Joining a new software development team can be daunting and more so if you are asked to improve a team or were hired to improve a team. When I was in the military, after I completed the Basic Leader Course I was tasked with managing people in my unit that I had previous relationships with in Korea. I went from being a solider and friend to these people, to being their direct supervisor.
I was able to turn negative energy and emotion about me being promoted instead of them, to earn their respect and receive top ranking among the platoon which earned me an Army Achievement award.
On a technical side, when I was doing contracting for years I would often step into different environments and teams as the technical expert. I would join teams with existing dynamics, process and politics which was challenging especially when my time was fixed and ultimately, I wanted to secure my next contract.
In the corporate world I've gone from senior developer on a team to lead developer of said team (again managing people who used to be my peers). Next role was managing 2 development teams (1 completely new team) then to leading 2 development teams and 2 sets of contractors, to then managing 2 offshore teams and 2 groups of contractors; you get the idea. Change is common in what I do and I'm often in a situation where I need to improve a team or change its course.
Listed are some of my personal tips for joining new development teams successfully. The main goal and take away for you is to take charge in a way that doesn't seem like you are taking over.
Listen to your developers and your team, make sure they have a voice
"Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply."
- Stephen R. Covey
You need to gain the support of your new team and in order to do that you MUST listen to individual team members and anyone that interacts with your new team on a regular basis. Pay attention to conversations, listen to concerns and take notes. Your main focus here is to observe and annotate concerns that come up regularly. Resist the urge to make changes at this point. It's a common mistake I see to make changes without the trust and support of your new team. Later once you have a better understanding you can start making changes to redirect negative energy and inefficient processes.
So much can be discovered by just joining on calls and listening. Join all the calls and meetings or at least as many as possible. Take notes and focus in on patterns. Observe for at least a month, ideally 2, and again resist the urge to make any changes. If this means you inconvenience yourself with 4am or 5am meetings or calls at 9pm or 10pm calls in your local time zone; you do it and you don't complain. Besides trying to learn the team dynamic, observing how things work day to day with the team and learning the business, you are also the new guy.
You need to be building trust and solid relationships with your team. You don't build trust with teams by joining and then immediately changing things like the stand up time or the number of meetings because it's selfish. The team will easily see this and will begin to resist and distrust. You need to make informed decisions, so don't make any rash or hasty decisions without having a real true reason that will improve or help the team.
When we make judgements we're inevitably acting on limited knowledge, isn't it best to ask if we seek to understand, or simply let them be?"
- Jay Woodman
Another key element here is to avoid being negative or judgmental. It serves no purpose and could undermine your attempt to redirect the team. Phrases like, "I don't understand how you get anything done here" or "this system makes no sense" could cause resentment among the team. Worse case scenario, you drive bad behavior into the shadows. If this happens it will be difficult to address problems and course correct. You need problems and concerns out in the open in order to fix and solve underlying issues.
Team issues and blockers need to be recognized by the group and openly discussed in order to move forward. If they stay hidden you'll lose an opportunity. Or worse even still, you create an adversarial relationship with your new team where they unite against you. In extreme cases, I've seen teams make a pact to basically wait that leader out and/or force them out. Especially with established teams or teams where members have seniority. Show respect for existing process and systems despite your thoughts on their effectiveness. Your goal is to win over the team, not to make them your enemy so avoid alienating your team.
Understand that earning your team's trust is not easy. It takes a lot of effort to understand their problems and situations impacting their current state. You'll need to genuinely listen and understand what the team is saying and issues that face them day to day, which is a lot harder to do in practice. However, if you do take the time to understand you can take all the negative energy and resistance and use it to your advantage.
Making changes and what drives the team
"When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves."
- Viktor E. Frankl
Once you've observed for a couple months (at least 1), identified problems and the challenges that face the team and built initial trust with team, you are ready to make your first changes. Before you make changes as a leader, you must understand what drives the individual team members. Only then will the team support and advocate for their new leader and their changes. Finding what motivates your individual team members is something unique to your situation that you'll need to define on your own. I will say if hesitation or significant resistance is coming from 1 or 2 people consider making them responsible to the whole team for a particular task, system or improvement. These people will be your "Change champions".
This was successfully done to me when I was a wise ass solider giving my leadership problems; the platoon sergeant made me a team leader, which was completely unexpected on my end. Instead of trying to correct my insubordination, which hadn't worked for other sergeants, they simply made me part of the leadership team. Additionally, they gave me the most problematic solider to manage. Once the table turned on me, so did my perspective on the leadership and the job they were doing. It was a brilliant response on his part and a lesson that has stayed with me for over a decade.
