How to Manage Growth of Tech Team

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Ultimate Guide
How to Manage
Growth of Tech Team

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In the age of digital transformation and information-based
economy, one of the key trends in management is the tran-
sition from traditional practices to the development and
training of employees within the company instead of buying
the talent. Leading enterprises are already investing huge
amounts of resources in professional development of their
teams, as they understand that this is one of the crucial
growth factors.
Software developers, designers, product managers, market-
ers and other tech roles have become the most valuable
and versatile asset for any business.
However, in the dynamic and ever-changing tech industry,
these professions also come with the additional challenge
of knowledge becoming outdated, fast. With new program-
ming languages and technologies appearing every day,
there is no other option but to stay up-to-date on trends
and look for ways to develop and expand your skill set.
For tech roles, the learning never stops and this is some-
thing both the manager and the employee should always
account for.
In this guide, we’ll lead you through the main steps of the
professional development of a tech team.
After reading this e-book, a manager will be able to build
a strategy on professional development of teammates, up-
grade their skill level and skyrocket the effectiveness of the
whole company.

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Step 1
Find Skill Gaps (Review)
Evaluate skills of the team
Define skill gaps of every member
The tool you’ll need:
Skill Review
5
Step 2
Create Development Plan
Choose focus skills
Add activities to a growth plan
Development plan
22
Step 3
Monitor Progress
and Make Adjustments
Track progress
Adjust growth plans
1-on-1 meetings on personal
development and working tasks
33
Vectorly’s
Biggest Knowledge Base
to Grow Tech Skills
45

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Nick Flynn, Software Engineering Manager at Spiff Inc
“I think one of the largest problems
that I’ve personally seen in other
people, in terms of developing new
skills, is just comfort. What’s familiar
to us is comfortable. We either
need to be pushed outside of our
comfort zone or need to be bold
enough to step out of it in order to
learn something new. If there’s no
motivating factor to learn something
new, oftentimes we’ll stick to what we
know. That doesn’t lead to the kind of
growth we really need in our industry”

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As tech skills become obsolete fast, companies must culti-
vate the learning culture by motivating employees to devel-
op professionally and holding regular reviews. It’s also cru-
cial to make sure employees’ skills match the needs of the
business.
The very first step on your path to manage the growth of a
tech team is to identify what skills it lacks to be on top of
the latest industry trends.
The tool you’ll need: Skill review
A skill review is the most powerful and versatile tool you
can use to establish the diagnosis before starting to build
a professional development strategy. At this stage, with the
help of a review, a manager needs to:
• Evaluate the skills of the whole team
• Identify the skill gaps of every member
Let’s find out how to organize a good skills review and how
to analyze its results to create a development plan that will
really work.
Step 1
Find Skill Gaps (Review)
Evaluate skills of the team
Define skill gaps of every member
Skill Review

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Benefits of Holding Regular
Reviews
It is worth mentioning, regular reviews can help solve a
number of serious issues your tech team might be facing,
such as:
• Poor performance
• Lack of growth opportunities and skill training
• Signs of developer burnout
• Low levels of job satisfaction
• Lack of feedback culture
• Poor communication between teams and departments
By conducting regular skill reviews, a manager gains price-
less insights, both into the team’s performance as a whole,
and each member’s progress, strengths, and weaknesses.
These reviews should go both ways - a regular feedback
session is also an opportunity for a manager to provide
guidance and direction for their team members. And of
course, managers and team leads should also be reviewed
by their reports and colleagues, as well as by upper man-
agement.
Step 1

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How to Organize a Review
Now, it’s time for the important questions: who does the re-
viewing? And how do you go about setting up this process?
The short answer is, it’s a team effort. The best approach is
conducting 360-degree reviews.
To put it simply, 360-degree feedback is a system in which
employees receive confidential, unbiased feedback from the
people who work around them and, in turn, provide their
opinions about their colleagues’ performance and profes-
sional growth.
Advantages of 360-degree review:
• Provides a full picture of each employee’s and team’s
skills
• Makes it easy to spot development opportunities
• Allows people to know how they’re seen in the company
and makes their opinions heard
• Increases self-awareness, builds confidence and boosts
morale
• Empowers the employees, improving their job satisfac-
tion and reducing turnover
• Creates a culture of openness, feedback, and collabora-
tion
Step 1

