Three Things You Can Do To Lead a Productive Tech Team
Leadership comes with a lot of responsibilities and sometimes sacrifice. As a result-oriented leader, you must be always willing to take responsibility for everything that happens within your department.
Since I started leading a team of over twenty (20) developers at my current employment, I can tell for sure that there are a couple of things I have learnt from a leadership position.
If you are leading a software development team and want to ensure that product quality is the highest priority you can set. I have put together some personal attributes a team leader must have, these are based on my experience:
1. Be knowledgeable
A lot of team leads fail in this aspect, imagine leading a team responsible for building a tech product and you have absolutely no idea of what tools or software applications the team requires to deliver on the said project. That’s already a disaster waiting to happen. You need to constantly learn and understand new trends and new ways of doing things. The most important part of any project or product is the “RESULT”.
If your developer wants to use REAT to build the front-end but you are only familiar with HTML and CSS, before you say no, you need to find out if REAT can be used to achieve the same result, if it can make the delivery of the project faster, what are the disadvantages? Etc. always ensure that you ask a lot of questions to gain an understanding of what the plans are. I have managed projects written in a language I don’t code in, the fact that I understand how most code base and code structure works, I didn’t have issues with projects. The most important thing is the result and functionality of these applications.
2. Be Involved
Don’t just wait for demo sessions, get involved during the development phase. You don’t necessarily need to review the developer’s code line-by-line each day or each week, rather, get to know what challenges they are facing and proffer solutions to these issues as quickly as you can.
A lot of developers spend time on the internet searching for a solution to some issues that they could have asked you for guidelines, but because you’re not actively involved and you’re waiting for presentations and actual product demos, delivery timelines are being prolonged.
Get to know what your developers are struggling with and be more interested in the issues they are facing. I’m not a fan of micromanaging team members, I love to see them use their initiatives, in as much as I love to see them grow, I will still have to meet with them, ask questions about what they are working on and give instant feedback, this has helped me in saving a lot of development time. If you wait for days/weeks before getting involved, chances are that they might be doing something a bit different from what the business expects.
3. Understand your team members
This is very important when managing a group of people even if they are not developers.
Employees have different ways of doing things, especially developers, some like to do most of the hard jobs at night, trust me a lot of people are like that.
So, if you are expecting your team member to deliver a product and you are saying this must be done before COB (Close of Business) today, there’s every tendency that the developer might not be thinking in that direction, they are probably thinking about the logic they need to write to implement this. Some are very productive during the day and can deliver when you call upon them.
These sets of people might also not be available at night, maybe when there’s an “emergency” task to be done, does that mean they are not productive or good enough for the job? NO. it’s up to you to understand how to get the best out of them. While doing this it is also important to recognize and honour teamwork. Your team members will feel empowered if you express gratitude for their professionalism and work ethic. They’ll keep producing top-notch work and strive to achieve success. Your leadership abilities will shine through by assisting them in becoming a strong team and producing the best job possible while also encouraging them to advance and offering rewards along the way.
In conclusion, leading a productive tech team requires a combination of personal knowledge, staying up-to-date, and fostering a culture of learning and growth.
By following these three tips above, you’ll be well on your way to leading a successful and productive tech team.
About the Author:
Kenneth Nwanganga is the Chief Technical Officer (CTO) at GIGM, a Nigerian-based transportation company that operates in several African countries. He is responsible for the company’s technical operations and plays a key role in the development and implementation of new technologies and systems to improve the company’s services and operations.
Before joining GIGM, Kenneth Nwanganga has a successful career in the technology industry, having worked for Waknow.com as a Senior Front-end Developer. He has a wealth of experience in software development, data analytics, and project management, which has helped him to bring innovative solutions to GIGM.
