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Craig Nicol (he/him)
Craig Nicol (he/him)

Posted on • Originally published at craignicol.wordpress.com on

CodeCraftConf follow-up : notes on growing a team

Whilst I have a few thoughts I’m still processing after the whirlwind of fantastic insights I got from CodeCraftConf, I wanted to capture some of the highlights from some of the answers to my questions on Growing a Team.

Many thanks to everyone who came to the session. Lots of thoughts coming out of the conference.

When is it time to grow your team?

  • You never grow a team, you create a new one.
  • There’s always too much work, you should grow when you have capacity, so you don’t put new starts off

How do you deal with resistance from existing team members?

  • Communicate clearly and address concerns (e.g, time to mentor)
  • Involve team early
  • Do you have a choice who joins?

Is it more important to find a culture fit or build a diverse team?

  • Do candidates know what they’re signing up for?
  • Introvert vs extrovert (see also hiring practice)
  • Interviews should be structured to filter out arseholes – do they have empathy (or have they been taught to suppress it)
  • Every new hire should bring the level up
  • Don’t just hire for technical skill
  • Diversify your interview pool

What is your biggest worry with your current team size, or with growing your current team?

  • Are you doing Health Checks? Survey staff regularly
  • Make sure the bigger team, outside your daily work, understand the culture – it only feeds from top down
  • Fear of churn
  • Loss of culture
  • Try to understand
  • Make the culture explicit

What practices do you use to ensure sustainable growth?

  • Pair a lot, reflect (e.g. retro)
  • face-to-face regularly, even if it’s video
  • Values workshop – does everyone share them?
  • Social convenor to ensure cohesion
  • Slack channel dedicated to positive feedback on living the values
  • Office/company changes should have their own backlog with an open grooming process so priorities are explicit

How long does it take to integrate someone new?

  • Be careful about language
  • Train everyone in personal skills
  • Listen even when you disagree
  • lack of ego
  • Culture changes people
  • What personalities do you want?
Power corrupts

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