Architect the Team
As the new financial year looms and projects are soon to kick off, it might be good to pause and consider the team before embarking on your next major technology initiative. Of course, there’s a lot of pressure to “get going” and start building new business solutions, but we think it’s the perfect time to slow down, and “Architect the Team, before the Technology”.
We find that even within a team that has worked together for decades, spending time in this mode of “people discovery” uncovers hidden talents and allows leaders to uncover the innovators in the organisation.
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Organic Growth of Teams
One of the challenges we have working with a team that has grown organically (this could be over a year or two, or it might have been over decades), is that the needs of the business have changed over time and the hiring processes often has not evolved. Put simply – the team, as it stands today, is part of the history of the business and its decision makers.
Lack of Neurodiversity
So this organic growth leads to something we see in every team – there is a habit to select new employees who are quite similar to us and this results in a lack of real neurodiversity in these teams. With a lack of diverse thinking it will be far more difficult to innovate. Plus we have the need for bi-modal type tech environments, where old legacy tech is being run alongside newer technology and management. People can disagree about waterfall versus agile, but if we look under the hood on these teams, we find that certain types of thinking has been hired to achieve the work which needs to be surfaced and discussed.
Ultimately, if your team is full of “clones” it is doomed to run tech as BAU (business as usual) – so the business needs to bring in new people, or at least new ways of thinking.
But what if you can assess the natural skills of the existing team, and uncover people who can lead your innovation agenda?
The Opportunity
So we’ve outlined the issue, but this also presents the opportunity. It opens up the chance for the existing teams to learn, meaning there’s a whole host of opportunity to develop new skills. With the right purpose and project in hand then there are great opportunities for people already within teams.
Ultimately, we know that if we work with people to find their natural strengths, then we can locate the right people to lead innovation and make the best of the teams that you’ve already invested in.
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