Lessons from 2024
2024 was quite the year for learning new things! It wasn’t very comfortable, but I definitely learned a lot.
Combining teams is challenging
Section titled “Combining teams is challenging”but can produce great value when done well
The learning of this lesson took up the first eight months of the year for me. I was given most of the responsibility for merging the Spoke.Zone and Lenticul dev teams into one combined Spoke.Zone dev team. It was something I dreaded quite a bit at first, but with time I began to see the benefits. I’m really glad I went through this process. I think it was a good opportunity to grow as a leader in a way that really stretched me.
Challenges
Section titled “Challenges”Combining Processes
Section titled “Combining Processes”The Lenticul team and Spoke.Zone teams had very different processes in place before the merge, especially in regard to the development life cycle and release management.
A few examples:
- The Lenticul team used Jira for issue management, while the Spoke.Zone team used GitLab.
- The Lenticul team had a dedicated QA tester, while the Spoke.Zone team had very underdeveloped testing practices.
- The Lenticul team had a large amount of staging environments, while the Spoke.Zone team only had one.
In situations like these, it is easy to think that your status quo is the best, and that the incoming team members should adjust to your processes. However, this is not the best strategy. It is much better (though it takes much more work) to carefully consider all parts of your processes and develop new team processes that build on the strengths of the process of both of the teams.
Developing Solid Communication
Section titled “Developing Solid Communication”Solid communication is vital to any team. For a while, the Lenticul and Spoke.Zone teams worked together but apart. We hadn’t defined the communication channels very well, so we continued to operate as two independent teams. This created a lot of unnecessary delay and misunderstandings. Having shared communication channels is vital for integrating two teams into one team. Without good communication, a team will struggle to make forward progress.
Building Trust
Section titled “Building Trust”My goal for the Spoke.Zone team has always been to develop an autonomous team, one that doesn’t require a lot of direct supervision. This requires a lot of trust among the team members. Building this trust takes quite a while. It is easy to get frustrated with colleagues that don’t seem to be working towards the team’s goals. In situations like these, it is important to do a self-evaluation. Do you have unreasonable expectations? Have the goals been communicated well? Have you done your best to communicate one-on-one with your colleague to resolve the misunderstandings?
Benefits
Section titled “Benefits”A merger of two teams takes a lot of effort, and you don’t usually see the benefits right away.
It took me some time to realize some of these, but once I did it made all the work we put into the merger worth it.
Greater Combined Experience
Section titled “Greater Combined Experience”This one is pretty simple. The more team members you have, the more combined experience you will have on the team. This means it is more likely that one of people on the team will have some experience with a new technology you are introducing to the team, allowing them to take the lead in implementing the improvements.
Greater Ability to Fill Gaps
Section titled “Greater Ability to Fill Gaps”None of us are a complete and perfect package. We all have gaps in our skill set and knowledge base. The more team members you have, the easier it becomes to fill in each other’s gaps. This does require good communication to discover and resolve those gaps.
New Perspectives
Section titled “New Perspectives”We all come from different backgrounds and have experiences with different things. It is possible for different perspectives to create conflicts. However, on a healthy team these diverse perspectives can be used to refine ideas, allowing you to develop much better designs.
We make our living by meeting our customers’ needs
Section titled “We make our living by meeting our customers’ needs”not by producing engineering perfection
I am a serial perfectionist. It is quite easy for me to fall down the dangerous rabbit hole of perfecting and refining a feature than nobody ends up using. In 2024, I got the blessing of several deadlines that prevented me from falling down this rabbit hole. I also got the chance to interact more directly with some of our customers. This gave me the opportunity to hear things from their perspective, to learn about the problems they need solved. One of my goals going forward is to be much more intentional about seeking out the customers’ needs and prioritizing accordingly.
A perfect solution for the wrong problem is useless to the customer.
We should never take our colleagues for granted
Section titled “We should never take our colleagues for granted”we might not work together next week
This was the most painful lesson to learn. Within the space of about four months, we lost three engineers from our software team. Also in the middle of that time, the Spoke.Zone team lost two engineers that were employed by our contractor, Supportronics. It really made me realize that often job satisfaction has less to do with what you are working on, and rather who you are working with.
It’s very easy to take your colleagues for granted, to get this mental image that they will just always be there. Of course, we know this isn’t true, but I realized that I often went about with this kind of mindset.
It is important to take time to appreciate your colleagues. Let them know that you value their work and the impact they have had on your life and career. They won’t be around for ever.
Conclusion
Section titled “Conclusion”Growth doesn’t really come without some pain, but I do hope 2025 is a year of a bit less pain. Losing close colleagues can be a pretty painful thing, however it is also a chance to learn and re-evaluate. One thing is for certain, we can’t read the future! Hopefully our software team can grow stronger in 2025 with the lessons we learned in 2024!