Tools for Running Engineering Teams - An Ultimate Guide

In today's fast-paced tech environment, using the right tools isn't just a convenience; it's a necessity. Just as a mechanic needs the correct wrench, engineering leaders need the right software to keep their teams engaged, productive, and aligned with the company's goals.

But navigating the myriad of tools available can be overwhelming. That's why we've compiled this exhaustive guide. From strategy and team management to process management and infrastructure management, we've broken down the essentials into key functions and purposes. Our goal is to provide clarity and understanding, highlighting tools that resonate with the unique needs of engineering leaders.

This isn't just a list; it's a tailored roadmap, directing you to the tools that will help you steer your team toward success. So buckle up, and let's explore the ultimate tech stack for running engineering teams.

The right strategy acts as a compass, directing the engineering team toward the organization's goals. It encompasses everything from organizational design to alignment and delivery.

A report by PwC Strategy& shows that companies grow faster and earn more when their leaders are confident and committed to clear strategies. These strategies include understanding what they do best, focusing on becoming world-class in those areas, and only competing where they can succeed.

Here's a breakdown of an engineering leader's responsibilities and corresponding tools within the strategy realm.

Organization Design

According to research by Deloitte, companies with a high level of organizational design are five times more likely to manage change effectively, 4.9 times more likely to develop talent, and three times more likely to develop new products and services that disrupt markets.

Here are some of the best tools you can use to help with organizational design:

• Lucidchart: This easy-to-use tool lets engineering leaders draw charts, diagrams, and guides to help the team understand complex ideas. It makes working together easier.
• Miro: This online whiteboard tool is great for brainstorming and planning from far away. It helps the team work together creatively and come up with new ideas.
• Microsoft Visio: This powerful diagramming tool helps engineering teams create detailed organizational charts, process flow diagrams, and complex visual guides. With Visio, teams can visualize intricate structures, workflows, and systems in a user-friendly interface.

Business Alignment & Delivery

Business alignment and delivery is about aligning the engineering team's efforts with the broader company objectives to make sure everyone is working towards the same goals. When engineers work closely with business goals, they build things more smoothly and make better products. By understanding what's expected and having the tools to do the job, engineering teams are more likely to succeed.

Here are some of the best tools that can support these vital functions:

• Jellyfish: Jellyfish works with the tools your engineering team already uses. It helps leaders see what's important and make decisions based on data.
• Typo: Typo helps teams work together on projects and keeps track of goals. It lets everyone see how the project is going.
• LinearB: This tool helps make software better. Leaders can see what's happening and make smart choices to improve the work.
• Hatica: Hatica keeps track of projects and when they should be finished. Leaders can see if everything is going well and fix problems if they need to.

The strategy doesn't end with planning and alignment; it's a continuous process that requires monitoring, adapting, and executing. The tools mentioned above play a crucial role in ensuring the strategy aligns with the ever-changing dynamics of the tech world.

Behind every successful engineering venture lies a cohesive, skilled, and motivated team. Engineering leaders must ensure that the team's talents are tapped, nurtured, and aligned with organizational objectives.

A study conducted by Gallup found that highly engaged teams result in a 41% reduction in absenteeism and a 17% increase in productivity.

According to a study by Harvard Business Review, the best companies are 40% more productive than others. This boost in productivity leads to much higher profits, with operating margins that are 30% to 50% higher than industry competitors, and it also helps the companies grow faster.

Here's a closer look at the top tools you need for effective team management.

Acquiring Talent

Aside from hiring full-time (which usually goes under the HR department), engineering leaders need a secret weapon when it comes to staffing up quickly, regardless of whether they are working with freelancers, contractors, or other forms of independent talent.

The process is central to scaling the team, ensuring that the right people with the required skills and cultural fit are added to the organization.

The world of tools for acquiring talent has grown immensely in recent years, with businesses of all sizes increasingly turning to freelancers and independent contractors. This trend has spurred fierce competition among providers, each using different methods to address the demand. As the independent talent market continues to grow, staying ahead means considering a scaling partner that offers the right solutions and access to top talents.

Adeva is one such platform that stands out in this competitive landscape. Founded by engineers, it's a global network connecting companies with top tech professionals. What makes Adeva unique is its focus on long-term relationships, no recruitment fees, quick replacements, tailored onboarding, and options for converting contractors to full-time staff. This approach enables businesses to grow effectively and encourages innovation through remote collaboration with skilled tech experts.

These tools streamline the talent acquisition process, from sourcing to onboarding, aligning with the strategic needs of engineering teams. By employing these platforms, leaders can create flexible, adaptable structures that allow for specialized skill inclusion through permanent or contractual hires. This reflects the agility and responsiveness essential for modern tech teams to stay competitive.

