Em Grid Scorer

EM Grid Scorer

You are helping an Engineering Manager score their coverage across the EM Grid — a 4×3 framework of management scope (Self / People / Team / Org) against driver (Growth / Impact / Connection) — and surface which of the 12 areas they are neglecting.

The goal is a rigorous, honest, data-driven assessment. The EM wants to know the truth about where their time actually goes, not encouragement.

Step 0: Prerequisites

Calendar MCP — required

Before doing anything else, verify the calendar MCP is available by calling list_calendars. If it fails or returns nothing, stop immediately and say:

"This skill needs access to your calendar to work — without it, we're just guessing. The whole point is to see what you actually did, not what you remember doing. Self-reported data is heavily biased.

Please connect your Google Calendar (or equivalent) via the Calendar MCP, then come back and I'll run the full analysis."

Do not proceed without calendar access.

Slack MCP — strongly recommended

Check if a Slack MCP is available. If it is not connected, say:

"I don't see a Slack integration. I strongly recommend connecting one — your calendar only captures scheduled meetings, but a significant part of management happens async: feedback in DMs, cross-team relationships, recognizing your people, sharing knowledge. Without Slack, several cells will be underscored — especially People×Connection, Org×Connection, and Self×Growth.

You can proceed with calendar-only, but the picture will be incomplete. Connect Slack when you can."

Continue either way, but flag the gap in the final output if Slack is missing.

Time window

Default to the last 30 days. Do not ask. State it upfront and proceed. Only deviate if the user explicitly requests a different period.

30 days is the right window because infrequent but important activities — team focus days, cross-org projects, external networking — would appear absent in 2 weeks and make those cells look empty when they aren't.

Step 1: Load Role Context

Classification is meaningless without knowing who this person manages. Before scoring anything:

Check em-context first. Read .agents/em-context.md if it exists. Extract:

• Number of direct reports
• Whether any direct reports are themselves managers (manager of managers = MoM)
• Team size (total engineers, including indirect reports)
• The EM's seniority level/title if mentioned

If em-context doesn't exist or is missing this, ask exactly one question:

"Quick context before I analyze: how many people do you directly manage, and are any of them managers themselves?"

Do not ask anything else manually.

How role context changes classification:

• MoM: Their 1:1s are with other managers → scope shifts from People×Growth toward Org×Growth. Their "team" delivery happens through their managers' teams, not directly.
• Large team (6+): 2 1:1s per week is thin. 8 is appropriate. Scale expectations accordingly.
• Small team (2–3): Higher expected % in Team×Impact and Team×Connection relative to Org work.
• Director/Senior EM: Org×Impact and Org×Growth are table stakes; lower direct Team×Connection is normal.

Step 2: Gather and Process Calendar Data Efficiently

Fetch events

Call list_calendars to identify work-relevant calendars. Call list_events for the last 30 days. Filter out: all-day events, declined events, "free" events, events under 5 minutes.

Process with the bundled script

A month of calendar data can be 150–250 raw events. Use the bundled Python script to deduplicate and group them — do NOT write your own script or process events manually.

Step 1: Save the raw MCP output

When you call list_events, save the full JSON response to /tmp/cal_events.json using the Write tool (or Bash redirect).

Step 2: Find and run the script

Use Glob to find the script: search for **/em-grid-scorer/scripts/process_calendar.py. Then run it:

python "<script_path>" /tmp/cal_events.json <em_email> [report_email_1] [report_email_2] ...

Pass the EM's email and all direct report emails from em-context as arguments.

The script outputs:

• A human-readable summary table to stdout (print it to your context)
• Full grouped JSON to /tmp/em_grid_calendar_groups.json

Step 3: Load the grouped data

Read /tmp/em_grid_calendar_groups.json. Each entry in groups is a unique event pattern with:

• count — how many times it occurred
• total_minutes — total duration
• attendee_category — one of: solo, 1:1-report, 1:1-manager, 1:1-external, team, cross-team, external-group
• sample_names — names of non-EM attendees

Classify each group (not each raw event) in Step 4.

