Context

I was asked to take over the development lead roll with a team out of Costa Rico. There was a significant headcount imbalance between the 2 teams now merged under my new manager. There were problems that needed someone with experience with serach engines and working across cultural and lingustic boundaries. I had no direct expereince with the 3rd party tool, but I understood the problem domain and I knew how to work with teams across international boarders.

How the Problem Surfaced

  • Service outages. Weekly. Sometimes daily.
  • Developers were stressed and unhappy.
  • Stakeholders were upset by the lack of ROI.

The Fix

I set up a daily stand-up and waited. Our first outage occurred before I learned how to pronounce everyone's name correctly. Everyone joined the daily stand-up meeting where we worked the problem. I covered all stakeholder comunication and I overshared with my manager to provide context and facts so he could response to stakeholder questions without friction or communication delays.

Additionally, I setup a debief meeting no more than 24 hours after issue resolution.

  • What happened?
  • How did we find out?
  • What was the fix?
  • Who fixed it?
  • What did we learn?
  • How can we avoid repeating the issue?

Of course, we had more outages over the next few months. But the interal lengthened with each cycle. My manager stopped asking questions. He stopped dialing into the stand-up call. He knew we had it covered. I would communicate.

We built trust. With trust came more freedon to deliver in a way that fit the team. Evenually the team stopped hazing me over my terrible/limied Spainish.

The debrief cycle provided a safe place to learn and improve.

Never cancelling stand-up meant there was always a way for the team to gather and communicate with minimal friction.

Lessons Learned

  • Team turnaround is rarely one heroic intervention.
  • Buffers are required. Leave people alone so they can focus and deliver.
  • Communication is as much of the solution as it the technical prowess of the team.
  • Accountability is more than celbrating wins. It includes protecting the team. It includes communicating with stakeholders.

What I Watch For Now

  • Lack of clear communication.
  • Teams so busy 'fixing' things they cannot reflect on lessons learned.
  • Lack of a chain-of-command to protect teams in crisis.