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Patterns on the most effective teams I’ve worked on: - high degree of trust and emotional safety between team members. The team can safely share feedback and r
by throwarayes 6y ago
Patterns on the most effective teams I’ve worked on:
- high degree of trust and emotional safety between team members. The team can safely share feedback and risk sharing our crazy ideas
- high degree of care for the craft. We hold each other accountable to quality
- ships, regularly, to real customers
- little status seeking - goes with emotional safety - few individuals on the team need to be “in charge” or hold arbitrary titles.
- the individuals are more than fairly compensated and the company shows their love for the team in big and small ways
- the team talks to their customer and has a lot of empathy for their problems. They want to be accountable to them
- the team has a lot of empathy for new team members and works hard to make on boarding easier
- some willingness to “get in trouble” with the broader org because you know what you’re doing is right ultimately for the customer
- high self starters: instead of complaining, people feel empowered to solve problems or prototype ideas without a permission structure
- not too much catering to “super stars”. 1-2 heros does not a team make, the senior people make it their job to lift everyone up. The team doesn’t obsess over their high performers.
There’s a lot more emphasis on emotional intelligence and empathy in an effective team than on any specific process.
- throwarayes 6y agoRot sets in when: - teams no longer have a real customer, such as “big rewrites” that will ship in 3 years - teams accept low quality and slack off. One PR isn’t called out and that gives a permission structure for lower quality - a bad egg gets on the team the wrecks the feelings of emotional safety. The brilliant narcissist the company feels they need to let his/her abusiveness slide - we throw new hires “into the deep end” because they have to “take their lumps” like we did - people get territorial over code because they’re insecure and maybe not great developers. - the customer is ignored to chase the latest cool new thing - hiring standards are lowered and anybody with a pulse that walked by the tech section in the bookstore is hired - good developers stop seeing peers, and realize they do all the work, so leave for a healthier team - tech illiteracy outside the team trumps tech competency in the team. When the manager says “stop writing unit tests, just get the feature done” - any rumor “hire cheaper labor” causes your best to flee and your least qualified to jockey for status
- gabereiser 6y agoWhat’s worse is when some of these make their way into a company that has barely gotten off the ground. Especially the narcissist.
- droopyEyelids 6y agoCan you expand on "any rumor hire cheaper labor"? Im too new to understand that one.
- jdfellow 6y agoLikely rumors that the company will be hiring or contracting overseas.
- toong 6y ago"Now that you're all working from home anyway, I might as well outsource your job to India! That will save me a truckload of money too!"
- futureproofd 6y agoOur company recently did this and our best developer left. I now have no one to talk to about best coding practices, new technologies, or other fun concepts. Just a bunch of overseas ticket jockeys trying to avoid lashings.
- Doxin 6y agoSounds like that's your cue to leave if you ask me.
- round_manholes 6y ago- Bureaucrats who mask their power hunger with fake noble goals take over the team and call high performers brilliant narcissists. - Bureaucrats cannot code, therefore they needlessly churn around and associate themselves with other people's creations. People objecting get called territorial and lose the political battle to the mediocrity. As you see, it all depends on the exact circumstances. Sometimes your points are correct, sometimes mine.
- PeterStuer 6y ago"little status seeking" It only takes one that gets away with it to start a race to the bottom.
- bananapub 6y agoamen. I've found that pushing on all these levers to improve things makes me happier and more productive, and to a lesser extent everyone else happier and more productive, too.
- specialist 6y ago> ...not too much catering to “super stars”. 1-2 heros does not a team make, the senior people make it their job to lift everyone up. The team doesn’t obsess over their high performers. Amen. A team is only as fast as its slower member. h/t The Goal, theory of constraints https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_constraints https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_constraints