Note Your Way to Intuition: A Guide for Managers

There are a few things expected from a good manager:

• Have a vision of the result.
• Know where we are on the way to this result.
• Have an understanding of the team’s condition and capabilities.

You need to keep your finger on the pulse of product development. This can be achieved through various approaches, and in this article, I would like to introduce a really simple yet impactful technique that can help you on a daily basis. To put it briefly: learn how to take notes on everything you hear during your workday, and you’ll be surprised at how much easier your career could become.

This article could be useful for any manager working with teams, but it is also valuable for engineers or specialists. While the examples focus on software product development, the advice can be applied to many other professions.

The Hidden Power of Notes in Problem-Solving

A manager’s work revolves around communication with other specialists. Modern agile rituals are built around quick meetings, short sprints, and analysing team problems. In a healthy and motivated team, it is highly uncommon for an issue to arise that wasn’t mentioned, even briefly, beforehand. The same behaviour can be observed even in tired or partially burned-out teams. If something is wrong, team members will almost always hint at it in some way, often as a way to shift responsibility for future problems. This is where a key skill for any manager comes in - the ability to recognise and interpret these signals.

And this can be achieved through note-taking. Every time you have a discussion with someone, you should aim to make your notes as detailed as possible. The key is to learn how to capture and not overlook important insights or remarks during the conversation, as they might hold crucial information about the actual state of a task, the team’s motivation, or overall collaboration. Practising this method regularly helps train your mind to identify these kinds of clues. It is similar to attending lectures at university or college, where you need to listen carefully and capture the most impactful details from a long speech.

As a tool, you could use your favourite “Moleskine” notebook or an application on your laptop. Personally, I would recommend using your computer for these notes, as it’s important not only to take notes but also to have a system for quick navigation and efficient searching through them.

Do you have daily status meetings? Take notes on each person’s updates:

2024.11.20 Status Meeting

• Jim: Finished the email-sending module with some out-of-scope tech debt, sent a PR, and switched to logging.
• Alex: Stuck on the new notification popup but still on track with estimates. Plans to finish by tomorrow. Waiting for some design clarifications…

Are you invited to a client call or a status meeting with other managers? Write it down. Create a tagging system to quickly navigate between meetings or notes on different topics.

No matter how good your development process is, there will inevitably be situations where your release candidate is broken, and no one understands how it could have happened. All PRs were successfully merged, and everything seemed on track. But in that moment, your mind will recall a comment from your developer two weeks ago about a "little out-of-scope to-do" that has now disrupted the integration with a third-party service.

You will undoubtedly fix this process issue later, but for now, your notes could save you several hours. This highlights the true value of taking notes - it doesn’t mean you need to reread everything later. Instead, it helps develop your managerial intuition. Intuition, at its core, is the ability to anticipate situations based on past experiences. Cultivating the habit of consistently documenting everything as a background task strengthens this skill. Over time, you can even learn to take notes seamlessly without being distracted from the conversation or to capture key points even when you’re not at your best during morning meetings. It’s similar to driving a car - once you gain enough experience, your brain can monitor the road while you comfortably chat with a passenger.

Note-taking is more than just recording conversations. It is a powerful tool for developing intuition, identifying patterns, and staying ahead of potential challenges. By turning it into a habit, you improve your ability to respond quickly and effectively. This leads to smoother workflows and better results in any role.