Pressure from manager
As a manager, how much pressure should you be putting on your directs to get more done? My manager as of late has often and openly been saying and putting lots of pressure on us to get more things done because "other teams are getting things done quickly and we don't want to slow them down". Also that we HAVE to have more features done before X deadline. I already notice some people working late hours, and putting more pressure is only going to make that worse. Also I think increased pressure to work faster would reduce code quality... But maybe I'm wrong here. Edit: to clarify that I'm not a manager, I'm a direct under said manager.
It’s frustrating for managers to feel like the bottleneck. They get heat from their managers, too. At the same time, it’s your manager’s responsibility to figure out what additional resources your team needs to meet deadlines, and to advocate on your team’s behalf. You might try explaining to your manager what you would need in order to achieve goals. More headcount? Outsourcing part of the work? Different prioritizations?
I agree with this. I don't think it's the responsibility as us devs to figure out how to make things be done faster. It's not like anybody on our team is slacking - if anything, the people on this team are some of the most hardworking people I've met so far at Microsoft.
Agreed that this is a red flag and it sounds like you manager wants to run a pressure cooker org and burn his people out. But to answer your question, you want your directs to feel challenged and be engaged, but don't burn them out that's the worst thing. Really though, there are 4 levers to pull. You can cut scope, extend the deadline, get more resources and remove execution barriers. Hopefully you already have a pulse on what execution barriers your team faces. You can directly as your devs if they think more people would help (more people might not help!). Moving the deadline is usually impossible at FB due to 6 month PSC. Cutting scope can almost always work. Here you need to be an advocate for your devs and tell your manager that he has to prioritize feature A,B,C,D and he can't get all of them. And check with your devs to make sure their priorities align with yours. For example, maybe your devs are secretly spending 50% of their time on feature X because they think it's cool and want to get a GE but they don't know that feature C is way more important. (Keep in mind we sold them that FB was a bottom up org and they'd have a say in the decisions on what gets built. In future halfs, give your devs a say in the roadmap)
I want to clarify that I'm an IC, not an EM. That said, I agree that this isn't an IC's responsibility. We're all already working really hard and for him to say to us that we need to work even more, to me, is absolutely unacceptable. He needs to figure out a way to make things work - if he needs to move people from one project to another, do it. If he needs to hire more people and we have the headcount, do it. Or like you said, reduce scope if he sees that as a team we can't fulfill the promises he's made. Instead of pushing us harder, which will cause us to leave the team/burn out, think of other ways.
There's not enough information here. It really depends on what your team is capable of. Long hours don't necessarily mean people are working hard, and you may have some underperformers. Or the manager may be cracking under unreasonable pressure. Ultimately this isn't good manager either way. It's reasonable to put pressure on an individual you believe is underperforming. But if the whole team is slower than expected that's on the manager. He/she should be evaluating what the problem is and taking action to fix it (too many distractions, poor project tracking, poor definition/requirements, etc.). Just complaining to the team and saying "do better" hurts morale and solves nothing.
The thing is, I don't think our team as a whole or any individual person is slacking. From what I've observed, we're all doing our best and most people on our team spend every second in the office hard at work. I haven't been on this team for long, but I already feel unmotivated because of the pressure he's trying to place on us.
Which team is this?
That’s a red flag, I’d run now