Uploaded byThomas Sarlandie
Organizing Technical Teams
The document outlines strategies for organizing technical teams, emphasizing the importance of specialization, communication, and continuous improvement to enhance productivity and on-time project delivery. It details various growth stages of team structures and provides FAQs on managing external resources and technological specialization. The key takeaway is that effective team organization and management are critical for a company's growth and adaptation in a competitive environment.
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Organizing Technical Teams
- 1. Organizing technical teams ThomasSarlandie 2013 02 26
- 2. Should my developersspecialize on one technology ? When is more meetings a waste of time? How do I keep the team motivated? How to deliver on time ... more often? How to stop working nights?
- 3. Your Goals asCTO It’s easy to get lost if you are not sure where you are going ...
- 4. Business Goals Deliver projectson time Maximize productivity with existing resources
- 5. Productivity in anagency productivity: Productivity is an average measure of the efficiency of production. Productivity is a ratio of production output to what is required to produce it. (Wikipedia) In the teams of a service business, productivity can be defined as the number of man-days sold for each actual work day One of the worst thing that can happen to you is to have unused resources in the team.
- 6. On-time delivery is avast subject ... Let’s assume the following helps: Start project on time Put enough resources on the project Productivity and on-time delivery both require planing and lots of time to communicate with the other teams in the company (sales, project management, hosting, etc)
- 7. Human R. Goals Keepthe team highly motivated Adapt the team to the business: Size and skills Improve the team
- 8. Motivation Motivation isliterally the desire to do things. (Psychology Today) Communication is essential Teams want to know what is going on in the company They can “rush” if they understand why Career plan If you do not make one for each of your employee, they will make one that does not involve you ... One on one meeting and Annual reviews are great tools for the manager! A minimum of stability Do not reorganize everything - every two months!
- 9. Growth To increase therevenues of the company, your team will have to grow What is the forecast growth of revenues this year? What does that mean for your team at the end of the year? What are you selling? What are the most demanded skills? How is that changing? External resources Who are they? When are they available? When is it better to hire?
- 10. Improvement It is nota substitute to hiring I have yet to meet a company where there is room for 50% improvement... Is required to manage growth Your problems are getting bigger, everything moves faster: you and your teams need to develop new tools to deal with that growth There is always room for it...
- 11. How to organizethe team(s)?
- 12. You need ... Tomeet your business goals Communication with the rest of the company Production planing Good estimates Make sure that everyone is busy most of the time To keep the team motivated Weekly communication with your employees and annual reviews Training An organization that works today and at least for a year Globally Constant improving of your tools and process
- 13. Experience shows ... Itis really hard to manage large teams But each added manager to the structure will reduce productivity
- 14. Experience shows ... Itis really hard to manage large teams But each added manager to the structure will reduce productivity Teams larger than 7 should have a dedicated manager in charge of the team planing, weekly communication and annual review
- 15. Experience shows ... Specializationincreases productivity But then one team will be very busy and the other one not
- 16. Experience shows ... Specializationincreases productivity But then one team will be very busy and the other one not Start specialization when you have groups of 4/5 people doing the same thing
- 17.
- 18. Step 0 CTO /Dev / Project Manager Dev Web Dev iPhone + Web Dev iPhone + Web HC: 4
- 19. Step 1 CTO isdirectly in charge of a team of 6 people - probably does not have much time to code anymore ... Some developers are specialized - Some have mixed talents One weekly meeting with everyone on the team ... probably a little too long CTO Dev Web Dev Web Dev Web + Learning iPhone Dev Web / Project Manager Dev iPhone Dev iPhone HC: 7 +3/+75%
- 20. Step 2 Team issplit in two specialities CTO is “acting” as leader of the new team One guy in the web team stepped up to be Web team manager (planning+weekly review) CTO still takes part in annual review (training time for the new manager) HC: 11 +4/+57%CTO Technical Team Leader Web (still doing a little dev) Dev Web Dev Web Dev Web Dev Web Dev Web Dev Web (+iPhone) Technical Team Leader CTO Acting Dev iPhone (Sr) Dev iPhone Dev iPhone
- 21. Step 3 Two fulltimes technical leaders in charge of planning, weekly meetings, annual reviews Senior in Web team helps with sales support and backups the team leader when he is away CTO is now doing mostly crisis management, sales support, recruitment, etc Tools are starting to be really important : planning, bug tracking, etc Training is also a challenge at this scale HC: 17 +6/+54%CTO Technical Team Leader Web Dev Web (Sr) Dev Web Dev Web Dev Web Dev Web Dev Web Dev + PM Web Technical Team Leader Apps Dev iPhone Dev iPhone Dev iPhone Dev iPhone Dev iOS/Android Dev Android Dev Android
- 22. Step 4 Three teamleaders in charge of planning, etc Several Senior members in the teams for sales support, training, commando-style jobs Biggest problems now are recruitment, employee retention and lack of flexibility HC: 23 +6/+35%CTO Technical Team Leader Web Dev Web (Sr) Dev Web (Sr) Dev Web Dev Web Dev Web Dev Web Dev Web Technical Team Leader iOS Technical Team Leader Android Dev iPhone (Sr) Dev iPhone (Sr) Dev iPhone Dev iPhone Dev iPhone Dev iPhone Dev iPhone Dev Android Dev Android Dev Android Dev Android Dev Blackberry
- 23. A few tipsand FAQ
- 24. Write job descriptionsfor every role in your organigram Build your organigram with Roles in mind - Put people in the roles later Build your organigram for the headcount expected at the end of next year Use “Acting” people if you do not have enough staff yet Do not multiply the number of specialties Give time to the new managers - Increase their responsibilities progressively Create space for technical experts that are not managing
- 25. FAQ Where do Iput product/framework development? In a dedicated R&D team? Pro: It is the only way to make sure that the R&D actual gets done without interference from customer projects. Con: It will give the rest of the teams the feeling that they are not “good enough to be in the R&D team” - The R&D team will quickly forget what it is like to work on customer projects Use your good judgement. Apply the other rules: if the dedicated team is not going to be at least 3/4 people then it is probably too early. Be careful of your communication on that new team.
- 26. FAQ What about externalresources? Long time resources (2+ months) They should fit in your organigram just like anyone else. Apply the same management practice to them. If you need external resources for more than 2 months, you should probably consider hiring. Short term resources They can be very helpful when the teams are overwhelmed (aka crisis-mode). Use them in “project mode”, under the management of project manager. They should work in of some internal resources who will make sure that the processes of the company are respected (code is commited, best practices are followed, etc).
- 27. FAQ My team hasto manage 7 different types of technology with only 5 people. How should I manage specialization? No teams can be efficient if it cannot focus on a small set of technology. If you have 7 different technologies to deal with on a daily basis, then you have a big problem. You need to rationalize: work with the sales team and global management to reduce this to a more manageable number.
- 28. FAQ Who has timeto think about that and make slides of next year’s organigram? I am too busy taking care of projects ... Building an organization in which you have space and time to think about the organization is your #1 responsibility. If you do not do it, you will be overwhelmed by the flow ... The company will fail to grow - or worse crash due to the pressure of competition Or your partner/boss will kindly ask you to step away as a real CTO steps in
- 29. FAQ Recommended reading fornew managers? Behind Closed Doors (Johanna Rothman / Esther Derby) is excellent and highly recommended.
- 30. Final words Do notworry if you do not get it right - the worst thing would be to do nothing.
- 31. Final words If youare not busy being born, you are busy dying... (Dylan) And expect to do it all over again next year ... it’s part of the fun! Do not worry if you do not get it right - the worst thing would be to do nothing.