I spent a few minutes to write down my personal thoughts on a well-performing team based on values I have learned on the teams I have worked with. This philosophy drives me when I work with my team, and even though I adapt to the needs of the group, I look for opportunities to practically apply these values. Let me know your thoughts!
In my opinion, our team is a unique organization built on principles that allow each team member the ability to classify themselves as a "high performing" team member. It is a concept that is continuously pushed and it is up to each individual team member to accept the challenge. Even though ours is a team within the larger IT organization, in which rules and bureaucracy may apply in most (if not all) cases, management of the team has put their trust into the individuals who can be responsible for change on a larger scale to promote growth, best practices and efficiency in a larger org where change is not always accepted wholeheartedly. This includes working in a DevOps methodology within our own team and working in a traditional fashion with other teams.
The core values are defined within our team, they are Partnership First, Bias for Action and Innovators at Heart. The following is a summarization of my viewpoint on how we perform within these values:
Perception of our team from outside is key to long-term success of the team. We have notably shifted our focus from prescribing tools and policies to a more open approach, where we listen to the business and our partners to understand their needs and help fill those gaps where appropriate. Respect requires the ability to lead by listening, to understand the space but truly consider the thoughts of others and ensure everyone has a voice. We may have a valid reason to perform an impactful policy change, but listening to others often times brings perspectives you may have not yet considered. Relate requires you to execute and thrive on demonstrating respect, but you will not be able to execute without being able to place yourself into your customer's shoes when you make decisions. Each and every decision made in this role has an impact on team and customers alike, and it is important to take all viewpoints into consideration to prevent costly rework or unnecessary churn, to save in terms of time, people and money. Collaborate is essentially the application of Respect and Relate, to bridge the gap between requirements, design and implementation. One meeting is not enough to say you have done your homework in listening to requirements. It requires a cadence of mutual back and forth knowledge sharing to ensure the final product meets the needs.
It is important in this position to always remember nothing will necessarily be handed to you. I have tried to take that approach both in terms of my own personal development as well as innovation opportunities for the team as a whole. However, there is undoubtedly some things that could be out of your control, including external decisions and dependencies that may require your time. Despite this, I have personally taken the approach of maximizing the velocity of the team by not always taking every task and leaving the run and maintain tasks for others. Rather, bringing to light opportunities for innovation and talking through these can hopefully spur thought and creativity amongst the team, to make an effort and enable the team to be an independent functioning entity that thinks innovation first and status quo second (but being smart about it). Anticipate involves always considering and thinking beyond the status quo. This industry is too fluid to sit still and accept things as they are. If you are not watching market trends or looking at the next technology to improve your business, then others will jump at the opportunity ahead of you. Respond is something we have significantly improved on over the last year. Historically (pre-FY16), our responses to the business were largely suspect in that, as a whole, we would focus on specific changes to environments without considering the larger picture, the larger opportunities for improvement that could have been realized. This year, we are not necessarily ignoring change, but when we are making changes, we are taking DevOps methodology and applying it to each decision to ensure long-term maintainability and reducing technical debt. Perform is the action of making this mindset persist throughout your day-to-day activities, to not forget the charter and ensure long-term health and stability is going to be of the utmost importance.
It should go without saying that innovation should be first and foremost one of the most important mindset foundations that drives day-to-day operations. Without innovation, careers become stale and team responsibilities can become obsolete. Seek is a core value that triggers an innovator at heart to think outside the box and leave their comfort zone (whether it is a technical contribution or speaking in front of a large audience). Transform applies the information you research in the Seek phase to perform feasibility reviews and make sure it makes sense. Don't change just to make change, think it through, get feedback and show how it can benefit others. Disrupt involves taking a vetted idea and looking to practically apply it to the status quo. Just because established policies and procedures have been around for a while does not necessarily mean they have to be accepted. Rather, it is a baseline you can measure your change against and to really establish the impact you are looking to make. Be sure that you can communicate changes; you can be an A+ certified engineer, but if you cannot portray your ideas in a way that makes sense, you might as well not attempt the change at all.
I am hoping by my actions that there is an unseen value in my contributions, meaning day-to-day interactions, chats and learning that may occur that doesn't necessarily need to be listed above. In summary, I am strongly willing to help the team move forward and execute where it makes sense, to innovate and contribute to the best of my ability, and to shed light on opportunities for growth in terms of individual contributions and team impact across the company.