Austin Munhofen, Project Manager at Sparkbox
Building the right thing is hard work in software development. At Sparkbox, a web design and development firm based in Dayton, Ohio, digital project managers and tech leads work closely together to ensure success.
In the DPM-Tech Lead partnership, project managers focus on the vision for the project and important investment decisions such as priority, implementation order and depth of execution. Tech leads advocate by weighing in on options, communicating the state of the project and thinking about the next steps for the project architecture. Together, project managers and tech leads are a powerful force that supports stakeholders and teams in achieving project and business goals.
In this guest post, Sparkbox Project Manager and Digital PM Summit alum Austin Munhofen offers an inside look at the DPM-Tech Lead alliance, offering tips on how to cultivate an effective partnership.
There are so many project management tools we leverage to do our jobs well: Basecamp, Harvest, Jira, Slack. But, really, there is only one ultimate best friend and that is your technical lead.
So What Does A Project Tech Lead Do, Anyway?
At Sparkbox, we focus on iterating and crystalizing what it means to be a tech lead on a project. For the most part, each project at Sparkbox is made up of a team of developers, frontend designers, one project manager and one tech lead. Although your tech lead will still contribute code, their role is also to empower and unlock the project through communication, leadership, technical skill and impact.
If you are looking to learn more about the tech lead role, Sparkbox’s Technical Director Ryan Cromwell gave a presentation on “Making the Leap to Tech Lead.”
Tech Leads Focus on Communication & Leadership
Our teams at Sparkbox have greatly benefited from bringing in a tech lead even before the development—or implementation—phase begins. We often define who the project tech lead is before or during the Discovery Phase to help set the technical architecture for the Implementation Phase. Having a tech lead involved at this preliminary phase gives them important historical decision-making knowledge that they can reference throughout the project’s duration. When the Discovery Phase ends and the Implementation Phase begins, the tech lead’s leadership role on the project includes setting and communicating the technical vision and expectations to the rest of the team.
In addition to ensuring that everyone is aligned on the technical vision, our tech lead keeps a pulse on all areas of the project: from UX and content to design. They understand where these disciplines intersect and whether or not there are any technical limitations or complexities that impact these areas. A tech lead is the strongest investigator and surveyor, identifying risks and surfacing ideas for how to mitigate them and then communicating those ideas to the team, client and stakeholders.
It's true that a tech lead often steps back from hands-on coding as they devote a portion of their time to these leadership activities. However, this doesn’t mean they’re removed entirely from development or day-to-day work. In fact, your tech lead should have their own development cards they’re assigned to and, on top of that, help unblock other team members and review code.
Tech Leads Create Impact through Technical Skill & Guidance
It’s clear that a tech lead needs to have a certain level of technical skill. At Sparkbox, they’re viewed by their peers as the “go-to expert” in at least one area of the codebase and have enough overall knowledge to recognize and address any technical problem. At Sparkbox, the tech lead is expected to build a technical architecture with the appropriate tech stack and delivery pipeline—a paramount foundational effort. Then, they must find and build seams in the architecture so the project team can maintain productivity and collaborate effectively with appropriately timed feedback loops.
Tech leads not only have a tremendous impact on the success of the project, but they positively impact individual team members on the project as well. With grace and tact, they sharpen others’ skills in the form of code reviews and technical guidance. The tech lead role is yet another opportunity to provide an intentional, specific teaching-learning opportunity for all individuals involved. At Sparkbox, we look to grow and encourage the cultivation of our team in fluency, humility and empathy, Sparkbox’s entry-level values.
Why Project Managers Need a Tech Lead
From everything above, it’s pretty clear that tech leads will bring a lot of value to the project as they are another individual with a heightened sense of ownership of the project. They see the big picture of the technical impacts and risks and are able to anticipate technical needs, all the while keeping in mind the business impacts of an iterative delivery. They’re thinking about the project in a very similar vein as a project manager—just how it relates to the technical side of the project.
A tech lead also helps team members level up their technical skills in a way that a project manager can’t. A project manager’s time is usually too concentrated on cultivating the client-team relationships and balancing the trifecta: scope, timeline and budget. We’re making sure our team is unblocked, scheduling reviews, continuously assessing our current progress as it compares to the measures of project success. Our skill sets are not technical in nature or in practice. A tech lead does, however, have a strong command of the technical space and is able to empower and advance developers in ways a project manager can’t.
As a project manager, you should lean on your tech lead to fill in the technical gaps and elevate projects to the next level for a successful and high-quality delivery for the client.
Paving the Way for the Most Beneficial Tech Lead-Project Manager Partnership
Communication, transparency, and setting expectations are key to harmony and success in every working relationship. But as a project manager, how can you ensure this tech lead relationship is really helping to move the project along and leading everything down the right path?
Trust
If there were a hierarchy of needs to show the importance of trust in a working relationship, it would be the foundation. It’s scientifically proven that high trust leads to better collaboration. There are many ways to get to a place where you have established trust with your tech lead, but the first way to begin this is by recognizing that you’re both human. You should both operate under the assumption that the other has the best of intentions for the project. Trusting in this assumption, you can have healthy conflict, productive discussions and make unified decisions.
Vulnerable Conversations
When a certain level of trust is established, it’s so much easier to have vulnerable conversations about blind spots. And the great thing about displaying professional vulnerability is that only leads to even more trust building, more support and more project success—it’s really a win-win-win-win.
At the start of every project, I sit down with the tech lead and share where they might need to provide a little extra support for me. In return, I hope and gently encourage the tech lead to share how I can best support them and any additional considerations I should keep in mind. It could even be guidance working on a particular individual professional goal for the quarter and I can provide valuable insight or feedback throughout the project that will support their goal.
Clarity of Expectations
The tech lead role is a very different one from the day-to-day development role. It can be difficult for a tech lead to know how much time to spend coding, teaching, planning—all the things they’re being asked to do. Without sitting down and discussing the expectations you have for them, they can easily be left flailing. Make your expectations known at the beginning of the project. And set a regular PM-Tech Lead meeting to continue the conversation about how expectations may have changed or stayed the same.
I schedule meetings with the tech lead weekly and use that time to discuss the health of the project from all angles. Are we moving in the right direction as defined in our project success document? Are there any foreseeable challenges or opportunities? These are some standard questions we review, along with a budget review, feature list review and a look at what’s coming in the next sprint. Regular meetings that are dedicated to these same questions and processes allow us to adjust to the project’s changing needs. Because projects rarely stay the same from the start. And it’s likely that as the project evolves, so will tech lead expectations.
The Case for a Tech Lead
I’ve worked on projects with a tech lead and without a tech lead. Those that have had a tech lead, especially the more technically complex projects, have had greater success metrics. And it’s not difficult to imagine why. If your organization currently doesn’t have a more formalized tech lead role, I highly encourage you to think of creative ways to either suggest or implement this on your projects. Your budget, client and developers will thank you.