Team & Project Management

Restructuring a Growing Team: A Lesson in Adjusting the Spotify Model

This article discusses the restructuring of a software development department that had grown to 100 people. The team implemented the Spotify model of squads and tribes, adjusting it to fit their unique needs. Through this restructuring, the team was able to reignite the sense of belonging to the team and uphold the culture while also scaling the business. The article also highlights the importance of staying open-minded, listening to feedback, and communicating transparently throughout the process. Lastly, it emphasizes the importance of keeping teams small to ensure culture is not prescribed.

How Early Engagement Can Help Improve Cross-Team Communication

This article discusses a situation where a development team and customer success team had to go back and forth multiple times to implement a feature. To prevent this from happening in the future, the author suggests establishing a Product Council to ensure early engagement of all stakeholders and to prioritize activities. The author also outlines six key principles to ensure smooth communication and alignment between different teams. These include being clear on why, exercising empathy and understanding, owning responsibility, acknowledging frustration, establishing a common ground, and moving into a solution.

Securing A Fluid Transition to an Established Organization

Transitioning to a well-established organization can be difficult, as the products and processes are more complex than in a startup. To ensure a smooth transition, it is important to create a supportive network by developing rapport with cross-functional teams and communicating openly with managers and peers. Additionally, taking ownership of tasks and reaching out to key stakeholders for subject knowledge can help bridge the knowledge gap.

How to Spot Key Issues

When joining a new company, the author noticed organizational and cultural issues that needed to be addressed. To do this, they conducted interviews with stakeholders from different departments to collect information and gain an overview of the situation. They then synthesized the information, prioritized it, and drafted an action plan with concrete measures, timing, and resources. Finally, they communicated the plan to the whole team and monitored progress through regular surveys. Through this process, the author learned the importance of an outsider perspective, engaging stakeholders, and clear communication when trying to bring about change.

How to Creatively Juggle Technical Debt and Product Priorities

A team faced a challenge of working in a fast-paced delivery environment with a clunky codebase that needed refactoring. To address this, the Engineering Manager and Product Manager discussed the importance of tackling technical debt and agreed to allocate more time and effort to it. A system was created to prioritize tech debt and refactors were included in the scope of new product development. The team learned the importance of having a trust-based relationship with the Product Manager and the need to surface the most problematic areas early in order to get the most out of time spent.

Why Would Anyone Mob Program? (an intro)

Mob Programming is a concept where a team of ~3-5 works together on a single feature, with only one person typing at a time. It is a difficult process to go from troll-coding to mobbing, but it is an incredibly valuable and efficient experience. It is slow, but the quality of work produced is multiple times better than what a single developer can create. It also allows for full domain knowledge of the system developed, and one member of the mob can represent the team in meetings.