literature, the books “Motivate Me Right” by Stas Davydov and The Black Book of Manager by Slava Pankratov immediately come to mind.

Of course, your career will not always grow up, I was just an analyst after leadership over developers. But when I again became a leader and already over analysts, I also had insights in management.

The brightest moment is when you seem to be in control of everything, you understand what and when to ask, know the next steps and keep this plan in your head or somewhere in your notes. And then bam, and you are on a hard sick leave when you are not even able to speak on the phone. And then the next most active person in your group should come to your aid. But what if there are none?

I had such a moment when the final stage of the project was passing, and it was unrealistic to transfer it. And as far as you understand, analysts are the main soloists at the receptions. And it is good that in my group there was a man who did not save and took the maximum blow on analytical issues. Now he himself is becoming a leader, and I wish him not to repeat my and not only mistakes.

But what would happen if not him? It was after that incident that I realized that I needed to raise a deputy and share my responsibilities with him as much as possible.

So, the fourth task of the lead is to find and grow something like that (no matter how arrogant it sounds).

In conclusion, I would also like to talk about one skill of the lead. Lead is a snowflake man (an oxymoron is overheard by Stratoplan). Indeed, while you are an ordinary, or maybe even a leading analyst on a project, you are faced with clear tasks with a clear deadline from the RP or the bosses. When you are a leader, the “great combinator” wakes up in you how to organize everything so that the guys do not burn out, and that the tasks are all done on time and in the right quality. At the same time, I’ll clarify that your guys can work on different projects, with different terms and RPs, and they themselves also with different background. They come to you with any question: from “why it is so written in ChTZ” from the customer to “I need a new mouse” from a colleague.

A lot of people talk and write about this, but I really liked the comparison on this score in the presentation of the development team: “Now I am a team leader, but why am I so sick? Practical advice / Eugene Kot. "

In any case, the role of the lead is very interesting and multifaceted. And there is a big plus in the fact that you are not focused on any one subject area and technology, as an analyst who works on an atomic task, but you can cover the whole range of tasks of your group.
And to the question “they offer me leadership: to agree or not?”, My answer is “of course to agree!”.

Do not be afraid and go for it!

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