Effective tech team management

Effective Tech Team ManagementTopic :
Milan AdamovskySpeaker :
04 / 24 / 2014Date :
http://milan.adamovsky.comBlog :
milan.adamovsky@gmail.comEmail :

Prepared & Presented by Milan Adamovsky4/24/14
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Goal:
Bridge business and tech.

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• Familiarization
• Perception
• Acceptance
• Innovation
• Estimates
Agenda
• Profiling
• Manage
• Dragons
• Expectations
• Productivity
• Meetings
• Quotes
• Fear
• Misstep
• Recap
• Deadlines • Positives

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• Experience spans 17 years in web development field
• Field spans across startups, mid, and large companies
• Industries span logistics, media, consulting, financial
• Every presented item does not apply to any single company
• Every company gets some things right, others wrong
Preface
• Generalizations based on first and second hand experience
• Negativity represents the issues at heart of our dilemma
• Entire presentation is highly subjective and opinionated
• Presentation is for informational purposes only

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Profiling:
Learn who’s who.

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• Executives, managers, product owners, project managers
• Business visionaries
• Trained and experienced in coordinating efforts
• Ultimately responsible for the deliverables to the end-user
• Trained and experienced in business matters and soft skills
Who are the business people?
• Mostly academically educated individuals
• Accountable for the success or failure of projects
• Owners of projects
• Recipients of potentially higher bonuses and enticing perks

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• Team leads, developers, the geekier the better
• Prioritize technical lingo over business mumbo jumbo
• Thrive as technical problem solvers
• Emphasize hard skills over soft skills
• Often undersell themselves
Who are the tech people?
• Mix of self-taught and academically educated individuals
• Less business, more creative
• Personalities span wide spectrum from introverts to explosive
• Require organization and structure to be effective

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Familiarization:
Understand each other.

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• Operate at macro levels
• People interaction is a necessity
• Social skills and diplomacy drives success in field
• Golf, travel, entertaining clients, drinks
• Driving revenue for business
What’s the landscape like for business people ?
• Communicate in sentences
• Meetings, meetings, meetings
• Importance placed on image and presentation
• Breaks down business needs and wants for tech

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• Operate at micro levels towards macro levels
• People interaction optional to excel
• Technical skills and sound logic drives success in field
• Coffee and long days behind computer with sleepless nights
• Driving deliverables for business
What’s the landscape like for tech people ?
• Communicate in numbers
• Generally work best uninterrupted
• Shorts, t-shirt, flip-flops is a dress code
• Convert sentences into numbers

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Perception:
It’s not what it looks like.

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• A tech is a tech and therefore can be cross-functional
• Everyone is replaceable
• Tech should have excellent communication skills
• Tech should understand how business works
• Tech should adapt to understand business folks
How does business see tech ?
• Tech doesn’t understand business
• More meetings will better communicate needs to tech
• Tech are resources measured in numbers
• Tech are subordinates

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• Needs are not clearly defined or broken down
• Lack of business accountability and source of blame games
• Insufficient or absent shielding from business forces
• Disruptive to getting the job done
• Meetings take away time from tech productivity
How does tech see business ?
• Business doesn’t understand tech
• Unrealistic expectations
• Condescending communication
• Paycheck

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Acceptance:
It is what it is. Deal with it.

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• Show tech that business listens to that voice
• Take time to understand raised tech concerns
• Show tech you need them
• Match tech with their skill set and passion
• Do not corner tech into work they are not interested in
What can business do?
• Give tech a voice
• Tech can find new job extremely easily
• Most tech jobs pay in the $100k-$150k range
• Remember: technology powers business

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Innovation:
An opinion… everyone has one.

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• Listen to everyone’s input
• Defer tech decision making to most senior tech
• Have a tech appointed a tie breaker (e.g. architect)
• There are many ways to achieve a same business goal
• Discourage consensus driven tech decision making
Who should business listen to?
• Define a clear chain of command in tech team
• Do not be afraid to enforce tech standards
• Tech thrives in structures, standards, and conventions
• Business thrives in processes, procedures, and formalities

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Estimates:
Involve the worker.

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• Re-estimate if someone new takes over work
• Do not pressure tech with deadlines they were dumped into
• Deadlines need to be properly managed by business
• Hold tech accountable to their own estimates
• Business must proactively follow-up on progress
How do we deal with estimates?
• Do not hold one tech to another tech’s estimates
• Estimates are guesstimates and should be revisited regularly
• Ask tech what they can achieve within a time period
• Manage expectations and resources according to tech’s insight

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Deadlines:
This is where management shines.

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• Commit to deadlines as a team
• Extending deadlines dilutes sense of accomplishment
• Adjust deliverable scope but keep deadline if necessary
• Reward tech with a breather if deadline is met
• Deadlines pressure can trigger writer’s block
How do we deal with deadlines?
• Coordinate deadlines with tech
• Recognize when complex problems are solved
• A simple pat on the back goes a long way
• Show genuine interest in learning cause for missed deadlines

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Manage:
Do your job and let them do theirs.