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Who Should Write a Review?
Developer Review
If we consider the review of a software developer as an ex-
ample, the main goal here is to assess their hard skills, with
a focus on possible skill gaps. This will be the best indicator
of their day-to-day performance and the quality of the prod-
uct they’re able to deliver. If a certain developer is lacking, a
performance review will help you build a roadmap to bring
them up to speed and improve their skills.
At the same time, you need to evaluate how well each em-
ployee fits in with the rest of the team, what their profes-
sional goals are, and how they see their future with the
company.
To get all these important insights, you need as much data
as possible. This is why each developer and software engi-
neer needs to be reviewed:
• By the manager
• By the product team
• By the rest of the department
• By themselves (self-review)
Step 1

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Engineering Manager (Team Lead) Review
The same idea applies to managers and team leads. And
while hard skills and proficiency with tools aren’t that rele-
vant for engineering managers, knowing how they perform
in relation to their team, and the company in general, is
incredibly important.
This is why managers and team leads need to be reviewed:
• By their direct reports
• By the CTO
• By the product manager (product team)
• By themselves (self-review)
Step 1

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What Do You Evaluate in a
Review? (Skill Matrix Templates)
How to Review a Developer
Here is what a 360-degree performance review of a Python
software developer may look like. Remember, you need as
much data and as many different perspectives as you can
get. This means you’ll need some input from the rest of the
team, in order to determine where each dev stands on their:
• Core skills: Python, Web frameworks, Database search,
Git, Design patterns
• Optional skills: Task scheduling, Algorithms, Real-time
communication
• Other domains: DevOps
• Leadership skills
• Soft skills: Collaboration & communication, Individual
performance
• Product skills
Step 1

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This skill matrix will help you be strategic about the roles
of reviewers and the questions you ask them.

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Using this review example and Vectorly’s li-
brary with ready-to-use skill matrix templates
for 50+ tech roles, you will be able to run your
own 360-degree review for all members in
your team.

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What Do You Evaluate in a
Review? (Skill Matrix Templates)
How to Review an Engineering Manager
When it comes to evaluating the skills of engineering man-
agers, the same principle applies. You need to gather in-
sights from as many sources as you can, which means going
both to the upper management and the lead’s direct re-
ports. Here is what a skill matrix for an engineering manag-
er looks like:
• Team management
• Company skills
• Quality management
• People management
• Technical skills
• Project management
• Knowledge management
• Soft skills: Personal skills, Communication
Step 1

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And this chart will help you to find out what to write in a
review of an engineering manager, depending on the role of
a reviewer.

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Find skill matrix templates for 50+ tech roles
in Vectorly’s skills library to hold your own
review.

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After a Review
As a result of a 360-degree assessment, you’ll get:
• A diagnosis of your team, in particular, what skills it
lacks
• An understanding of what skills every team member
needs to improve in order to fill these skill gaps
In the picture below, you can see how analysis of review
results is displayed in Vectorly. The radar chart reflects the
whole teams’ review result, highlighting the gaps. While a
table shows a member’s review result and what skills he or
she has or doesn’t have.
Review results in Vectorly

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If you want to put a review process on autopi-
lot and stop worrying about the organization-
al process, try Vectorly’s 360-degree
skill reviews by requesting a demo call with
an expert.

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Step 2
Create Development Plan
Choose focus skills
Add activities to a growth plan
Development plan
Now, after completing Step 1, it’s time to identify areas of
growth for each team member to develop the lacking skills,
thus filling the skill gaps of the whole team.
The main goal here is to make sure professional develop-
ment of employees matches the needs of the business. A
manager should focus not only on a particular employee’s
situation, but also account for where the company itself is
going; its priorities, goals, and targets.
At this stage, a professional development plan can become
your most powerful and valuable tool. Without a strict plan
and a well-thought development strategy, any professional
growth that occurs will be sporadic and might not benefit
the company that much, at the end of the day.
The tool you’ll need: Professional development plan (or
PDP)
In this part, you’ll get info on how to create a professional
development plan for your employees based on the results
of a review, so that their development will meet the goals
of the company.
Step 2

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What is a Professional
Development Plan?
A professional development plan is designed to outline the
goals, required skills and competency development, and
objectives that a staff member must meet, to promote on-
going improvement and career advancement. This is usu-
ally presented as a list of meaningful steps, complete with
points of action and a strict timeline.
In a nutshell, a professional development plan is a simple
instrument that will help you stimulate and provide guid-
ance for your employees’ professional growth. Think of it as
a road map that defines the skills, strategy, and education
needed for your employees to advance in their careers and
meet their professional objectives.
Step 2

