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  • Building a Team For The Long Term – Keeping Core Staff

    Building a Team For The Long Term – Keeping Core Staff

    There are so many factors that go into a successful development team that it can seem like an impossible task.  The technology and requirements seem to change daily, and there are always options for staff to move to another job.  All that being said, there is a considerable value in keeping core staff in the team and creating long-term stability.  This is not a goal that will just magically be accomplished.  It takes some planning and effort as well as communication with the team.

    A Career Path

    One of the traits that all good developers share is a passion for advancing their career.  It is important to recognize that career advancement is not just a title or higher pay.  Both of those are important, if not critical.  However, there is far more to a successful career path.

    It may seem obvious, but the best among IT staff tend to the technical.  They may advance to where they do not write code every day, but that does not mean they will not be technologists.  There are managerial, mentor, and architect roles that can be very technical in day-to-day tasks.  Thus, the career path you offer should be a steady growth towards scaling the skills of your best staff, not a choppy series of steps.

    This approach does make titles sort of “fuzzy” in their application.  That can be a challenge, but it does allow for a natural progression of skills, experience, and responsibilities.  For example, There should be a lead role that is not a senior developer nor a manager.  This provides a path into testing (and refining) management and leadership skills from a developer.  The staff can progress without a trial by fire approach where they are thrown into a role 100% and without much support.

    Perpetual Mentoring Everywhere

    A good team starts at the top and carries through to the bottom a culture of nurture or mentoring.  Every role must include a mentorship or teaching aspect.  Thus, the team will have an internal drive to improve itself by improving every member.  When you have this sort of environment you have one that is not only positive for the team, it also attracts the best from elsewhere.

    The thing about an environment that fosters growth is that it is not easy to find.  When a “guru” or “superstar” developer hears about a job that exists in this environment, they are immediately attracted to it.  Of course, that creates a snowball effect where the team that builds itself draws those that desire to develop the team.  Before you know it, you have an organization like Google or Amazon where everyone is knocking on your door to be a part of your story.

    Money Talks

    For better or worse, money is an important part of keeping core staff.  You can be an incredible organization that does not pay very well.  However, that will soon fade as the best on your team are lured away by better compensation.  On the other hand, developers often like to stay where they are and avoid the “headaches” involved in moving to a new job.

    This is where momentum works to your advantage.  You do not have to be the best deal in town.  A compensation plan and approach that shows your respect for the team members will offset that deficiency.  Likewise, stay competitive in how you compensate staff and include some bonuses that factor in the savings associated with a stable team.  I love the idea of retention bonuses that payout based on staying with the company for another year.  This sort of plan can do wonders in keeping staff around for a while.  Better yet, it often stops them from looking for another job based on cold calls.  Yes, they will still leave a negative situation.  They just will not be as likely to consider out-of-the-blue offers throughout the year as they will be steadily focused on the next bonus day.

    In the same way, there should be regular reviews and raises.  It is difficult to wait until a team member complains about their situation before acting.  They may have already decided to leave no matter what your response whereas being proactive can win back a member before they are lost for good.

    Value Them

    The bottom line in all of this is to value your team members. Show them the respect you have for them as people and workers on a regular basis.  Make it evident that they are appreciated and that you desire them to grow as individuals, not just as a team.  This goal can be achieved without spending much more money.  However, it cannot be reached without being intentional about bringing forth the best from every member.

  • Keeping The Agile Development Approach Flexible and Increasing Velocity

    Keeping The Agile Development Approach Flexible and Increasing Velocity

    The Agile development approach is a hot topic and has been for a while.  Although it is adopted in a lot of shops and well-documented, there are still some issues with it.  The way we implement the Agile approach can defeat the purpose of a flexible model that allows a high velocity of production.  That assumes you have enough resources to effectively do more than one thing at a time.  However, there are some ways to adjust your scrums and sprints to get the most out of this methodology.

    Agile as Small Waterfall

    One of the flaws I have come across is that teams treat a sprint as a short waterfall process.  It does include all of the same steps as the waterfall approach (gather requirements, design, implement, test, deploy) but does not need to be as linear.  For example, a waterfall approach to a sprint would be a few days for requirements, then to design, then implement for a while, then test, and end with a deployment.  All you gained in this is reducing the scope of the requirements and what is deployed.  I am over-simplifying a little bit.  However, this is close enough to a lot of sprints I have seen.

