Some thoughts on selecting your
team.
The working environment is largely set by the tone
of the people. While there are many guides to selection of personnel,
here are four advanced characteristics that I believe are important in
selecting an effective team.
Results Oriented Decision Process
I’ve spoken before of the decision process as the
most critical process to put in place. Look for decisive personalities;
listen to the candidates talk about how they get decisions made. Too
many times I have seen decisions that were agonized over and deferred
when in fact any of the alternatives would have been better than not
making the decision. Hire decision makers.
Cognitive Balance
This concept is explained in
Kathy Kolbe’s book Pure Instinct.
It’s not as intrusive as the name might sound; it’s a means to put skill
balance into the development team to insure the best operation of the
team. The major cognitive styles that are the basis of her work are:
Fact Finder, Follow Through, Quick Start, and Implementer. Her point is
that any person will have a preferred style that falls into one of these
categories and any team must have a balance of members that reflect all
of these styles for it to be most effective. This is an interesting
concept and my experience shows that having this balance is a good
predictor of the likely success of a team and a project.
“What’s Next” Attitude
This is the commitment to rapidly and decisively
resolving issues and moving forward. This trait is not uncommon in
leaders and is especially effective when in overload. The basics are
that when the discussion is complete-enough, and the leader has made the
decision, the leader says “what’s next”. Not a big deal, but a shorthand
for: I’ve heard enough, I’ve decided, we’ve spent enough time on this,
lets get to the next item of business. Going along with this is an
attitude about meetings that they should move rapidly and efficiently.
Outspoken
One of the favorite teams that I had the pleasure
of leading was a small startup within a large company. As we pulled the
engineering team together we hired outspoken doers. Other groups were
usually delighted to get rid of these people as they were a challenge to
manage. The outspoken part of the equation meant that the team had
better than average communications. The doer mentality meant that they
were ready to get the work done, and liked to do it more than talk about
it. With that team we set records for time to market and initial
quality, with a total investment a fraction of what the mainstream
organization had estimated. Sometimes the conversations were a little
loud and rambunctious, but we had a good time and made history.
