Building, Scaling and Leading High-Performance Teams
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The document discusses building, scaling, and leading high-performance teams. It covers cultural values, attracting top talent through transparent hiring processes and a magical interview experience, coaching and growth through onboarding, knowledge sharing, mentoring, and feedback, and leadership through execution, vision, emotional intelligence, and effective team design. The speaker is an engineering manager sharing experiences from Uber on developing teams and talent.
Building, Scaling and Leading High-Performance Teams
- 1. Building, Scaling & Leading High-Performance Teams Marin Dimitrov Engineering Manager @ Uber @marin_dim DEV.BG IT Leads forum July 2017, Sofia|BG
- 2. Topics Cultural Values Attracting Top Talent Coaching & Growth Leadership
- 3. About me Engineering Manager @ Uber Former CTO @ Ontotext @marin_dim
- 5. Values ● Values, beliefs & behaviours practiced in the organisation ● Core asset of the organisation, can be a competitive advantage ● Attracts great people, amplifier to individual + team performance ● Shared understanding ● Guides hiring and feedback processes ● Continuously evolving with the organisation
- 9. Hiring Fast & Consistent Process ● Transparent career ladder ● Evaluate technical, leadership, execution, communication and relationship skills ● Diverse interview panel + calibration (ensures consistency) Cultural Values ● Very important part of the interview ● Best practices / sample questions for eliciting culture fit
- 10. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qr0d05X5-AsyDYqKRCfgGGcWSshTMd_vfTggfhDpbls/edit http://dresscode.renttherunway.com/blog/ladder Khan Academy Engineering Career Development RentTheRunway Engineering/Leadership Ladder
- 11. Hiring Training the interviewers ● Training courses & detailed best practices ● “backup” interviews before becoming a lead interviewer ● Ask interviewees for feedback Removing bias ● Unconscious bias / stereotypes ● Diversity and inclusivity ● Starts with the job description process ● Diverse interview panel ● Calibration + review evaluations
- 12. https://www.fastcompany.com/3037359/strong-female-lead/how-unconscious-bias-affects-everything-you-do http://projectinclude.org/ The question is not “do we have bias?” but rather “which are ours?”
- 14. Attracting talent Magical experience ● Interviews go both ways ● Tell the story of your team’s mission ● Candidates should leave the interview impressed & excited ● Ask interviewees for feedback ● Ask interviewers for feedback Brand ambassadors ● Every team member is a “brand ambassador” ● Many organisations tell the story of their great products. What about their awesome teams?
- 17. Knowledge sharing & continuous learning On-boarding ● Getting new hires up to speed (fast) ● Consistent best practices ● Continuous improvement ● 30/60/90 day plans for new hires Knowledge Sharing ● Regular internal knowledge sharing channels ● “All hands” on the team / group / company level ● From weekly to quarterly (depending on size) ● Lean towards oversharing
- 18. Mentoring Everybody is a mentor ● Expected by all team members ● There’s always newer or more junior team members ● Reward & recognise mentors Career growth plans ● Prepare personal development plans ● Look 2-3 years into the future ● Encourage continuous personal development & growth ● Transparent & clear career growth ladder
- 19. Promotions Promotion ● Clear criteria - what’s needed/missing for the next level? ● Find “stretch” goals & projects (to demonstrate working at next level) ● Consistent process across the organisation (peer reviews & calibration)
- 20. Continuous feedback Regular 1:1s ● Direct, skip level, peer ● Never, ever cancel a 1:1 ● Personal, structured, effective ● Open, high-impact questions 1:1 topics ● Feedback ● Short & long term growth ● Team dynamics & happiness ● Productivity blockers ● Progress updates
- 22. Continuous feedback 360 degree feedback ● Aligned with the cultural values & role expectations ● Manager, peers, directs ● Immediate feedback (various tools) ● Specific & constructive, mindful of the emotional impact Best practices ● Be mindful of biases (e.g. recency) ● Try to follow th 5:1 ratio of positive/motivational vs constructive feedback
- 24. Recognition Recognition Wall ● Regular recognition of individual and team achievements ● Visible to the whole company ● Actively encourage everyone to contribute
- 26. Leadership
- 27. Leadership Execution ● Removing obstacles for your team (“chaos-destroying machine”) ● Efficiency vs Effectiveness (doing things right vs doing the right things) ● Extremely good time management & prioritisation skills Strategy & Vision ● Clearly explain the mission, purpose & impact of the team (and team members) ● Alignment with the organisation's vision & culture
- 28. Leadership Emotional intelligence ● Authentic relationships ● Seeking feedback & improvement ● Optimistic leadership & inspiration ● Self-control & resilience
- 30. Effective teams Team design ● Self-sufficient teams, minimise dependencies ● Autonomy / continuous delivery ● Team should help with customer support too Remote sites ● Autonomy - own a set of products ● Self-sufficient, complete ● Consistent hiring (beware of acqui-hiring) ● Full HQ support, 1st class citizens of the organisation
- 32. Thank you! Cultural Values Attracting Top Talent Coaching & Growth Leadership