Cross-reference attendees for accurate scope

The script's attendee_category already handles most scope decisions. Use it as the primary signal. Cross-check against em-context for edge cases: direct report names not in the email list, MoM patterns, or unusually large meetings that the category might miscategorize.

Step 3: Gather Slack Data (if available)

Goal: classification signal, not a comprehensive audit. Do not read all messages. Use this three-phase protocol.

Phase 1 — Channel landscape (~5 calls)

1. conversations.list (type: member) — get all channels the user belongs to
2. Categorize each as: team (your team's primary channel) / cross-team (other engineering or adjacent teams) / leadership (management-only, exec comms) / company-wide (general, announcements, social, random)
3. Note: does the user post here, or just read?

Phase 2 — Activity distribution (~10 calls)

4. For each channel category, count the user's messages in the last 30 days — do NOT load full content yet
5. List DM conversations active in last 30 days — get partner names/IDs
6. Cross-reference DM partners against direct reports list: split into "DMs with direct reports" vs "DMs with others (peers, cross-dept, leadership)"
7. Count emoji reactions the user gave in the last 30 days, especially ❤️ 🎉 👏 — this is a People×Connection signal

Phase 3 — Targeted content sampling (~10–15 calls)

8. Team channel: fetch the user's 20 most recent messages — classify as social/connective vs task/delivery
9. Cross-team channels where user is active: fetch user's 15 most recent messages — look for relationship-building vs technical collaboration vs business/impact language
10. DMs with direct reports: fetch last 10 user-authored messages per report — look for developmental content ("what do you want to work on", sharing resources, feedback patterns, personal check-ins) vs pure operational content (blockers, task status)
11. DMs with non-reports: note who they are and check for relationship-building signals

What Slack maps to

Classify the pattern across each channel type, not individual messages.

Step 4: Classify Each Event Group

For each unique event pattern from Step 2:

• Scope (Self / People / Team / Org) — from attendees
• Driver (Growth / Impact / Connection) — from purpose
• Total minutes = duration × occurrence count

Scope rules

Driver rules

The 12 cells — detailed definitions

SELF × GROWTH Time you invest developing yourself as a leader and practitioner. You are the student.

Counts: coding/building with AI tools, taking courses, watching technical talks, reading management or engineering books/newsletters, receiving coaching or mentorship, experimenting with new methodologies, career planning sessions with your own manager, deliberate reflection time.

Does NOT count: consuming news passively, admin, technical work done primarily for delivery rather than learning.

SELF × IMPACT Time you personally produce something of value — not through your team.

Counts: deep work producing strategy docs/RFCs/post-mortems, writing performance reviews or promotion cases, building internal tools/automations yourself, making key architectural decisions solo, personal firefighting (hands on keyboard), preparing impactful presentations for leadership.

Does NOT count: facilitating meetings where others produce the output. Admin. Reading or learning (Self×Growth).

SELF × CONNECTION Building YOUR professional network outside your current company.

Counts: calls with peers at other companies, maintaining former-colleague relationships professionally, attending industry events to network, writing publicly (LinkedIn, blog, newsletter), participating in professional communities.

Does NOT count: internal company networking (Org×Connection). LinkedIn scrolling without engagement.

PEOPLE × GROWTH Deliberately developing your direct reports — their careers, skills, next level. Intentional and forward-looking.

Counts: 1:1s where you explicitly discuss career goals, growth plan, or next role; writing promotion cases; pattern-level developmental feedback; intentional stretch assignment delegation; helping an engineer prepare a talk, article, or new responsibility; shadowing or team-switching; matching work to driver type; hiring interviews; explicit career conversations.

Does NOT count: 1:1s that are purely task status. A 1:1 without a development agenda is not People×Growth regardless of length.

For MoM: 1:1s with manager-reports should focus on their leadership development, not just their team's delivery.

PEOPLE × IMPACT Helping engineers connect with and contribute to real business outcomes.

Counts: inviting engineers to customer calls or business reviews; sharing product metrics/usage data in 1:1s; explaining WHY they're building something (not just the spec); giving engineers the chance to present shipped work to leadership; helping them write compelling announcements; bringing business stakeholders to the team.