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Peter Asher, Engineering Manager at Unit21
“If you see a person who’s not
growing in the way that you expect or
not hitting a goal, sometimes it’s the
person, sometimes it’s the goal itself.
I mean, I would say just don’t be quick
to indict the engineer. Try to get to the
bottom of it, see what’s going on. You
know, at a fundamental level I’d like to
believe that everyone is motivated to
learn, and motivated to grow. Everyone
wants to keep pushing forward”

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Why Should a Company Implement
a Development Plan?
A properly implemented system of PDPs will allow your com-
pany to:
• Fill the team’s skill gaps and increase employees’ perfor-
mance.
As previously mentioned, a high-quality PDP doesn’t sim-
ply focus on individual employees. At its core are the cur-
rent goals and priorities of the company at large, a certain
strategic vision provided by executives and managers. One
of the most common pitfalls in this regard are major skill
gaps in knowledge workers and this is what a PDP pro-
cess can help prevent.
• Make promotion decisions transparent, ensuring that
everyone knows what they need to do and what skills to
develop to get promoted.
A PDP can also provide a feedback channel, allowing you
to create a hierarchy of skills that your employees will
then use to navigate the corporate space, ensuring high
levels of vertical and horizontal mobility within the com-
pany.
• Increase employee retention and loyalty.
More transparency within the company and clearly out-
lined professional development roadmaps and the goals
of the company can improve employee satisfaction, in-
crease retention rates, and loyalty.
• Protect developers from burnout.
A clear professional development plan can also help pro-
tect your employees from burnout. After all, there is noth-
ing worse than uncertainty, and many corporate environ-
ments fail in that regard, often keeping their employees in
the dark in terms of where they currently stand and which
way they are moving in the corporate hierarchy. Also, a
development plan helps developers to deal with unman-
ageable workloads and get their own personal goals.
Step 2

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How to Create a Professional
Development Plan?
To develop focus skills and create a good development plan
for every team member, you need to:
• Choose focus skills to develop
• Add activities to a development plan
Step 2

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Choose focus skills to develop
Focus skills are the main areas of potential development for
your employees, which will cover any existing skill gaps the
team might be currently struggling with.
This is part of the reason why you should first review your
team as a whole and only then focus on what each individ-
ual employee can do to cover the potential blank spots in
the team’s expertise.
Choosing focus skills in Vectorly’s Growth Plan

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Add activities to a development plan
The next step is to come up with an actionable list of tasks,
designed to help you cover the skill gaps and develop the
focus skills within your team.
These tasks have to be added to each employee’s to-do list
and include:
• Training and learning activities, aimed at structured pro-
fessional development
• Working tasks in Jira, Asana, Gitlab, etc, for the employee
to practice their focus skills
The combination of learning activities and working tasks
aimed at developing focus skills will help to easily integrate
education into the workflow of the team and get better re-
sults.
Adding activities in Vectorly’s Growth Plan

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How to Choose What
Learning Activities to Add to a
Development Plan?
It’s quite clear what working tasks a manager should add
to an employee’s development plan. It should include those
skills from everyday working activities that are aimed at
building or developing a certain skill. It will help to ensure
focus skills are being used in practice.
But how to decide what learning activities should you add
to a PDP and where do you get those? To help you with that
and save your time, Vectorly has gathered useful sources for
developing tech skills.
Step 2

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The first and the easiest way is to use Vectorly’s Growth
Plan which automates this process. Vectorly analyzes the
working activity of your team members for you and offers
specific activities from the knowledge base, integrated with
the service. All you need to do is choose between the of-
fered recommendations and add the task to the employees’s
to-do list.

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The other way to find relevant learning activities is to use
our biggest knowledge base which you can find in the Ap-
pendix section of this guide and get for free.
Vectorly’s knowledge base includes:
• Online courses platforms to grow tech skills
• Skills tests & challenges
• Books for software developers
• Popular mentorship platforms
• List of mental health platforms
You’ll be able to pick resources for every tech role in your
team and add these activities to their development plans.
Step 2

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After Creating A Development
Plan
As a result of this stage, you and your team will have:
• A clear understanding of what skills should be upgrad-
ed by each employee to increase overall team’s perfor-
mance
• A to-do list with a specific tasks both practical and edu-
cational to develop these focus skills
And that’s only the beginning of the professional develop-
ment process since now the main goal of Step 3 is to suc-
cessfully implement this plan.
Step 2

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Step 3
Monitor Progress
and Make Adjustments
Track progress
Adjust growth plans
1-on-1 meetings on personal
development and working tasks
Once an employee has received their tasks and embarked
on their development journey (Step 2), the manager needs
to go to the Step 3 - monitoring, which is a very important
part of the professional development strategy. Because at
this stage, a manager’s goal is to help their employees suc-
cessfully implement their development plans.
The tool you’ll need: 1-on-1 meetings on personal develop-
ment.

