Nov 13, 2017
Success In Growth – Code Chiefs
‘Code Chiefs’ aims to bring together leaders in the Software Development world. To collaborate, share challenges, successes and knowledge – whilst grabbing a beer and meeting new people. Here are 4 insights you can expect to learn from Code Chiefs – Success in growth.
Our second event is discussing “Success in Growth”. Sydney is one of the biggest start-up hubs in APAC. Thus this topic is crucial for many organisations undergoing rapid expansion.
It’s important to understand how to not only grow a team, but how to do it sustainably. Combined with maintaining a healthy team environment and culture.
Our three speakers have built teams and guided them through rapid growth. They will be offering insight on the challenges and mistakes they have faced. They will also share their thoughts on successful team expansion.
We caught up with our speakers before the event, to summarise the key points technical leaders need to consider whilst growing their business.
1. To scale you need to be smart about the processes you install in the team
When a team reaches a definitive growth phase, it may feel as though you need to grow head count as fast as possible. This would be to complete technical challenges. At some point the quality of work completed becomes much more important than the amount of people you have on the floor. It’s much easier to nurture the right team culture from the very beginning of the team-building process. Rather than changing it when the team reaches it’s critical size.
2. Understand if the on-shore/off-shore model is suitable to your business
David Cameron has an on-shore/off-shore operating model which works well for him, while Jeremy is a strong believer that this is not something that will work for his business. Understanding what benefits an offshore team will bring (apart from the cost savings) is crucial if you want to implement it in your business. There has to be a detailed plan of how to manage the culture of both on-shore and off-shore teams. This ensures that the business’ productivity doesn’t suffer
3. Ensure the teams are of an optimal size and can operate autonomously
Paul Keen discussed how Airtasker have implemented the Spotify model. Ensuring that all the teams are able to operate autonomously and collaboratively. Whilst maintaining the start-up culture within them. When the team size is too large, it becomes hard to manage and hard to maintain the level of team culture and coherence. It’s essential to understand what team size and structure works best in your business. Then build the teams in clusters, rather than growing the core team.
4. When you’re undergoing organisational change, it’s inevitable that some people are going to leave
When you start growing a team that is reluctant to make changes in culture and work structure, you will have to consider rebuilding it from ground zero. You need to be coherent in what types of people you hire and sometimes it means you need to let some people go. It’s especially important in cases where you know that the team will encounter rapid growth, but already detect the problems in culture and the way this team operates.
All three speakers have different perspectives on “successful team growth”. Yet have had massive success in building high-performing teams for leading Australian organisations.
Code Chiefs is an excellent space to discuss your views on successful team expansion. To question the approach of your peers and get some useful and practical advice from some of Sydney’s brightest tech leaders.
What is Code Chiefs?
