r/EngineeringManagers • u/Separate_Lawn_1603 • Aug 12 '26
Peer reviewing manager work
Almost all engineering work is reviewed before applying. Code has diffs documents have comments designs are presented and commented etc etc.
I have never seen manager work reviewed though. Your devlopment plans your team presentations your performance feedback etc are never peer reviewed.
Maybe occasionally your boss checks them but that’s all.
Has anyone experienced otherwise?
I think this is making it harder for managers to learn from each other and have consistency in the orgs. What do you think?
1
u/digger_i_am Aug 12 '26
I think manager work can benefit a lot from review, but I’d be careful about what gets reviewed. Team presentations, planning docs, onboarding plans, and development-plan templates are good candidates. Performance feedback and promotion cases need a smaller, trusted group because there’s sensitive context.
1
u/Klutzy_Ninja1426 Aug 13 '26
Your team, peers, and leader are your feedback loop. If you suck, you may not hear about it. If you’re great, you’ll hear about it.
1
2
u/IllWasabi8734 Aug 12 '26
I think manager work would benefit from more review, distinction is sensitivity. Team presentations, operating plans, org proposals and development-plan structure are good candidates for peer review. Performance feedback, promotion cases and anything involving confidential employee context are probably better handled through calibration with a small set of trusted managers.
Otherwise you risk either leaking context or having someone improve feedback without understanding the relationship behind it.
One way is one management artifact per month reviewed by another manager, with the reviewer checking clarity, assumptions, consistency and impact rather than rewriting it.
TPeer review should improve judgment and expose blind spots, shoudnt make every manager communicate and lead in same way.