Successful Teams
What does a successful team look like? Here’s what I have observed over the years (in no particular order):
- Resilience (to changes in direction, team composition, stressful short term events etc.) - the team’s adaptability and growth mindset play a big role here.
- Excellent Communication - Team members understand the audience they are communicating to and know how to adjust the framing and delivery of the message to be most effective. This is true whatever the context - an engineering design review document, a presentation to senior executives, onboarding a new team member etc.
- Strong Identity - it’s great if this identity stems from what the team works on, and is even better if it includes how the team works within itself and with other teams.
- Trust and Candor - These go hand in hand. Trust by default, set high standards, challenge respectfully, provide and expect candid (but kind) feedback.
- Empathy and Support - Understand the perspective of customers and stakeholders, of team members that might be having a difficult day / week.
The most successful teams I’ve seen know what makes them successful and are purposeful about curating those attributes.
If you’re in a position where you’re part of a new team that is forming, take some time upfront to think about what working together successfully will look like. It’ll help set the stage. Kickoff meetings where the team collectively defines the team charter and values can be very effective.
I’m Siddhartha (Sid) Shankar, and I am currently a Senior Engineering Manager at GitHub serving the CodeQL dynamic languages team, supporting JavaScript/TypeScript, Python and Ruby. I have had the privilege of leading and managing engineering teams since 2015. I’m at my best when engaging in opportunities that require bringing people together - often across teams - to deliver value to customers in a sustainable and pragmatic way. More about the author →
This page is open source. Please help improve it.
Edit