On Stanier (2020), 1st chapter:
How team snapshots help managers
Having a team snapshot is useful to pinpoint discussion and improvement topics. Snapshots consist of the intersection between your, your team's and your manager's observations.
- Where all three meet: alignment
- Where you and your manager meet: Poor communication downwards
- Where you and your team meet: Poor communication upwards
- Where your manager and your team meet: False beliefs
Snapshots are constructed by observing and having conversations with all sides here described.
2026-10: Looking at this note 5 years later, this still makes a lot of sense, however it is hard to nail down what is where and which is which. What I would say now, with all the experience that I have, is that these surface through daily experience and a manager must always be reflecting on these. So:
- Map that out once you join/create the team
- Consistently update that map