Setting Up Your Team for Success in the New Year
Written by: Jason Mills, Director of Engineering, TribalScale
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As we usher in the new year, it’s time to gear up our tech teams for success. This isn’t just about setting resolutions that fall apart by February; it’s about creating a sustainable plan for the entire year. Here is a checklist based on some personal experiences, ensuring your team is primed to tackle the exciting challenges and opportunities of 2024.
1. Goal Setting
Quarterly Focus: Look at your 3-year plan, then some core milestones you want to hit for 2024, and set one significant goal for each quarter. This prevents the overwhelming feeling of juggling too many goals and helps maintain focus. It’s easy to make excuses if you have more than one thing on your plate, blaming the other task in an endless circle of failing to complete any of your goals. If you have 1 thing to do, you have no excuse but to complete it!
Execution Strategy: For personal goals, find a support group or rely on self-discipline. For company or team goals, create a shared to-do board, review it weekly with your team, and ensure each person contributes something each week to move closer to the goal. Accountability through visibility is key.
2. Skill Assessment for Your Team
Regular Reviews: Skillsets evolve, so reassess your team’s capabilities at least quarterly. Gather your senior team members and categorize skills based on experience and expertise. It’s also nice to have your team do a self-assessment of skills but there must be alignment or some standard across the org for Junior vs. Intermediate vs. Expert.
Structured Self-Assessment: Have a structured approach to gathering the skills from your team — for example, poll your team on each technology as beginners (<6 months experience), intermediates (6 months+ experience), or experts (can build a product from start to finish and guide others). Block time in your calendar every quarter for this activity.
3. Tool Optimization
Value Assessment: Review your tools regularly. Which ones are adding value, and which ones are gathering digital dust. If you’re paying for something that’s no longer in use, it’s time to let it go. I love tools that have a pruning feature. If someone is dormant on a tool, remove them and have them re-sign up if they want to use it again.
Embrace AI: In an age where AI thrives, ensure your tools are up-to-date. If they don’t integrate AI or plan to do so soon, consider looking for alternatives. Surprisingly, many of our tools don’t have AI embedded at this point, but they do have a plan to add some features in 2024.
4. Communication Strategies
Evolving Methods of Communication: Our communication tools have ranged from Slack with Huddles to Discord to Tuple as well as any IDE-specific communication tools. We use Jira for a shared team board. With the constant shift from remote to hybrid workspaces, it’s crucial to regularly check in with your team on what’s working and what’s not.
Documentation: Concise documentation is the key when you have hybrid teams. Make sure to understand the purpose of your tool. Slack or MS Teams are great for making decisions, but these decisions should then be captured in a different tool that your team understands is your documented truth. If changes are made that are different than an originally documented idea, understanding why and how the decision was made is equally important and should be documented too.
5. Feedback Culture
Continuous Feedback: Embrace a culture of radical candor and provide feedback promptly. Waiting for performance reviews often results in missed opportunities for growth and end-of-year reviews only focus on what the person accomplished over the last quarter. A quick win might be gathering team feedback quarterly or upon project completion.
Feedback Tools: Utilize tools for regular feedback, focusing on personal and team development rather than project statuses. Gather client feedback and peer reviews every 2–3 months to get a comprehensive view. We use 15-Five, however, it can be easy for your team to put in weekly project updates, rather than personal growth goals and feedback. Stand-up is for project updates. Try to encourage your team to be more reflective in their weekly check-ins.
6. Health and Wellbeing
Personal Connection: Whether you’re remote or in-office, find time to connect personally with your team. Turn on your camera during virtual meetings, share a laugh, and ensure you’re accommodating everyone’s needs. Some common feedback I see from team members is the yearning for more chat about how they are doing rather than 1:1’s being all business.
Team Building: Engage in team-building activities. Schedule lunches, dinners, or events, keeping in mind dietary and time considerations to be inclusive. Being in a remote environment, we have adopted an 8-person workshop format for any internal training. It’s not about 1 person speaking the whole time too. Make sure the learning is engaging, gets some laughter, and encourages the team members to share personal experiences. Call on some of your team members by name if they might be hesitant to speak up.
Conclusion
Remember, the goal is not just to set these plans in motion but to follow through with them throughout the year. It’s about creating a culture of continuous improvement, collaboration, and well-being. If someone wants to talk about an issue or idea, add it to the calendar and don’t cancel that meeting. Use the meeting time wisely and set a goal to have a meeting agenda for every meeting you create. You can’t help but come out of it with something actionable with a bit of planning. I try to come out of each meeting with an actionable item that can be completed in 1 week. If the idea is important enough and you get to have weekly meetings, then the weekly deliverable will help you get the job done. Accountability through visibility!
Jason is the Director of Engineering at TribalScale. As an experienced Engineering Leader, he has spent the last decade building high-performing product teams that embrace Extreme Programming and Lean-Agile methodologies. His goal is to continue driving innovation and excellence in engineering by leveraging his skills in leadership, technical expertise, and passion for continuous improvement.
TribalScale is a global innovation firm that helps enterprises adapt and thrive in the digital era. We transform teams and processes, build best-in-class digital products, and create disruptive startups. Learn more about us on our website. Connect with us on Twitter, LinkedIn & Facebook!
