I’ve been watching sports and inspirational movies lately. The “Miracle”, the US non professional hockey team beating the undefeated Russian team in the 1980’s, a few football inspirational stories, “Remember the Titans”, and “We are Marshall” . They represent teams with odds stacked against them but seem to be able to accomplish the impossible, especially when it matters most. The striking similarities between business and sports pushed me to write this article of the value that is given by each team member:
What is value?
A finished product? Shipped software? The reality is that value is quantified in multiple ways and at times it can be hard to put a specific return on investment. Think of insurance we pay up to cover up in case an accident happens, while there might not be a benefit until we need to use it. As an individual or a manager, think of a sports team, the coach (manager) provides direction and inspiration to the teams, while team members provide unique skills which combined can make the team accomplish big.
Ways I can bring value:
Do what you were hired for:
In a team each member is brought because of their unique capabilities, perhaps you are a developer great at APIs, while your co-worker is great at scaling infra. Before expanding to other areas make sure that you are giving your team the best that you can bring. If you join a basketball team because you’re good at rebounds, make sure you perform in that area before trying to do something else.
What does your team need?
In a sports team each role is defined, in business however some roles have to earn trust to demonstrate that they are capable, before more work can be directed their way. So how do you gain trust? First you need to have candid conversation with your stakeholders and leaders, not just your manager of what they are expecting from you? Which areas do they need help with? Especially when you are new, people will be skeptical of your skills. Make sure you outperform and teams will place trust in you to deliver more work.
Finding the right opportunities?
I used to ask for feedback or what I can do to help someone? This is the wrong approach as people have ways they like to deal with what they know. What people like is when you bring opportunities and exciting challenges to them. So how do you do that?
- Find the right problems
- Infra: Are developers spending too much time deploying software? Is your infra stable?Interview developers and try to understand their pain points.
- Efficiency: Are there tasks and activities that are taking people too long? Are there administrative tasks that people would rather skip? Any areas that you find to be better automated?
- Are there teams that are being underserved? When everyone is prioritizing aggressively there are chances some opportunities are being left behind and not being pursued?
- Risk mitigation: Do you see that people are too risk averse? Are there processes or systems that folks don’t like to touch or change? This is a great opportunity to find ways to demystify or lower the risk of the system, this way the teams are enabled to take on high risk, high reward initiatives without having to worry about breaking the system.
- Revenue generation: Usually these belong on customer facing but perhaps if you are an internal team, you can advocate for features that can grow customer adoption.
- Cost cutting: Perhaps the team is paying a third party vendor for a tool that can be built in house or is no longer needed. There may be old processes that can be deprecated freeing up resources, if they are consultants it can reduce cost to the company.
- Scaling: If engineers are having a hard time deploying at scale, perhaps there is an opportunity to explore here. Remember with any new areas try to POC and sell it to the teams that will give you the hardest adoption once your plan is rolled out.