Team Transformation
Improve your chances for a successful modernization by equipping your team for the journey.
“Mike created the clarity that our team needed on how to move forward and did it in a way that was respectful to our existing team and garnered the trust of my executive team. Mike has the experience, the presence, and the toolkit to help drive the transformation that organizations need.”
– Micah Brandenburg, CFO Entre Institute
Human focused Transformation
Design Thinking reminds us to start with the people. The design thinking approach to modernizing an application would start by modernizing the team. In fact rhe team are the “user” receiving meaningful outcomes from much of the automation built in a cloud native modernization. Following the principle of a Focus on User Outcomes guides us to look to the engineers to define many of the requirements of a successful modernization. This offering will help build a design thinking based software development lifecycle to help transform your team in a way that improves engineering job satisfaction, boosts productivity and predictability, and shortens ramp-up time for new team members. Engineers working on modern cloud native solutions need skills across an increasingly broad set of tools. This has necessitated specialization and requires engineers to select a speciality. Building a modern IT organization will improve talent retention, and provide new options for effective scaling of the team. While no two teams are the same, this offering typically includes the following activities:
This assessment is a self-reported competency survey across a wide range of software and systems. When working with an engineer to help guide them through a specialty selection, you need to understand their interests. One of the best indicators of serious interest is independent learning. While the value of these surveys in identifying skills gaps is somewhat compromised by the self reporting aspect, that is not the intent of the exercise. Gaining some anecdotal insights into skills gaps is still a bonus.
Skills Assessment
Engineering specialization is unavoidable. By conducting design thinking research into the interests, concerns, and attitudes of your engineering team we can make more informed decisions about how to organize, support, grow, and reward your staff in a way that optimizes the benefits of a highly performing team.
Engineering Interviews
Creating an effective organizational structure requires intentionality. A good organizational structure will provide a wealth of outcomes. It can make engineers feel supported and rewarded, eliminate micro management, and provide visibility into career progression and individual productivity. It is important to remember that the organization structure is there to serve the line level employees who are the value generation engine of any company. Providing clear career advancement opportunities, recognizing and celebrating success, and ensuring that you can grow and retain talent are all critical requirements of any organizational structure. During this activity we will work with you to implement a new organizational structure and define career advancement plans based on the information collected during the assessments and interviews.
Organizational Alignment
I firmly believe that the Software Craftsmanship movement holds huge potential to provide the structure needed for effective talent management. The open source inspired EngineerKit can be leveraged to provide a standard baseline for career advancement. Craftsmanship’s focus on mentor relationships also provides growth opportunities for senior staff, and huge value to junior staff. When taken as a whole, an effective craftsmanship program will improve job satisfaction, increase productivity, and open new talent pipelines for strategic growth.
Craftsmanship Implementation
Cloud Native approaches to building software, and the rise of agile software development approaches will have a significant impact on how you design, build, and operate your systems. Clearly documented procedures that provide a clear framework for your engineering team is an important component that will contribute to the success of larger initiatives related to productivity, predictibility, and continuity of talent. During this activity we will capture the existing lifecycle, implement an agile SDLC process, and propose an initial set of revisions to support our larger transformation goals.
Software Development Lifecycle
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“Surround Sight transformed our software development lifecycle by introducing us to human-centered design. Today, our process is light years ahead of where we were and so is the impact we deliver to our clients.”
– Dan Rundle, CEO Worthwhile custom software
“EngineerKit apprenticeships are changing the way juniors can level up their abilities and gives companies effective methods to onboard new talent in the industry.”
– Chandler Roth - Enok Collective