3 tips for healthy team rotations

You have a great team. Working together for last couple of years. Delivering outstanding services. Working like well-oiled machine. But one decides to leave. Then another one. The oil is somehow gone. How to bring it back? What should have been done earlier?

I can generally say, that rotating team member is healthy. The key changer lays in the planning and execution.

Team rotation benefits and drawbacks

Let’s first have a look at the benefits of such rotation:

• new team members bring new ideas to the team, new mindset, new vantage points and observations
• knowledge sharing — you do not understand a topic if you are not able to explain it. Either people who continue with the project sharing their know-how to new team members thus deepening their understanding of the subject or people who continue with the project absorb and understand knowledge of the one leaving to have broader overview and expertise in the domain or technical aspects of the project
• team spirit — new project brings new challenges and new motivation and energy from recently joined team members. Positive energy spreads like a virus, you want to get that kind of virus :)

Team members rotations also brings some downsides, even if planned well, you usually have to count with:

• planning — you do not want to end up with exhausted developer, who spent 5 years on the project and has no motivation or vision, coming to you with notice.
• costs — with new developers in the team it takes some time before they are up to speed with the others, have good understanding of the project and challenges, code structure and domain. If this affects customers, you might want to share or absorb some of the costs. If it does not, it is still your cost :)
• loss of knowledge — with key people leaving the team, you always loose some information, experience. No matter how well the knowledge transfer is conducted. You also loose history behind some of the project decisions.
• team spirit drop — rotation of team members always disrupts the team pace

So, how to do it well?

There are three tips I’d like to share you can try when facing similar situation. Or just realize you are not ready for such case and start planning now:

1. Look at the people spending last 2–3 years on the project (or the “oldest” ones on the project) — the goal is to understand their motivation, energy levels, project technical and domain scope vs. their interests. They might be happy with informal role of the know-it-all, mentoring junior team members. But they might not be.
2. Keep old and new team members parallel — if you have an option to do so, do so! There is nothing better than intense daily interactions between project guru (from new team member perspective) and newbie in the project and/or domain.
3. Plan rotations — make sure the team understands team dynamics and “developer’s life” and focus on side effects, which might help the project and the team — such as better documentation, readable code, decisions documentation. Being aware of rotations and project plan can also help you connect the dots and avoid team members leaving just before a major deadline or project milestone.

Conclusion

There are many more reasons why rotations are healthy and inevitable part of the project life. Best developers are always in search of new challenges and if they passed all of them, they will start to look for new ones, some just want change their routine. Be the smart PM and understand and address these needs before the developers do and boost team spirit and energy with new experiences and points of view unladed with history.

What experience and benefits have you encountered during team rotations?