I’m talking about teams that work to help other developers in the organization, by creating internal tools (Platform/Core teams) or improving the developer processes & experience (DevOps).
In my team, I’m working on shifting the developers’ mindset. I told them that if they want to suggest a technical change, they shouldn’t think only from their own perspective — they need to put themselves in the customer’s shoes. I’m arranging different practices to help them think from the customer’s point of view. Looking forward to seeing the results!
Connecting the team to the business is hard! Something I need to work on. A lot of great content in here, thanks for putting this together! Definitely one of the articles I'm going to be re-reading over the next few weeks :D
In my project, the customers share their OKRs and roadmap with us. So I encourage my team to spend extra time understanding these materials. When they work on a feature or an issue, I ask them to try to connect it back to the OKRs or the roadmap. First and foremost, they need to understand the customer, their objectives, and their business.
This benefit is terrific for our careers - even if we move companies, working on platform teams gives us pricesless knowledge on how production works (and makes us better developers)
I think it's super critical to pay attention to the information flow and visibility. Otherwise for work like this it may seem like you are just doing your hours but not getting any "win" for the business
This article is amazing. Honestly, this is the kind of leader that I would rather be someday.
Wow, thank you so much Lewis, that’s a huge compliment! 🙏
"I would have worked much harder at communicating the reasons for the technical decisions, and involving other team leaders and developers in them"
So true.
This can be such a motivation killer for a developer that wants to make a change and doesn't get a proper response and explanation as to why.
In my team, I’m working on shifting the developers’ mindset. I told them that if they want to suggest a technical change, they shouldn’t think only from their own perspective — they need to put themselves in the customer’s shoes. I’m arranging different practices to help them think from the customer’s point of view. Looking forward to seeing the results!
Yeah.. been there 😅
And it is especially true when usually those changes are for the longer benefit of the developers themselves, so a small step can help a lot.
Connecting the team to the business is hard! Something I need to work on. A lot of great content in here, thanks for putting this together! Definitely one of the articles I'm going to be re-reading over the next few weeks :D
In my project, the customers share their OKRs and roadmap with us. So I encourage my team to spend extra time understanding these materials. When they work on a feature or an issue, I ask them to try to connect it back to the OKRs or the roadmap. First and foremost, they need to understand the customer, their objectives, and their business.
What a great read! My team in infra is pretty much like this. The one difference is we also build the system we are responsible to manage.
Another huge benefit is, I also got to learn the architecture of critical platforms built on top of our system.
This benefit is terrific for our careers - even if we move companies, working on platform teams gives us pricesless knowledge on how production works (and makes us better developers)
Great article!
I think it's super critical to pay attention to the information flow and visibility. Otherwise for work like this it may seem like you are just doing your hours but not getting any "win" for the business
Thanks Fran!