Find smart people and let them do what they are good at
I have been running Studio Hallonet for 1 year. A team of creative geniuses (aka. developers, designers, agile leads) solving problems and building products.
The best piece of advice I got from the studio lead before me was
“Find smart people and let them do what they’re good at.”
I’ve tried to run with this idea as much as possible. It helps that the studio was already filled with smart people doing great work. But in the day to day of running a studio — what does this look like?
Right people, right problems.
In order to do what they are good at, smart people need the right team and the right problem to solve. On a basic level this means building a team where we have all competences needed to design, develop and validate solutions. On a higher level it’s trying to find the magic mix of personalities, connection and communication which makes the team come alive. I try to spend time understanding how my studio members work. What they want to learn, what stresses them, what motivates them. Then piece together a team that helps them grow and thrive, and the project be successful.
The success of a good team rides on their motivation, creativity and well-being. The second half of this equation then is to give the team a good problem to solve. We try avoid projects that look like a shopping list of features to build or a backlog of tasks to complete. In a perfect setup the team has the time and mandate to get to know the problems of users and come up with their approach to solving them. We don’t get there 100% of the time, but it’s our goal 100% of the time. Our agile leads and I work daily with clients to step by step get closer to the problem, the user, and upriver thinking to understand what we are really trying to achieve. Our goal is always to build the right thing, not just build things right.
Trust the team.
No micromanaging! The success of our teams is trust. It’s not fair to give the team all the responsibility for success and none of the control. Since we hire smart people, I have full trust in my agile leads. I trust that they know the problem area, team and client better than I do. I trust that their ful-time brain is thinking about how to deliver value and make the project a success. I am there to back them up and give them resources to be able to do a good job.
Practically this means that the small decisions are made within the team, and the big decisions are made together with the team. Staffing, scope, delivery promises etc. the agile leads and I work together to figure out what is going to work. In another great piece of advice from the previous studio lead…
If there is no good reason that the team cannot make the decision themselves, let them do it.
So I try my best to keep my fingers out of the project pie, ask myself if there’s a good reason to intervene, and 9/10 times get out of the way and let the smart people do what they are good at.
Add fuel to the fire.
Whether it’s a project, a team, an initiative or a person, my role is providing the resources needed for success. Some days this is helping solve practical problems like staffing, resources, hardware, meetings etc. Other days it’s connecting two people over slack, or booking a calendar invite to get an activity started. My favourite days are when it’s a mix of ‘life coaching’ (talking about the future and how to get there) or throwing some ‘idea spaghetti’ at the wall to see what sticks.
My job is to help my studio members get where they need to be, and to help them create measurable business value for our clients. In order to do this, I try take a sustainability lens to what we do in the studio. If we are planning on long term partnerships with clients, then I need to have long term partnerships with the people creating success for those clients. Fanning the flame of new ideas, passions, learning areas or collaborations is what makes working with the studio so fun, and in the long run it’s what provides value for our clients and projects.
The best days are when I get to help smart people find what they’ll be good at next. That’s where the embers of the next big idea start to glow.