In my experience this is a very effective method to select 1 or 2 members of the team and ask them to lead the change of a business process that affects everyone on the team. Choose individuals that are respected and have significant credibility based on their role on the team (for example, because of expertise or seniority). Additionally, factor in their feedback and their thoughts and opinions on current systems and processes.
For example, you have a developer that hates the current bug ticketing system. Give them a task to research 3 different ticketing systems and list out pros and cons of each and have them select the one they want to explore in more detail. Then follow that up with making them responsible for building a ticketing flow proof of concept based on their preferred system.
Redirecting the negative energy will create a win/win scenario for you because one of 2 scenarios will play out.
- They take ownership, improve the process or system and make it better for the team overall
- Choose to stop fighting against the current system or process because it's not important enough to them to invest their time and effort
Either way the problem or resistance is addressed internally by the team and they've collectively "chosen" the result. Once you close that issue, not only have you built more trust with the team, you can now move on to the next significant issue with additional momentum and new found team support.
"A consequence may be the very thing that saves us because it was the only thing loud enough to get our attention."
- Craig D. Lounsbrough
This approach of redirection disrupts the negative energy and attitudes on the team by empowering 1 or 2 influential members with an incentive to take direct action to improve the team. Also, it clearly highlights any individual lack of collaboration, which helps to deter bad behavior from the onset and make it less likely overall. It's during this time of restructuring, your job as the leader should be to keep all messages positive, or at least upbeat in nature.
I'm going to emphasize again the key to being able to accomplish this is by using and executing on what you learned during the listening phase.
The processes or systems selected for a change should be part of their day to day so that it will be easy for the team to see and acknowledge the improvements when things begin to change (remember the ticketing example). It should be a challenge to the internal team so that the effort required to make the improvement requires their commitment, which also will have the by-product effect of driving the team closer together.
In essence, you are helping facilitate and create a situation where the team members who are not actively cooperating must help drive the change themselves and work together with the team in order to do so.
Your role, while your team is working on the change, is to work with others to clarify decisions, remove blockers, define roles and responsibilities (internal and external to the team), identify necessary facts, establish procedures and processes for bringing those facts (not just opinions) into this change. You need to follow through on decisions in order for the change to be successfully assimilated not only within the team but outside of the team.
Stepping back behind the scenes
"A retreat from someone or something isn't unusual. Just as how you edge closer to see better, at times you may need to take a step back to get a clearer view."
- Rajuda
So at this point, you should have 1 or 2 wins under your belt and have successfully redirected some negative energy within the team. Your first instinct might be to assert more changes to speed up team improvements. Resist the urge and limit your own visible involvement and defer to the designated Change Champions. Clarify with everyone on the team that you have assigned tasks to the chosen Change Champions to drive forward any initiatives defined by the team.
Your work is behind the scenes; regularly meeting with your Change Champions to get status updates on progress, holding them accountable for tasks, creating incentives (and consequences) for their performance and helping them to continue to drive change by responding to requests for guidance.
Prioritize helping your team and allow team members to flag issues and concerns on a regular basis. This is vital when redirecting the team’s energy. You need to understand and keep in mind, that the more an existing team believes that the change is self-generated (they decided to change and it was their choice), the higher the probability that energy will continue to be put into actively driving change. Your goal is to ensure the team is working as a cohesive unit and that no one person is acting independently of the group.
Sustaining the environment of change
It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.
- Charles Darwin
Now that you have begun driving change with the team in a positive direction, you need sustain it and maintain the environment you created. You can do this by applying "normal" management practices and in particular by setting expectations and defining standards. Define collaboration flows, maintain focus, define goals, target milestones and KPIs, be mindful of timing and sequencing of change events, and be clear about consequences. Keep lines of communication open, especially during this transformation, to mitigate or avoid the perception that backroom deals are being made or access is limited to your inner circle.
Basically, be transparent and operate with full transparency. Acknowledge team and individual accomplishments during group meetings or with a handwritten note, e-mail or a small gift. This is a quick and easy way to show gratitude to the team or its members. Take it a step further by recognizing individuals with awards, more responsibility, promotions or bonuses. Emphasize that the results are because of the team and individual team member's hard work toward driving change. Don't seek to take credit away from your team; your accomplishments will be easily visible. Your team will reward you by enthusiastically endorsing your leadership and your decisions. Good luck on your journey.