34
Peter Asher, Engineering Manager at Unit21
“Managing the growth of the
developer, in my point of view, should
be a partnership between the
manager and the report. I mean, we
can set the agendas, all we want, but
we do need to make sure that they’re
also in the driver’s seat. And when you
can find that common ground — okay
let’s talk about everything you want to
do, let’s talk about everything we have
available to get you there. And does
it fit in with where we’re going as a
company”

35
Once you have created development plans for your employ-
ees, it doesn’t mean you’re done. In fact, this is where the
real work starts since team members start implementing
their tasks and a manager should be the one who monitors
their progress and helps them achieve their goals.
At this stage, a manager’s tasks are:
• Сonstantly track the progress
• Adjust the professional development plan, if necessary
Сonstantly track the progress
The best tool to monitor the development process is hold-
ing 1-on-1 meetings. Schedule special meetings with your
team members in the calendar, during which you’ll discuss
their activities and the challenges they face on their devel-
opment journey.
Adjust the professional development plan, if necessary
In essence, this is a never-ending process. If your employees
successfully complete their PDPs, they need to be provided
with a new plan, and if you find some of them struggling
with certain aspects of their PDPs, the manager needs to
make adjustments and add to or change the tasks of the
employees lagging behind.

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Use Vectorly’s template on professional devel-
opment to save your prep time and be ready to
hold a constructive discussion.

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Nick Flynn, Software Engineering Manager at Spiff Inc
“In terms of setting & tracking, you
know, formal or informal goals - that’s
a pretty common element of 1-on-1
meetings I have with reports. Typically,
that’s every other week. Although,
that’ll vary, depending on the individual.
But I’ve had a lot of really positive
outcomes with engineers from my
team, when we’ve just had at least a
touch base, you know, once or twice
a month on a goal that he or she had
set.”

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What is a One-on-One Meeting
and Why Is It Crucial For a Tech
Team?
A one-on-one meeting is a scheduled conversation between
a manager and an employee. It helps in fostering effective
teamwork, collecting feedback, and brainstorming avenues
for professional growth. It can also improve the employee’s
mood, increase their motivation, and keep them happy and
productive.
One of the main benefits of one-on-one meetings is that
this tool helps to develop team members professionally.
At one-on-one meetings, you can ask employees how they
want to grow and what are their expectations from their
work at the company. Finding out such personal traits will
help to make timely decisions about assigning or canceling
tasks, or even changing the employee’s position in the com-
pany.
Needless to say, one-on-one conversations can promote
overall business growth. They help the manager immerse
themselves in the company’s processes and culture rath-
er than simply managing everyone from above. This is
a chance for them to get up close and learn things they
would never have learned from the “top.” In a safe, honest,
and transparent environment, it’s easier to work on business
metrics and create a high-performance team.
Step 3

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Organizational Tips on How to
Hold One-on-One Meetings
How to Schedule a One-on-One?
Try to avoid making one-on-one meetings spontaneous. Why?
Because both you and the employee need to prepare! Tell
them about the meeting at least 3-4 days in advance and
send an invitation letter.
Here’s what to include in this letter:
• The date and time of the meeting — do not oblige, but
allow them to suggest a better schedule if necessary.
• Reason for the meeting — why it will be useful for the
employee.
• The topic of the meeting and sample questions — this
will minimize any potential anxiety and give the employ-
ee time to think about the agenda.
• Tasks — what information to prepare for the meeting.
The time you take to write the invitation will be time well
spent! It’s absolutely critical because it can help prevent
schedule disruptions or awkward silences that might have
happened had the employee been ill-prepared.
Step 3