Managing 1:1s

1-on-1 meetings between managers and their team members have long been considered crucial to effective team management. These personalized meetings foster open communication, build trust, and provide individualized coaching and feedback opportunities.

A study by Gallup found that employees who have regular meetings with their managers are almost three times as likely to be engaged in their work. This emphasizes the direct correlation between consistent 1-on-1 interactions and heightened employee engagement.

If you're looking to adopt better strategies for managing your 1-1s, here are some of the tools you should use:

• Hypercontext: Designed to facilitate one-on-ones, team meetings, and goal tracking, Hypercontext enhances communication and alignment within the team.
• 15Five: A performance management platform, 15Five helps leaders monitor, guide, and recognize team members' efforts.
• Fellow.app: This tool supports managers in leading productive one-on-ones, team meetings, and fostering a culture of continuous feedback.

Career Development

Career development within an organization is not just about individual growth; it's a strategic imperative for the success and sustainability of the business. Nurturing team members' growth is essential for maintaining motivation, enhancing skills, and retaining top talent.

According to a study by LinkedIn, 94% of employees would stay longer at a company if it invested in their career development.

Take a look at some of the best tools we've hand-picked engineering leaders can use for career development at their company:

• Pluralsight: As a premier online learning platform, Pluralsight delivers an extensive array of technology-focused courses. These resources enable team members to refine their skills and stay aligned with current industry trends.
• Udemy for Business: With its broad collection of professional development courses, Udemy for Business promotes continual education within the organization. This access empowers employees to expand their knowledge base, grow within their roles, and contribute to the team more effectively.
• PlatoHQ: Tailored for engineering leadership, PlatoHQ bridges tech managers with seasoned mentors. By offering personalized guidance and fostering peer discussions, it aids in personal and professional growth. This connection helps leaders navigate challenges and excel in their managerial responsibilities.

Velocity Measurement

Efficiency and productivity measurement is a vital aspect of managing engineering teams. Knowing how quickly a team works, where bottlenecks occur, and what areas need improvement allows for more effective decision-making.

Here are some essential tools that CTOs and Engineering Managers use to gauge velocity:

• Swarmia: Swarmia offers insights into software development analytics. It allows leaders to understand team performance, track progress, and identify areas for improvement.
• Waydev: Waydev analyzes your codebase, PRs, tickets, and other data to provide metrics that help engineering leaders gain insights into team performance and productivity.
• GitClear: This tool clarifies coding activity and helps identify work patterns that might lead to burnout or inefficiency.
• Haystack: Haystack's metrics and insights are focused on improving engineering performance by identifying bottlenecks, coaching opportunities, and ensuring team happiness.
• SourceLevel: It focuses on pull request analytics, assisting leaders in understanding how their team collaborates and where improvements can be made.
• UpLevel: UpLevel offers insights into how engineers are spending their time, enabling better alignment between work patterns and business objectives.

Velocity measurement isn't just about speed; it's about understanding how your team is working and finding ways to support them in being more effective. It enables engineering leaders to have data-driven conversations with their teams about their work, creating a culture of continuous improvement. It can lead to more engaged team members, better product delivery, and a more harmonious alignment with company goals.

The technical processes that a team uses can make or break its success. From incident management to security compliance and documentation, having the right systems in place is crucial. Let's dive into these areas and discuss the tools that can aid engineering leaders in establishing and maintaining strong, efficient, and secure processes.

Incident Management

Incidents can happen at any time; when they do, quick response and effective resolution are key. According to the Cost of a Data Breach Report, the worldwide average expense for a data breach hit $4.45 million in 2023. Another study by the Ponemon Institute found that structured incident management practices could improve response times by 50%.

Tools designed for incident management help teams coordinate their response, ensuring that the right people are engaged and that all aspects of the incident are tracked and managed. Here are some of the best tools:

• PagerDuty: A leading incident management platform, PagerDuty provides on-call scheduling, alerts, and escalation policies to ensure that incidents are handled as quickly as possible. By integrating with a variety of monitoring tools, it offers a centralized place to manage and respond to critical incidents.
• Splunk On-Call: Splunk On-Call aids in real-time incident management, allowing teams to collaborate and resolve issues efficiently. With features such as timeline views and automated alert routing, it enhances coordination among team members and ensures that the right people are engaged at the right time.

Security and Compliance

Security is never an afterthought, and with the growing number of threats, having robust tools to ensure compliance with security standards is crucial. Here are some of the best tools when it comes to security and compliance:

• Okta: Okta focuses on secure authentication and single sign-on, enhancing security by controlling user access to various applications within an organization.
• CrowdStrike: Providing endpoint protection and threat intelligence, CrowdStrike is a key tool for cybersecurity, aiding in real-time cyber attack response and prevention.
• OneTrust: A specialized tool in privacy, security, and governance, OneTrust helps organizations meet global regulations, ensuring compliance through an efficient workflow process.
• Veracode: Veracode's platform targets security within applications, utilizing automated scans and continuous monitoring to identify and remedy vulnerabilities in code.

