Post on 23-Aug-2014
description
Building the best tech-team
Management
Management
“ To coordinate the efforts of people to accomplish goals and
objectives using available resources efficiently and
effectively”
Who am I ?
CTO at Redbooth !
Twitter: @masylum
Beware of bullshit
• Learn from others
• Every company is different
• Don’t copy: common sense
What is this talk about ?
• Recruitment
• Optimization
• Growth
• Success
Recruitment
Seduction
• Go meet interesting people
• Interview? Go for a coffee!
• Talk and listen, seduce and be seduced
HireeHirer
Who should I hire ?
Bet on motivated generalists. !
Knowledge is easy and fast to acquire, talent is not.
Who should I hire ?
Invest for the long term: Experience within the company
is the most valuable asset
Optimization
Throughput
Stable system
SystemInput Output
Idle system
SystemInput Output
Saturated system
SystemInput Output
Washing dishes
Saturated Idle
Soaping Rinsing
Synchronicity
Synchronicity
• Inefficient in unstable systems
• Less overhead
• Not flexible
Synchronicity
Soaping Rinsing
Soaping Rinsing
Team A
Team B
Asynchronicity
Asynchronicity
• Less waiting time
• Requires queues
• More overhead
• More flexible
Asynchronicity
SoapingRinsing
Soaping
Team A Team B
QueueQueue
Soaping
Queues
Queues
• Appear in saturated systems
• Measurable
• Ordered
LIFO: Last In First Out
C B A
FIFO: First In First Out
C B A
Prioritization
• Agreed and arbitrary
• Unfair but help focusing
• Add age to the mix to avoid starvation
Multiple Queues
Multiple queues
Alice
Bob
Chris
Multiple queues
1 day
5 days !
12 hours
Alice
Bob
Chris
Single queues
Alice
Bob
Chris
Try to always go for a single queue and
multiple consumers
Optimize!
• Go asynchronous
• Measure your queues
• Identify your bottlenecks
• Allocate people accordingly
Growth
Who should I hire ?
• Avoid Single Point of Failures
• Start getting specialists but not too many
• Cultural fit is important!
When hiring, get your team
involved
Success
Choose two:
Scope Resources
Time
Motivation
• Bad : Carrots and sticks
• Good : Autonomy, Mastery, Purpose
http://bit.ly/1eVm5pI
Motivation
• Encourage Collaboration over Competition
• Set team goals, not individual
• Let the team be the judge
Rules!
No rules
Rules
Rules and Culture • Rules have to be agreed
• Culture is the enforcer: Let the team be the police
• After a mistake, think of a rule that could’ve prevented it
TeamsCoordinatorCoordinatorCoordinator
Vertical collaboration on a given project
Coordinators• They are doers
• They are responsible for the performance of the group
• They are the spokeperson of the team
That’s all folks Thanks