Training & Mentorship

Improving Collaboration Through Plans Of Attack

To improve collaboration between teams in different locations, a process was implemented where Plan of Attacks (POAs) were published on a public channel. This gave people from different locations the chance to see what their colleagues were working on and provided a checklist for people to go through. Although the process has helped with team visibility and cross-formation, there are still issues with engagement with the tool. To address this, people are now explicitly asked to tag three people on their POAs to ensure at least three people review the documents and provide comment.

How to set up a new engineering team

This article discusses the challenges of building a team when the only engineer on the project is also the manager. It provides advice on how to recruit and onboard new engineers, such as having a plan in place for the first week, month, and three months, having an onboarding buddy, and giving engineers chances to deliver code early on.

Health and Emotions Should Not Come with Targets and Goals

In order to understand the emotions of employees in the age of data and OKRs, a cultural identity exercise was conducted with three basic questions. It was found that self-awareness and deprecation are key to understanding people's thoughts and how to make situations better. Additionally, it was found that quantified and direct interviewing misses out on the impact of people who bring excitement to the conversation.

Building Teams Remotely

When transitioning to a remote team, it is important to establish a culture of trust and visibility. This can be done through video conferencing, setting boundaries, and recognizing accomplishments. Tools such as Jira and Clockwise can help manage asynchronous tasks and communication. Additionally, team celebrations should be encouraged to bring people together virtually.

How To Fire An Underperforming Employee

When an employee was failing to deliver on their work and attempts to correct the situation failed, HR and the manager worked together to create a four-week performance improvement plan. Despite the employee's failure to meet expectations, they were treated with respect and the transition was handled properly to avoid any potential legal issues. It is important to partner with HR early and be upfront with employees when they are not performing, while also treating them with respect.

Being a Data Coach

After taking a vacation to reflect on his career, the author decided to become a freelance coach in the data space. He has since been successful in his role, and has learned that freelancing allows him to choose what he works on and when, and that he must be visible and part of the team he is coaching in order to demonstrate his value. He also advises to just do it and not be overwhelmed by self-doubt.