Managing the burnout burndown - Anjuan Simmons and Dr Aneika Simmons | #LeadDevNewYork

As engineering managers, we're used to managing the Sprint Burndown chart. Even in non-agile projects, the idea still applies. Over time, the amount of work that remains to be done should go down, and good engineering managers carefully guide the team towards this goal.

However, engineering managers have to manage more than backlogs of user stories. They have to stay current with an ever-changing technology landscape, manage the professional and personal concerns of their team members, navigate office politics, and solve the challenges of their own lives. These competing responsibilities often result in burnout and a reduction in the capacity of engineering managers as well as the teams that rely on them for direction.

This talk will provide insights and tools to help engineering managers reduce burnout and keep their stress levels in a managed state.

About Anjuan Simmons
Anjuan Simmons is a technologist with a successful track record of delivering technology solutions from the user interface to the database. He is an energetic and informative speaker who presents at conferences, seminars, schools, and community centers around the world on topics including Agile software development, diversity, and leadership. Anjuan has an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering from the University of Texas at Austin and an MBA from Texas A&M University.

About Dr Aneika Simmons
Dr. Aneika L. Simmons teaches courses about leadership, organization behavior, and human resources at Sam Houston State University. She completed her doctorate degree in Organizational Behavior and Human Resources at Texas A&M University. Prior to pursuing her PhD, Dr. Simmons worked for Accenture and Cap Gemini Ernst and Young as an information technology consultant. She also has a Masters degree in Organizational Communication from the University of Houston.

Lead Dev is a community for technical leaders. We have a series of conferences and meetups designed with the needs and pain points of technical team leads in mind. We programme each conference around our three key themes of Team, Tech & Tools. The talks are designed to help very practically with common problems in these areas. To find out more about us, visit:

[bressain]

Found this through Hanselman's podcast. Great talk! I wish this problem that is so pervasive in tech had more exposure so thank you for doing the research and presenting.

[samuellourenco]

It is up to the managers not to burn out their employees. The problem is that many managers think stress is good, and some even intentionally stress their employees in order to "stimulate" competitiveness. Many even stress their employees while delivering them menial tasks to do.