The Highs and Woes of Innovation on a Small and Highly Effective Team - CodeStock 2019

Is your organization one of the many that is exploring the best way to introduce innovation and R&D efforts into the mix of yet another crud app and third-party software maintenance projects? Are you part of a large enterprise without a formal structure to support any work that doesn’t have concrete deliverables at the end of a predetermined timeline? So am I. This is the story of how a handful of developers formed a new team to address multiple business problems and produce exceptional results in unfamiliar territory while clearing both political and technical hurdles and releasing new features in as little as one day. Along the way, we’ve established patterns and formed habits that help us achieve exponentially more together than alone, be seamlessly accountable to each other (and the business) and make us excited to come to work to see what we’ll accomplish next.

Transcript

1. THE HIGHS AND WOES OF INNOVATION ON A SMALL AND HIGHLY EFFECTIVE TEAM Branden Schwartz
2. INTRODUCTION • .NET developer with “some” experience in the field • Functional programming enthusiast • Scenic City Summit & CHADNUG & SQL Saturday Chattanooga co-organizer • Foster parent & godfather • Started programming in ATARI BASIC back when that was a thing • Started in my current role the Monday after DevSpace 2017
3. DISCLAIMER • Not every organization will have the ability or inclination to support this sort of effort either monetarily, culturally, or what have you • These things have worked well for my team. Some may not work well for yours. • Regardless of how the immediate team operates, the organization sometimes lives and dies by its hierarchy.
6. THE GOAL • Wireless vibration sensor • Wireless radiation monitoring • No Bluetooth • Can’t use WiFi • Battery life: >90 days • Sensor agnostic collector that can send anything to the data historian • Now? It’s a Google search away. • Then? Not so much.
14. TEAM FORMATION • 1: 20 years’ experience in the field, 10 at the company • Originator of the ideas, conversations, and groundwork on his own time • 2: 10 years’ experience in the field, 10 at the company • 3: <1 year of experience in the field, 5 at the company • 4: 20 years’ experience in the field, <2 at the company
15. TEAM FORMATION • One previous working & mentoring relationship from several years ago • One recent volunteering & mentoring relationship that had just formed • One year-long acquaintance through the dev community and mutual friends • Three brand-new relationships that began with the start of the project
17. AUTONOMY •When •How •What •Who with Drive: The Curious Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel Pink
18. MASTERY •Improving what matters to you •Continuous training Drive: The Curious Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel Pink
19. PURPOSE •Contributing to a greater cause •The whole is greater than the sum of its parts Drive: The Curious Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel Pink
20. BRUCE TUCKMAN’S STAGES OF TEAM DEVELOPMENT •Forming •Storming •Norming •Performing
21. “We’re all nailing jello to the wall. It’s moving too quickly” -@housecor
22. Development Dimensions International
25. COMMUNICATION
29. Purpose-driven. Organizational purpose, team purpose, and individual purpose are all explicit and aligned
30. Responsive. Every individual acts as a “sensor” for the organization and has direct pathways for processing their challenges and opportunities into organizational change
31. Explicit “rules of the game”. Management hierarchy is replaced with an explicit & lightweight ruleset with clear expectations and transparent decision-making authority at every level
32. Transparent roles and responsibilities
34. DAILY HABITS • Whiteboard + Post-It notes • “announcements” and “links” channels in the team Slack • Email summaries at milestones to stakeholders and management • Never underestimate the power of inside jokes • Eat lunch together
35. “they had decided that spending time with each other was more important than…to eat with their peers” Humble Inquiry: The Gentle Art of Asking Instead of Telling by Edgar H. Schein
36. Speak a Common Language
37. Be Aware of the Spectrum
38. From “But I already ate”
39. To “Could you…? So I don’t have to…?” “Ok, I’ve got you”
40. The single strongest indicator of team health and effectiveness is asking for help Adam Grant – Give & Take
41. Overcommunicate Externally
42. But Not Too Much Overcommunication
43. Maintain a Consistent Message
44. Manage Miscommunication Immediately
45. Ownership: Consistent, Shared, Fluid
46. Be a Self-Cleaning Oven
55. THE MUNDANE • We keep the team updated on the time we’ll be out of office for sick leave, vacation, conferences, etc. • We spend 5 minutes a day tidying our work area. • We communicate our accomplishments, decisions, and emergent issues in a shared communication channel at the end of each day.
56. THE COMMUNICATION • We share information pertaining to the team and our work among team members. • We all have input into and awareness of the decisions that the team makes at all levels. • We invite discussion of tasks and issues to ensure that the team hears everyone’s ideas. • Though we may focus on different tasks, no one takes on significant aspects of our work or interactions with the business in a vacuum. • When we identify an issue, we raise awareness immediately.
57. THE BORDERLINE REVOLUTIONARY • While we can and do work independently, we swarm on significant issues to support each other and speed up problem resolution. • We fully support the direction the team as a whole chooses. • Each of us is capable of taking the lead on different aspects of a project.
58. Thanks for coming! Questions? Comments? Amusing anecdotes? @BrandenSchwartz
59. REFERENCES • Drive: The Curious Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel Pink • Humble Inquiry: The Gentle Art of Asking Instead of Telling by Edgar H. Schein • Creating Great Teams: How Self-Selection Lets People Excel by Sandy Mamoli and David Mole • Development Dimensions International