    The productivity problem is that you have resources during the sprint that are not used.  Testing is not done until the end, so testers are idle at the start.  Designers are not needed much during implementation, so they are almost unused.  Team members do a lot of work at a high pace during their portion of the sprint and hang around the rest of the time.  You can use that spare time for training and skills improvement (not a bad idea), but there are better uses of your resources.

    Continuous Progress

    The goal is likely to keep all of your resources working on a steady and constant basis.  This can be partially achieved by including everyone in every step.  It makes sense for testers and developers to be involved in design and designers engaged in implementation, testing, and deployment.  However, this is almost like busywork in some of those cases.  A better approach is to overlap your sprints.  This is easy to do with multiple teams.  Nevertheless, it can be accomplished with a single unit as well.

    The effect is that you will have more than one sprint active at a time.  Multiple teams will have this, but a single group may as well.  With multiple units, a productive approach is to have members be a part of more than one sprint at a time.  The implementation team will be the only group that tends to have a single sprint focus most of the time.

    Overlap For Productivity

    Let’s use a two-week sprint as an example of how this works.  Sprint A starts on week one and requirements are gathered (from the backlog).  The implementation and testing team go over the items for the sprint and provide feedback, estimates, and ask for clarifications as needed.  This is the first few days of the sprint (we will assume two).  Next, we move into implementation.  For this example, implementation is six days which leaves two for integration testing and deployment.  That is not enough time for sufficient testing so we will have our testers running through scripts where possible as tickets are completed during this phase.

    The designers will be supporting the implementation phase, as needed.  However, they will also be looking ahead to the next sprint.  The design team can dig deep into designing for the next sprint and use this time to get feedback on design decisions as well as poll customers/users.  That should make it easy to keep the selection and clarification part of the next sprint go smoothly (maybe a day instead of a couple).

    As we move into testing, then the implementation team and designers will start work on the next sprint.  They will be selecting and clarifying tasks while the testers test.  As we move into deployment for Sprint One, we will also be working on implementation in Sprint Two.  Rinse and repeat.  The overlap of a few days will help keep designers busy and the developers implementing.

    If you have two or more teams, you can overlap implementation, keep design short and assign designers to possibly several sprints at a time.  This will also allow for more design time to be allocated to each sprint.  That will pay off in clarity around requirements as well as reduced design related flaws.

    Minor Tweaks

    As you can see, these changes are not earth-shattering, nor are they complicated to introduce.  Your scrum master and designers might have a little more asked of them.  Nevertheless, the payoff is worthwhile, and they will find a rhythm with this process early on.  It also helps avoid a roller coaster of activity that can often occur with team members when you do not find ways to keep them busy and focused throughout a sprint.  Better yet, this is an easy change to try for a few sprints to see if it works for you and your team.

    I would love to hear other suggestions and feedback on how your attempts at improving your agile development velocity turn out.  We can all learn from the successes (and failures) of others.

  • Catching Up On Documentation and Overdue Tasks During a Lull

    Catching Up On Documentation and Overdue Tasks During a Lull

    Summer can be a frustrating time.  Much like the end of the year, there are a lot of vacations to work around, and your team varies from week to week.  That makes this an excellent time to take your vacation as well.  However, when you find yourself at work with limited staff or tasks waiting for people to return, there is an opportunity for catching up.  Those secondary and less important tasks that never seem to get done are excellent targets during these slow times.

    Getting Ahead

    One of the areas where it is easy to get behind is planning.  You know the Fall and wrap up of the year will be busy.  It almost always is.  Thus, this is a perfect time to look ahead to those hectic months and search for tasks you can start or even complete in this slow time.  It can be a time to lay down plans for the push and create documentation outlines where possible.  The work may not be such that it can be completed and off your plate.  However, any steps you take now will be less time to spend during that rush.  This is also a time to set things in motion if you are going to need vendor buy-in, customer sign-offs, or other administrative tasks that can often drag out the completion of a project.

    Catching Up On Overdue Tasks

    Planning takes some thought and forecasting.  Overdue tasks do not suffer from these restrictions.  You know what needs to be done.  Many of these tasks are the kind that languishes on your to-do list for weeks or months.  Why not remove those headaches and stress by knocking out some of your “productivity debt?”  When you take action your days will move along quickly and you will be thankful in the months ahead that you did.