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Managing Small Teams – Look beyond Process Simplification

Vimal Kumar Khanna

Sep. 2013

2Managing Small Teams – Look beyond Process Simplification

Agenda

1. Introduction

2. Desired Experience, Skills & Training Needs for Managers

3. Multiple Roles for Managers

4. Motivating Team Members

5. Mitigating Attrition Impact

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Introduction

• Managing large projects/teams is complex, presents

many challenges

• Significant published work addresses this aspect.

• Many projects in large/small cos. involve small teams

– – Most projects in small cos./startups since overall

co. size small– Pilot Projects, even in large cos.– Rookie managers assigned small projects

Managing Small Teams – Look beyond Process Simplification

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Small not always beautiful

• Small teams (< 8) present unique management challenges,

immensely different from challenges of managing large teams.

• Published work suggests simplified management processes.

• Cannot alone ensure success - finally team has to deliver using

these processes.

• Techniques to lead, train, mentor, motivate, meet aspirations of

manager/team members.

Managing Small Teams – Look beyond Process Simplification

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Experiences

• Experiences from global software cos.

• Large/small/startups, product/services cos.

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Managing Large vs. Small Teams

Managing Small Teams – Look beyond Process Simplification

LARGE TEAM SMALL TEAMManager’s Technical

Expertise LevelLow-Moderate High

Manager’s Role Project Management Multiple

Team Experience Experienced + Young Mostly Young

Interpersonal Conflict Impact

Low-Moderate High

Team Growth Opportunity High Low

Team Motivation Levels High Low-Moderate

Attrition Impact Low-Moderate High

Backup Planning Easy Challenging

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Desired Experience, Skills & Training Requirements for Managers

• Reqmts of managing small teams different from large teams

• Experience levels, management/tech. skills, training reqmts of

managers are different

• Large Cos.: Pool of managers from which to select – discuss

desired experience/skills for managers.

• Small Cos./Startups: All managers lead small teams - suggest

training reqmts to meet challenges.

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Challenges for Managers

• Managers prefer managing large projects - need to motivate

them to manage small teams.

• Project small - senior engineers don’t join, tasks not challenging

as per experience.

• Managers have to lead young teams - need to groom them on

project reqmts/technologies.

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Sole External Interface

• Large Team: Multiple senior personnel for various roles –

Project Manager/Program Manager/Project Leads

• Small Team: Manager has young team, sole senior person

knowledgeable about activity.

• Needs expertise to be sole external interface for product/project.

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Managing Conflict

• Assumed since manager not leading large teams, needn’t be

highly expert in tackling interpersonal conflicts.

• Interpersonal trainings ignored.

• On the contrary, skill more critical than for large teams.

• Five Members: Conflict among two impacts 40% of project.

• Project bound to be doomed.

• Conflict of two members in large project - minimal impact.

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Suggested Solutions• Assign to rookie managers.

• Recently promoted Project Leads/Senior Engineers

(7-9 years).

• Learning new management techniques - excited &

motivated despite team being small.

• Issues –– Complex small projects: Rookie managers

cannot manage.– Small cos./startups: Even senior managers

need to handle small teams.

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Technically Motivate

• Hire technically-inclined managers.

• Managing small teams allows time to jump technically quite deep.

• Not possible in large projects - loaded with huge responsibilities.

• Technically-inclined managers enjoy tasks & remain motivated.

• If not technically strong - get trained/mentored in project Tech. Domain.

• Moderately high tech. skill acceptable since can have Architect for

complex tech. tasks.

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Play to your Technical Strengths

• Being only senior person, sole interface to external world.

• Technically understand product/project - present to external entities

• Understand/incorporate their inputs.

• Deep understanding of project reqmts/design/technologies.

• Young Team - Technically strong manager can quickly train/groom

them on project reqmts.

• Can minimise attrition impact – can bring new replacement joinees

quickly up to speed.

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Training Requirements

• Unique management skills required for

managing small teams.

• Covey’s “Seven Habits Training”.

• Get extensively trained on skills– – Managing interpersonal conflicts– Training/mentoring young team members– Team motivation

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Multiple Roles for Managers

• Low workload demotivates, esp. senior experienced managers.

• More time on hand – micromanagement, making team unhappy.

• Judiciously utilise additional time – assign additional role.

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Manager’s Additional Role

POSSIBLE ROLES

• Team Member – – Senior resource– Underutilisation of experience, expertise.

• Manage Multiple Projects – – Project Knowledge, Tech/Biz. Expertise wasted– Relearning Requirement

SUGGESTED ROLES

• Good knowledge of Tech/Biz domains of product/project.

• Utilise knowledge - assign dual role related to product/project .

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Product Companies

• Product Management: Study competing products, gather new

reqmts from customers & suggest new features.

• Customised Solutions:– Customers look for end-to-end managed solution instead of

purely product. – Product needs to integrate with customers’ existing

systems/software & meet additional reqmts. – Gather customer reqmts & suggest customised solutions

around product - evolve into new services projects.

• Architect/SME: If technically very strong and can balance tech.

tasks with management responsibilities.

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Services Companies

• Business Development: – Good expertise in Tech/Biz domains of

your services project– Win more Services Biz in this domain. – Approach customers with similar reqmts,

present company’s expertise, convince customers.

• Architect/SME: for services project.

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Motivating Team Members

• Small Team - Limited challenges and growth opportunities.

• Team lacks motivation.

• Challenge: Motivate young team despite these constraints.

