3 Key Factors for Team Success
In 6 years of organizing applied learning initiatives, we identified the key factors that make tech teams successful.
Since 2017, women++ has been organizing workshops, hackathons, sponsored scholarships and organized applied learning initiatives for experienced as well as junior tech professionals. In this time we were able to closely observe what makes tech teams successful, both in short bursts of work, such as hackathons, but also over several weeks of working together.
Together with former researcher for Cardiff University Chris Gwilliams, PhD, we designed an upskilling initiative to both enhance these factors and at the same time increase and harness diversity in tech. The result?
deploy(impact) — a 6-week software development program for social good wherein multi-disciplinary teams create software from scratch to solve real-life problems .
So what are the factors that lead to teams successfully working together?
1. Ownership and purpose
The very nature of tech requires the ability to solve complex problems, contribute with creativity and work with a multitude of disciplines. Such demanding work requires intrinsic motivation from every person involved. Teams can only be truly successful when each team member feels both ownership for the success of the whole picture and individual purpose in contributing to this success.
Why? Because ownership leads to proactivity. It can turn people who merely “receive and execute” to people who truly consider the implications of what is being asked of them and how that may influence the overall big picture. So often the experience of the individual can positively influence the decisions of people in other disciplines, areas or domains.
2. Understanding of the big picture and dependencies with other parts of the product
The time of looking at product design through the lens of the industrial revolution is over. Software is too complex to try and produce it on an assembly line and it is not enough for individuals to focus only on one aspect of the production process. Often businesses make the mistake of trying to break down the software development process too much.
Designers cannot simply design without understanding technological capabilities and limitations. Software developers cannot just receive and implement technical requirements without understanding their purpose. It is becoming increasingly important for each element of the value chain to understand the big picture, to broadly understand the intentions and challenges for the other disciplines involved in software development and at the same time, contribute with their own expertise. This form of knowledge sharing and interaction is both the responsibility of each individual within the team as well as of project and line managers to provide the necessary framework to facilitate this process.
3. Communication and empathy
Misunderstandings, conflict and insufficient expectation management can waste time, resources and lead to bad planning. The negative impacts of this are rarely felt right away, but tend to creep slowly, often until a pivotal moment wherein the results explode in your face. What happens then? Deadlines are missed, budgets are overshot or people abandon ship. On the other hand, when teams communicate with each other openly, regularly check-in with each other, have an understanding for each other’s challenges and have patience for one another when communication is challenging, that is when teams rise above the sum of their parts and can create complete solutions.
This year’s edition of deploy(impact) will aim to foster each of these factors as part the two day on-site and hybrid kick off hosted in September. We will bring teams together and guide them through the foundational process of building collaboration frameworks and strengthen interdisciplinary understanding to optimally build a product from scratch in 6 weeks.
Learn more about deploy(impact) here and watch the aftermovie 2023:
Author
Mathias Keller
Having lived and worked in three countries, speaking 5 languages and with a background in tech, law and HR, Mathias has witnessed first hand how diverse viewpoints and experiences can contribute to better products, services and teams. Successfully having led multiple software implementations in national and international organizations, has given him powerful insights into interdisciplinary and intercultural collaboration in software projects.
