Today I wanted to talk a bit about team environments.
If you’ve been in IT for awhile, having worked on a few teams, you’ll get where I’m coming from.
If you’re still a bit green to the industry, take heart, for today I will explain the two main team buckets out there in our field. It’s my opinion that there really are only two. Sure you can have a hodge-podge mix of characteristics making it feel like there are lots of different ones but, for me, all teams are dominated by either the Team A or Team B types that are outlined below.
First off, let me tell you a bit about what I like on a team. Perhaps you can identify. Hey perhaps we can be pen-pals! No wait, what’s the new fangled thing the young kids are using, SnapBook?, TweetedIn? .. I can never keep up. There are buttons on this website where we can somehow talk – that’s about all I know 🙂
So I’m a social kind of developer – I enjoy the collaboration, the bouncing back and forth of the ideas. Discussion rather than dictation. I’m not the guy to give a task to, with nobody to interact with other than during a stand-up call. I don’t really live for status updates.
That is just not how I roll. If you roll a different way, no judgement here – it’s just that collaboration is my thing.
I need the collaboration, the interaction and especially the joking around. This blog notwithstanding, I tend to be a pretty funny guy and I enjoy people who can throw out a good movie quote while still getting the work done. For me humor, acting silly (sometimes) .. and even (gasp) laughing at work .. relaxes me. With less stress comes greater freedom of thought and greater ability to create.
Basically if I can laugh at the monster it doesn’t seem so scary 🙂
For me there is a huge difference between “working ON a team” and “working WITH a team (or team member)”. There are lots of groups of people out there, following a process, and doing work, but I wouldn’t necessarily call them a good “team” (yeah I’m looking at you St Louis Rams).
Let’s look at two software teams. Let’s also give them a vague reference to the movie “Men In Black”. Sound good? Cool!
Team A: “Old and Busted”
There are the places where every developer is an island and they are furiously working to solve issues while creating no real working-relationships/work-friendships. Usually this happens under tight deadlines or with high amounts of disorganization, very little road-map ahead, and honestly, sometimes the particular group of developers just prefers things that way.
In this type of team, everyone is essentially in survival mode meaning they come in, survive their day, work on their tasks and then throw them over the wall to someone else. This is pretty much most of IT in a typical corporate America cube-environment (in my opinion). It’s an easy rut to get into and it’s what most companies I’ve worked for have done because it takes a lot of work to push through all of this and build a different culture. So most managers throw folks together based on “technical skills and can we all get along”. So in most companies today that’s called “building a team”.
So I get it. Path of least resistance – all that. But you get what you pay for and with little invested into your team, then you get little team value. Assembling a group of people to solve a problem does not a team make.
Team B: “The New Hotness”
Then there are places where developers build relationships both with each other and as a team, and also with the business owners (you know those folks we in IT solve problems for – remember them?). Each person learns to play to their strengths and acknowledges their weaknesses while not fearing the judgment of having their “tech cred” taken away because they don’t know something. Sometimes these teams even talk about what movies are out, who would win in a fight (Spider-man or Batman) … and it’s Spider-man (duh) … or if they are really tight-knit, they even talk about politics or their beliefs (look away HR, look away).
The type of team culture I’m describing feels this way.
When the chips are down/the world is on fire/it’s raining cat-and-dog-shaped-problems AND someone tipped over the production server … you will find that folks feel as though the “team” has a problem needing solved, not that the “individual” has a problem needing solved. Ironically in this environment, individuals solve more problems on their own anyway because they know someone has got their back. Shocker huh?
Well guess which environment I find myself thriving in? While I am a child of the 80s and the A-Team is awesome, I would rather be on the B-Team.
So you may be saying, “Yes I’d like a large order of Team B with a biggie-sized side-order of Morale”. I hear you and here are some suggestions on how to get there.
For Managers
Managers if you want to build a Team B like I mentioned, first off you have to have to really, really want that culture. Which probably means convincing your boss’-boss’-boss or something crazy like that. If however you are among the fortunate managers who can create their own team culture, and your boss doesn’t mind what you do as along as your team produces, then you my friend can have a shiny Team B if you want.
I would suggest, if you’re building a new team, just interview in a slightly different way. Interview for the culture that you want in addition to the technical skills. There is nothing wrong with asking “So. Star wars or Star Trek?”. I’ve asked that in interviews before, even I where was the one being interviewed.
Maybe you’re not all geeky about things like movies but the point is, ask some off-beat questions (within HR guidelines of course) that help you find someone you’d like to have in your Team B culture. Learn to ask questions that simply cater to the culture you want to build rather than just questions about someone who can “do a job”. I think sometimes we all kind of follow the script of “these are good interview questions to ask” but perhaps they are not all so great.
It’s like a fruitcake. Not many people like it but we keep passing one around. So go off-script. Take some time to write down what kind of team culture you want. Dream big. Then write some questions that would find people who would fit it. Sounds easy huh? In theory it is but it will take some thought-work.
For those managers who have a team already, you have stuff you need to get done, but you’d like Team A to become Team B, you might have a longer road. Remember there are folks who prefer Team A and they might be on your team. And some folks don’t realize they could even be on a Team B because they’ve never been on one.
Schedule a meeting to discuss this shift openly and honestly. Talk to them about it and get their input. After the meeting, have some on-on-ones. with every two weeks, doing a follow-up (You’re doing bi-weekly one-on-one meetings already right? Right? 🙂 )
And lastly if you’re growing and hiring new folks, hire for the Team B side of things and let that culture organically grow in your organization. It might take time but you can get there.
For Team Members
And for team members, job candidates, or for folks who might be invited to the aforementioned meeting, I’d recommend you consider working on your team-member skills. Check yourself.
Do you care about the team members around you? Do you care if they succeed? Hopefully you do. If not, then learn to reach out to someone and ask how they are doing (and mean it) and listen to them. If they are stuck on something, ask if you can pitch in. Look something up for them on Bing to help them find an answer to their problem.
For developers, if your team doesn’t already do code-reviews, start them with someone. No you don’t need permission for this – just don’t take all day about it. Or do it at lunch. Why do it all? It creates collaboration and it works on your pride too. Cause, man if you can set aside your pride about something you created, to listen to someone tell your their opinion about how to do it better, you’re on a pretty good path.
Those are just a couple of suggestions.
Stuff like this it doesn’t take much effort but it goes miles for your personal reputation, for building a better team, and darn it .. it just kinda makes you feel good inside to help each other out.
The Wrap Up
Well there you go. There is a lot to be said about this topic and perhaps I should break it out into a series or something but this is a start.
So what kind of teams have you been on? Have you seen other archetypes than what I’ve outlined here? Did I miss something?
Feel free to comment or write directly to me.
And remember, keep calm and get fired up!