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Judicious Team Selection

• Manager handles all important functions - limited scope of delegating

major function to any senior team member.

• Don’t select senior engineers/project leads, aspiring to grow fast to

management roles.

• Better fit for large teams - can lead subset of team for modules

• Small Team: – Young engineers – Technically-inclined senior engineers aspiring to grow in Tech.

Ladder

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Broader Focus

• Large Team: Members have narrow focus.– Exposed only to their specific project module– Usually interact only with immediate Project Lead– Limited interactions with overall Project Manager– Minimal interfacing with external entities.

• Small Team:– Complete view of product/project – Direct interfaces with Project Manager, Product Manager,

internal/external customers– Motivate team by capitalising on these facts

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Interface with External Entities

• Manager responsible for interacting with external entities - Product

Manager, internal/external customers.

• Large Project: Manager includes Module Project Leads in

meetings for details of progress of modules under them.

• Small Team: No Project Leads - increase exposure of young team

members to motivate them.

• Project knowledge distributed among all team members – include

them in meetings with external entities for their modules

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Responsibilities beyond experience

• Young team members interact with Product Manager on how

product/project strategies decided.

• Interact with customers to understand their reqmts, learn how to

convert into features.

• Exposure gives broader perspective.

• Trains on tasks that engineers of their experience

don’t handle

• Prepares for future major responsibilities.

• Young engineers excited about & motivated on their work.

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Share Systemic View

• Regularly interact with team members, share complete

understanding of product/project .

• Show how fits in overall company goals.

• Systemic view of product/project, understanding of criticality of

their own role to success of overall activity motivates.

• Architect developing complete product/project architecture,

instead of architecting single module for large project.

• Handling complex/challenging task that prepares him for future

responsibilities

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Multitasking

• Never enough manpower for available tasks.

• Each team member should be assigned multiple tasks – makes

him learn/apply multiple technologies

• Opportunity not offered by small module in large project.

• Challenges keep him motivated

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Bell Curve doesn’t ring

• Team small - growth opportunities for members limited.

• Strict policies on percentage members to be rated high, to maintain

“Bell-Curve” in organisation for performance ratings.

• Say, only 15% can be rated “A”.

• Large Team: 30 members, 5 as “A” –

reasonable count.

• Small Team: 6 members, only one “A” –

constraining if team has more than one star performers.

• Bell-curve artificially applied to small teams - employee demotivation

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High Performance Extended Team

• Convince organisation not to force bell-curve on individual small

teams – spread across multiple small teams.

• 5 teams, 6 members each – extended team of 30.

• Performance Rating Meetings - team managers present their

cases to VP, to decide top 5 members for “A”.

• VP aware of relative performance of each team - can judge

which teams have more high-performers.

• More members of performing team can be rated “A”.

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Mitigating Attrition Impact

• Attrition impact on small teams much higher than on large projects.

• Single member quits 4-member team - project loses 25% workforce!

• Drastic impact on his module and overall project.

• Must apply techniques to prevent attrition, mitigate its impact.

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Share Knowledge

• Avoid selecting team members with same last name!

• Husband-Wife: One quits to move outside city, high possibility

both will leave together.

• Insist team members hold regular knowledge sharing sessions

about their modules.

• If one quits – others still knowledgeable about his work.

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Backup Planning

• Formally groom backups for team members.

• Large Teams: luxury of additional resources within team

earmarked as backups.

• Small teams always constrained of resources - cannot plan

backup within team.

• Work in tandem with a large team - earmark an additional

resource therein as backup.

• Involve in project functions, aware of tasks being performed by

others - design/code/test-cases reviewer.

• Attrition - ready to join team & take over member’s module fast.

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Outsource Backup Planning

• Small co./startup: No large team for creating backups.

• Outsource some project tasks to services co.

• Services co. resource can act as backup for small team.

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MBTI Assessment

• Manager’s additional role based on –– Technical Expertise– Psychological Personality Type

• Undergo scientific Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)

“Personality Type” assessment

• Measures psychological preferences in how people perceive the

world and make decisions.

• Personality Types: Combination of attitudes/psychological

functions

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Attitudes/Psychological Functions

• Attitudes: Extraversion/Introversion– Extraverts (E) are action-oriented, operating in external

world of behaviour/action/people/things.– Introverts (I) are thought-oriented, operating in internal world

of ideas/reflection.

• Perceiving Functions: Sensing/Intuition– Information gathering functions– Sensing (S) trust tangible information - meaning is in data.– Intuitive (N) trust abstract information -meaning is in

underlying theory that is manifested in data.

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• Judging Functions: Thinking/Feeling– Decision-making functions based on data gathered– Thinking (T) decide from detached standpoint - measure

decision by what seems logical, matches given set of rules.– Feeling (F) decide by empathizing with situation, achieving

greatest consensus, considering needs of people involved.

• Judging versus Perception preference– Judging (J) show world their preference for judging function.– Perceiving (P) show their preferred perceiving function.

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Case Study• Product Company: Technically Moderate + “EITJ”

Managing Small Teams – Look beyond Process Simplification

Technical Strength

Moderate Product Mgr Customised Soln Architect

Personality

Extravert Product Mgr Customised Soln Can interact with customers

Intuitive Product Mgr Customised Soln Intuitively suggest new features

Thinking (Dominant Judging)

Product Mgr Logically evaluate competing product features, customer inputs – decide features

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THANK YOU!

Managing Small Teams – Look beyond Process Simplification