It's planning season, and you're being asked to commit to next year's headcount and budget while this quarter's plan has already changed twice. You want the team to be able to change direction quickly when priorities shift. You also need a hiring plan and a team structure that will still make sense in six months, whatever your competitors do in the meantime.
How you handle that depends a lot on your company's culture, so there isn't one right way to do it. This is an opportunity to network with engineering leaders in Kitchener-Waterloo who are going through planning season right now, and hear how they're handling it. We'll discuss the topic, then roundtable a challenge from each person, so come prepared with a specific challenge or question you're facing right now. What's said in the room stays in the room, so you can be honest about where your plan actually stands.
Topics for the Planning theme will include:
- Committing to a year when plans change every quarter. How much of next year do you actually plan, and how much do you leave open? How do you tell the team the plan has changed again without it turning into whiplash?
- Headcount and team structure. How do you make the case for people you won't need for nine months? How do you set up teams so a change in direction doesn't mean another reorg?
- Estimates before the deep dive. Nobody has scoped most of next year's projects yet, so the numbers are your most senior people's best guesses. When does an estimate stop being a guess and become a number you can stand behind? How much padding is honest?
- How your company's culture shapes the numbers. Is a missed estimate a conversation or a mark against you? How does that change the numbers people give you?
If you're about to put numbers in a spreadsheet that you're not sure you believe, come and compare notes with people doing the same thing.
Organized by local leaders:
Sasha Hall, Engineering Manager @ iGUIDE
James Barr, CEO @ Strata Research