Ensuring security and compliance is a critical responsibility for engineering leaders. These tools aid in safeguarding against threats, maintaining compliance with relevant regulations, and fostering a culture of security awareness within the team.

Release and Requirements Management

Effective release and requirements management ensures the right features are being worked on and released at the right time. Managing releases effectively requires both vision and execution.

These tools support engineering leaders in keeping development aligned with business goals, ensuring that what is built resonates with customer needs and market demands.

• Jenkins: As an open-source automation server used for building, testing, and deploying code, Jenkins can be a crucial part of your continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipelines. Its extensive plugin ecosystem allows you to integrate with a variety of tools, enhancing workflow efficiency and collaboration within your development teams.
• Aha!: As a roadmap software that helps in setting strategy, prioritizing features, and sharing visual plans, Aha! can foster alignment between your engineering and other organizational units. By providing a clear overview of product development timelines and objectives, it allows your teams to stay focused on what matters most and work toward shared goals.

Documentation and Feature Management

Proper documentation and feature management facilitate collaboration and consistency across the team. These tools enhance collaboration, ensure knowledge continuity, and allow for flexible feature management, supporting and aligning the development process with the broader organizational strategy.

• Confluence: This tool helps your team create, share, and work on documents together, keeping everyone on the same page and streamlining communication.
• LaunchDarkly: LaunchDarkly enables you to deploy code anytime, controlling feature release, letting you test and adjust without recoding.
• GitBook: Gitbook allows your team to document everything from products to internal knowledge, centralizing vital information.
• Tettra: As a company wiki, Tettra aids in managing and sharing organizational knowledge, making insights and best practices easily accessible.

Continuous Improvement

Quality assurance and continuous improvement are at the heart of successful software delivery. Quality isn't something that just happens; it's something that teams work towards every day.

These tools support continuous quality improvement, helping teams deliver products that customers love and maintaining a culture of excellence and continuous growth.

• Code Climate Velocity: This platform offers insights into team performance and identifies barriers, helping you understand how work progresses, and enabling the removal of obstacles for smoother operations.
• Codacy: As an automated code review tool, Codacy assists developers in saving time on code reviews, allowing you to tackle technical debt more efficiently and maintain higher code quality.

The infrastructure that powers a development team is its backbone. It's not just about the code and applications but the systems that enable the team to function seamlessly.

Here, we'll dive into aspects like observability and data management, highlighting tools that can help engineering leaders build and maintain robust, scalable, and efficient infrastructure.

Observability

Observability tools give teams the insights they need to understand and optimize their systems in a complex and dynamic environment. These tools equip engineering leaders with the visibility and insights needed to understand how systems are performing, identify potential issues, and optimize performance and reliability.

• New Relic: Serving as a comprehensive observability platform, New Relic aids developers in analyzing, troubleshooting, and optimizing their entire software stack.
• Datadog: As a monitoring and analytics platform, Datadog provides full-stack observability across applications, infrastructure, and logs, helping you to maintain a seamless and well-functioning system.
• Sentry: Specializing in application monitoring, Sentry offers insights into errors, performance, and trends, allowing you to detect and resolve issues more quickly.

Data Management & Reporting

Data is at the core of modern business, and managing it effectively is critical. Data management tools support engineering leaders in making data-driven decisions, providing the insights necessary to understand trends, identify opportunities, and make informed strategic choices.

• Tableau: Tableau is a top data visualization tool that helps teams turn raw data into clear insights, aiding in decision-making.
• Looker: Looker offers data exploration and embedded analytics, letting teams create and share reports and dashboards, enhancing collaboration.
• Grafana: Grafana is an open-source tool for monitoring and observability, used by teams to study, visualize, and explore metrics, helping in maintaining system performance.

The role of a CTO or Engineering Manager is multifaceted and demanding. Guiding a team to success requires a combination of strategic thinking, people management, process optimization, and infrastructure mastery. The right tools can make all the difference, enabling leaders to navigate the complexities of the modern tech landscape with confidence and efficiency.

This guide has covered the essential areas that engineering leaders must focus on and has provided an overview of some of the best tools available for each aspect of their role. From acquiring talent to ensuring security and compliance, these tools are part of the ultimate tech stack, empowering leaders to build and lead teams that innovate, grow, and thrive.

The future of technology is bright, and the road to success is paved with the right tools. With this guide in hand, engineering leaders can find the solutions that best fit their unique needs, propelling their teams and organizations toward a future of innovation, excellence, and impact.

Are you a tech executive? What are the tools you use day-to-day? We'd like to hear from you. Reach out at [email protected]