Software development teams typically are focused on a single goal: delivering new, killer features that users love. Driving revenue and usage is core to Agile and DevOps. Yet without motivated, productive people, you can forget about building good software.
Heightened competition requires companies to go the extra mile to develop and retain employees. Here are several ideas for team-building and personal development, while still pushing an awesome product out the door quickly.
Focus on high performers first
Struggling employees often receive the most attention and oversight from managers, but it’s really the top performers who should get the majority of the attention and development opportunities. While modern learning and development methods can be less costly than traditional conferences and seminars, the same philosophy rules: spend the most time and investment on those individuals with the highest potential. Don’t underestimate green developers who are eager to grow; they may not have shown their colors yet, but you can typically see early on if they will with a little push.
Ditch the annual performance review
Over the last few years, companies of all sizes are starting to move away from traditional generic performance review metrics and processes. The annual review is nearly obsolete, given the pace of change in business and the fact that employees change companies so frequently. Goals set forth a year earlier may no longer be relevant after six months. Performance review planning is also too time-consuming for busy managers these days.
Instead, consider a more organic process where the employee and manager visit quarterly, developing mutual agreements and goals for the coming months. The customized approach is more meaningful and real-time for everyone. A useful reference on modern employee retention tactics is “The Alliance,” co-authored by Reid Hoffman, a founder of LinkedIn. The book’s premise: Stop thinking of employees as family or free agents and start thinking of them as allies on a tour of duty. The “tour of duty” theme is highly relevant in software development, where tactics and objectives are constantly changing and the pressure can be intense. As long as the employer and employee are constantly seeking to get the most mutual value out of the relationship, employee retention should not be an issue.
Offer diverse experiences
Younger employees, including those of the Millennial generation, typically enjoy working in a flat organization where they can take ownership of projects and feel they’re advancing within the organization. Take advantage of that independent ambition by creating smaller teams and giving leadership roles to those who are ready. Younger employees also covet change, so rotational roles can be an excellent way to give them that diversity in experience while also monitoring their progress for long-term career growth. Mid-level employees often feel the highest level of stagnation due to the typically long process of promotion into senior management, so it’s critical to have a strategy for developing and retaining those positions as well.
Motivate and grow senior developers
Organizations often go to great lengths to bring in promising young talent and grow them into senior developers. However, the path beyond for a senior developer often provides a fork in the road, with options to either focus deeper on the technical side as an architect or on the people side as a manager. Executives should support senior developers early in this transition and identify key candidates for each role, and then help them to prepare accordingly.
Make collaboration fun
Developers today should be groomed and evaluated for their collaboration skills. There’s no right way to do this, but a good start is by making collaboration easy and even fun for those highly independent people who haven’t had to communicate much with coworkers in the past. Offer simple chat and social media tools for real-time, online collaboration or feedback tools such as TINYpulse, which can mask someone’s identity if they are too shy to share feedback otherwise. Requiring team members to demo their work in progress for colleagues can encourage collaboration and sharin, and boost product quality through timely feedback. Offer perks or bonuses for those team members who show initiative in teamwork and cross-team collaboration. Needless to say, FACs (happy hours) and other offsite opportunities for the team to unwind together also can break down barriers.
Make innovation a cultural trait
Measuring innovation isn’t straightforward, but making room for it within your organization is a powerful way to both motivate and retain employees and, ultimately, generate business value. Google grabbed headlines a few years ago when it shared its policy of giving technical employees 20 percent of their hours every month to work on independent research projects. Granting employees free time to work on new ideas is smart, but works best if developers are passionate for the business and will reinvest that time in areas that add business value.
More importantly, recognize that innovation is not a program but a cultural value that can only be communicated from the top. Senior-level support for innovation, along with free sharing of ideas, should be baked into team processes and communications. Finally, time is a finite asset. If you’re going to give your team some time off for creative brainstorming, don’t penalize them for lower output or require them to work weekends to make up for it.
Push the soft skills
This is a no-brainer. Modern development teams increasingly are linked hand in hand with business goals and customer outcomes. Therefore, developers must be able to work effectively with business counterparts and understand the language of the business. Give your developers frequent opportunities to present in front of their co-workers for practice, and whenever possible, the chance to work directly with business units on projects.
Look to the community
The days of structured career paths and employee development programs are largely over. Employees want and benefit most by self-learning and exploration with their external communities. This entails giving people leeway to attend meetups, participate in developer contests or attend half-day workshops where developers can interact with others in their field. MOOCs, online degrees and certifications are gaining favor as flexible ways to quickly gain new skills. These informal learning opportunities are much more cost-effective than formal training programs of the past and more relevant. They help employees gain general marketplace knowledge on new development trends and tools, rather than company-specific knowledge and processes.
Investing in technical skills is imperative, yet developers also to want to feel part of a team and work with someone looking out for their career potential. By paying more attention to developers’ personal goals and the needs of the team, software development organizations gain more stability to do what they do best: develop great products.
About the Author/Kevin Dunne
Kevin Dunne is VP of Strategy & Business Development at QASymphony.