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• Speak as a team equal
• Do not hover over the shoulder to expedite work
• Interact in terms of tickets
• Exercise care to give credit where due
• Plan, break down, and delegate tasks
How should I manage a tech?
• Provide clear direction
• Proactively manage status of tickets
• Manage burn out rate by not overloading techs
• Exercise reason and coordinate new work with your techs

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Dragons:
Hold the fort.

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• Walk-by favors
• Scope creep
• Requirement alterations
• Unclear requirements
• Outside forces
What to defend techs against?
• Meetings
• Disruptive team dynamics
• Overtime
• Mis-management by management at any level

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Fear:
Listen to those in the trenches.

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• Do not punish failed efforts
• Manage turn over rate as not to hurt morale
• Identify areas of discontent
• Observe management as a possible source for tech stress
• Take decisive action in presence of fear
Is my team afraid?
• Encourage for concerns to be raised
• Listen to issues through the grapevines
• Embrace uncomfortable information constructively
• Do not take “everything is great” for an answer

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Expectations:
You get what you put in.

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• Address one issue per ticket
• Link related tickets
• Attach as much documentation as possible to ticket
• Do not wait for tech to ask for more information; have it ready
• Communicate clarifications and details within ticket
How to effectively communicate expectations?
• Communicate in tickets
• Attach any outside correspondence to ticket
• Transfer verbal communications post-mortem to ticket
• Never ever repurpose a ticket

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Productivity:
Compare apples to apples.

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• Focus on clarity of requirements
• Break requirements into digestible chunks
• Clearly document requirements
• Apply a bullet point approach versus novel style
• Offload tech from having to worry about project management
How do we get things done?
• Plan requirements thoroughly
• Triage issues before passing them off to tech
• Business owns miscommunications in requirements
• Learn from Art of War

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• Every ticket has different levels of complexity
• Match task complexity with competency level of tech
• Demonstrate awareness of task complexity to tech
• Keep an eye out for techs who only pick easy tasks
• Complex tasks’ time vs. output can be visualized exponentially
How do I measure productivity?
• Do not compare number of tickets between techs
• Simple tasks’ time vs. output can be visualized linear
• Observe a tech delivers what he or she committed to
• Optionally manage task completion percentages for each tech

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Meetings:
Don’t look busy. Be busy.

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• Meetings are necessary but often overdone for techs
• Decisions should simply be passed on to tech in tickets
• Invite tech leads to meetings and save others
• Disruptive to a tech’s workflow
• Break in concentration needs costly ramp-up time to return
What impact do meetings have on tech?
• Business loves problem solving via meetings
• Reserve meetings to beginning of day before work begins
• Techs see most meetings as a waste of their time
• Meetings covering technical issues tend to be more welcome

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• Time box meeting to no more than five minutes per person
• Have someone track time and interrupt spill over
• Encourage more of a status meeting for tech
• Reserve more chatty meetings to leads
• Discourage questions and discussions to form
So how do we effectively meet ?
• Apply a stand up format
• Web cams are effective for remote teams’ attention
• Phone meetings are less effective
• Show genuine interest in what is being communicated

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Quotes:
Food for thought.

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• “We are in an at-will state.”
• “You did not deliver what was asked.”
• “Look it up in the requirements.”
• “Did you even read the requirements?”
• “All hands on deck.”
What are some shortcuts to distance a tech?
• “I am your boss !”
• “He did the estimate, now you need to deliver.”
• “Don’t bother the client with questions.”
• “You have to work weekends until further notice.”

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Misstep:
The don’ts of management.

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• Don’t compare tech to tech
• Don’t compare tech to business
• Don’t make close-ended statements
• Don’t make snide remarks
• Don’t give back-handed compliments
What should I never do?
• Don’t compare anyone’s achievements, progress, hours
• Don’t oversimplify or down play complexity of issues
• Don’t offer rhetorical help
• Don’t be a prevaricator

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Positives:
Small things do great things.

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• Surprise them with a physical token of appreciation
• Show appreciation personally and publicly
• Flexible work arrangements and flex time
• Take time to meet with tech one-on-one to catch up
• Provide guidance to empower your tech to grow and advance
How can we motivate?
• Treat them like humans
• Take out your team on your dime whether they know it or not
• Manage a tech’s health and refuse engagement if overworked
• Money works just as good on tech as they do on business

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Recap:
Simple things to remember.

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• A ticket workflow needs to be clearly defined
• Break down requirements into single issue tickets
• Manage project logistics for your tech
• Shield tech from business distractions
• Show accountability and appreciation towards your tech
What are our takeaways?
• Tickets are at the core of effective tech management
• Tech does the work, business defines and manages it
• Provide a well defined working structure
• Take good care of your techs

Thank you for your time and attention.
Connect with me on
milan.adamovsky@gmail.comEmail :

Effective tech team management

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