Healthy Engineering Teams

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

In the daily hustle of tight delivery timelines and non-stop influx of changing expectations, many engineering teams tend to overlook the key success weapon in their arsenal — the team. The dynamic nature of most projects, and the need to stay ahead of potential escalations, it is of upmost importance for the engineering management teams, to make a constant conscious attempt to keep the team as healthy as possible.

Some of the areas that are not so difficult to always be mindful of, are -

1. Why we do, what we do — Communication is the key. It always motivates people to go that extra mile if they are able to see or realize a tangible effect of their work in other peoples lives. A good idea is to always provide a decent context to the work that our teams do. Who are we making this product for, How is someones life going to be better by every line of code that we write, are some of the questions that most teams have in the back of their mind and having an answer to these will make them care a little more about their work.
2. Promoting good feedback loop — Feedbacks are tricky, if not set-up diligently. A healthy feedback can inspire someone to do great work, but at the same time, there is a chance to irk people if the feedbacks are only critical. Allowing engineers to come up with new ideas to do things without the fear of getting rejected could build the trust for this.
3. Talking about personal growth of each team member — Each person have different priorities and roadmap for their future career path in her/ his mind. Having individual conversations and aligning these expectations with the organisations goal is important in keeping a balanced environment within the team.
4. Resolving conflicts — It’s not uncommon to see members in your team with varying opinions falling into conflicts. It’s better to have separate conversations with each of them and then bringing them together to steer the conversation to a meaningful end.
5. Onboarding new members in the team — This is another key area to focus on, when paving way for incoming team members. Ensuring they have access to the right tools, necessary trainings and some buddy support in initial days, goes a long way in making them feel right at home.

There are of course many other areas where we can focus to ensure a good team health. Please share how you approach this in comments.