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Best Place
The best place for a one-on-one meeting is a private and
quiet place. Open spaces aren’t good. You and the employ-
ee will be distracted, and it might be difficult to relax and
speak candidly. (And speaking of the tone of a conversation,
there’s no need to speak with an air of “officialdom”— that
will only cause unnecessary stress.)
You can have a one-on-one meeting in-person or online. If
it’s virtual, be sure to use the camera so that everyone can
see everyone else’s facial expressions and get a sense of
their emotions. After all, lots of communication is non-ver-
bal.
Best Time
As mentioned, be sure to make an appointment in advance
so that the employee isn’t surprised or overly inconven-
ienced. Furthermore, don’t schedule the one-on-one meet-
ing for after work. That would infringe on the employee’s
personal time and they may resent you.
According to a study on productivity, employees can be
roughly categorized into three groups depending on their
circadian rhythm: morning person, afternoon person, and
low-at-lunch person.
Depending on the type, some hours are considered by an
employee as more productive for work. So it might be a
bad idea to disrupt employees during their peak hours. So,
you can find out what types your teammates belong to and
make a personalized meeting schedule for more effective
conversation without interfering with their productivity.
Step 3

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How Often?
Ideally, the skill review is held once a quarter. Then, you
should hold meetings to monitor the progress every two
weeks. During these meetings, a manager updates devel-
opment plans or organizes a repeated review and creates a
new development plan.
Thus, you can make the process of professional develop-
ment of your teammates more effective and continuous,
cultivating the learning mindset in the company.
Agenda For a One-on-One Meeting
During the one-on-one meeting, cluster the questions into
several blocks. This will keep the dialogue structured and
facilitate a smoother conversation.
To save time on preparation for your 1-on-1s, you can use a
ready-made template on personal development with a set
of questions, from Vectorly’s library.
Step 3

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After a One-on-One
An effective one-on-one meeting is not just about discus-
sions. It should be aimed at solving real problems and mak-
ing decisions. So, as a result of a one-on-one meeting on
personal development, you should:
• Evaluate the progress of an employee on completing
the tasks
• Discuss what challenges did he or she faced during im-
plementation of their development plan
• Record all agreements and add new tasks to a develop-
ment plan as you discuss them
• Schedule the next meeting on personal development
As we have already mentioned, the process of monitoring
and adjustment of development plans is continuous. That’s
why you need to make these meetings a regular practice.
Step 3

43
Key Factors for a Successful
Professional Development
Strategy of a Tech Team
Now you understand how to create a professional devel-
opment plan, step-by-step, and integrate learning into the
working processes of your team. Let’s list the strategies that
help make the professional development process really ef-
fective.
Here are the main factors of a successful professional de-
velopment:
Factor #1.
Hold a review to identify skill gaps, and do it regularly.
Before starting to create a development plan, first, you need
to find the weak places. By doing this, you’ll save lots of re-
sources, concentrate on the important things, and get better
results. Implement this practice on a regular basis to keep
the focus - once a quarter would be ideal.
Factor #2. Mix working tasks and learning activities.
The tasks contained within the PDP should offer a diverse
and varied mix of educational and practical assignments.
This will allow you to easily integrate this training pro-
cess into your workflow, increasing the effectiveness of the
learning process and saving time for development.
Step 3

44
Factor #3. Hold regular meetings and make adjustments.
Professional development needs to be seen as a continuous
process. A manager should regularly review and update the
development plans. If an employee has successfully accom-
plished his/her development plan, you should create a new
one. And if the process is underway, you can amend the ex-
isting tasks and add new ones. It should not be a one-time
meeting; make it regular and schedule these discussions in
your calendar.
Factor #4. Don’t be afraid to rely on external tools.
Using services, such as Vectorly, will help you keep all em-
ployee development and training processes on one plat-
form, thus streamlining and optimizing this process.
Step 3

45
Vectorly’s
Biggest Knowledge Base
to Grow Tech Skills
To make the process of learning easier both for develop-
ers and their managers, we have prepared the biggest free
knowledge base ever which includes useful sources to grow
the skills of a tech team and develop them professionally.
In this knowledge base for major tech roles, you’ll find:
• Online Courses Platforms to Grow Tech Skills
• Skills Tests & Challenges
• Top 20 Books a Software Developer Must Read
• Popular Mentorship Platforms
• BONUS! List of Mental Health & Therapy Platforms to
Deal With Stress and Burnout
Go via the link and choose the relevant sources for your
team!

46
If you want to put the process of professional
development on autopilot, try Vectorly and we’ll
help your team grow in the right direction!

How to Manage Growth of Tech Team

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