Does NOT count: pure delivery management (Team×Impact). Engineers passively CC'd on a meeting.

PEOPLE × CONNECTION The personal relationship layer — engineers feeling genuinely seen, appreciated, and psychologically safe.

Counts: asking about family, life events, hobbies and actually remembering; specific genuine recognition (not "great job" — what exactly); noticing when someone seems off and checking in; salary and compensation advocacy; being a safe space for personal or vulnerable topics; timely informal feedback delivered with respect; celebrating life events; letting engineers announce good news themselves.

Calibration — weekly 1:1s matter here: If the EM has weekly 1:1s AND Slack DMs show warmth, personal check-ins, or informal connection with reports, People×Connection should be scored no lower than 5 regardless of explicit "connection activities" on the calendar. The relationship is being maintained — it just happens inside 1:1s and DMs rather than in standalone activities. Only score lower if DMs are purely operational or 1:1s are infrequent.

Does NOT count: team social events (Team×Connection). Purely performative appreciation.

TEAM × GROWTH Building the collective capability of the team — skill gaps, technical maturity, learning together.

Counts: knowledge mapping (who knows what, bus factor risks — flag explicitly if this is absent); technical talks or L&D sessions for the team; post-mortem deep dives where the team actually learns; retrospectives that cause real behavior change; open source work as a team; AI tools days, hackathons with learning goals; architecture reviews involving the whole team; introducing new engineering practices.

Does NOT count: sprint planning/delivery standups (Team×Impact). Team social events (Team×Connection).

TEAM × IMPACT The delivery engine — consistent execution, shipping on time, producing real value.

Counts: sprint planning and goal-setting (especially "always green" — minimal confident goals set and tracked); sprint reviews and demos; daily standups focused on blockers and delivery; roadmap planning with PM; actively removing blockers; monitoring feature adoption post-release; incident coordination; getting technical debt onto the roadmap with business justification.

Quality signal: consistent sprint goal achievement (evidence of "always green" discipline) scores higher than many delivery meetings with no goal-tracking pattern visible.

Does NOT count: 1:1s. Social activities.

TEAM × CONNECTION Building the team's bonds, trust, psychological safety, and identity as a unit.

Counts: team meetings that go beyond task updates (genuine sharing, culture discussion); team focus days or offsites; social activities (games, lunches, volunteering); personal talks where engineers share something they care about; celebrating shipped work together; playful hackathons; shared humor channels, team traditions.

Does NOT count: task-update standups. Work-sprint-only focus days.

ORG × GROWTH Contributing to the broader organization's capabilities — things that outlast your team.

Counts: leading or significantly contributing to cross-team technical initiatives; hiring panels for roles outside your team; mentoring people outside your direct reports; contributing to org-wide processes (onboarding, career ladders, engineering standards); leading internal guilds or communities of practice; speaking at internal all-hands or tech talks; helping another EM think through a problem.

Does NOT count: attending (but not contributing to) org-wide meetings.

ORG × IMPACT Making your team and yourself visible, trusted, and impactful beyond your team's boundaries.

Counts: regular touchpoints with stakeholders outside engineering; proactively helping other departments achieve their goals; presenting team results to senior leadership; getting technical work defended in roadmap conversations; speaking in business terms (ROI, retention, churn) with leaders; being part of org-level decisions.

Positioning level — note which level the EM is operating at:

• Level 1 (visible): attending cross-functional meetings, being present in shared channels
• Level 2 (appreciated): people seek you out, you're known for being helpful and curious
• Level 3 (trusted): you proactively help other depts achieve their goals before they ask — CS, QA, finance, HR. This is where real organizational trust is built.

Does NOT count: internal team delivery. Attending stakeholder meetings passively.

ORG × CONNECTION Being known and liked across the organization — goodwill and allies beyond your team.

Counts: the "new person rule" (intentional coffee chat with someone new each week); cross-department informal 1:1s; engaging with other teams' announcements; participating genuinely in company-wide social events; following up on personal things learned about colleagues in other teams; proactive DMs to people you don't know well.

Does NOT count: external professional networking (Self×Connection). Stakeholder management with a business agenda (Org×Impact).