Leadership Forums

I want to talk about one of the Software Delivery Community initiatives we have going on at Opencast, the "Leadership Forum", where it came from, why it exists and the benefits it's having already.

Where it came from?

When I first joined Opencast in 2021, there was an informal fortnightly "Senior Developers coffee call", where we'd drop in, discuss issues we were having, drink coffee and generally get to know everyone and what was going on across the various clients. However without a specific focus and a mission statement for who the call was intended for, it ended up meandering before finally it stopped sometime in 2022.

However, the idea of a more informal support group was something which really spoke to me, and I knew I wanted to do something with that again, but I just needed the time to focus on it. Fast-forward to me accidentally posting in the old Teams group for the Senior Devs call, and seeing a lot of interest spark up, providing the spark to actually make me sit down and hash out a new Forum.

Why the Leadership Forum exists?

My initial starting point before setting up any meetings was to define the Mission Statement of the Forum, why, who, when, what name?

Why?

• To provide mentoring and peer support for colleagues who were having challenges when leading teams.
• To provide ideas to help colleagues grow into team lead roles in future.
• To allow colleagues to find peers who they could privately talk about sensitive topics/issues with.
• To reduce the time demands on Senior Leadership and our Practice Leads, by sharing the load over the plethora of knowledgeable Consultants.
• To share best practices and Opencast values.
• To use Lean Coffee to allow multiple voices and issues to be discussed.

Who?

• I wanted to create a forum which would be open to those currently in Leadership positions and those wanting to grow into it.
• If people didn't feel comfortable joining directly, they should be able to talk to their PEEP, myself or a Community Lead, who could encourage them to come along. (I believe I said to someone "Yes this is explicitly for you too").
• A rising tide raises all boats after all.

When?

• Fortnightly to begin with, so it didn't eat lots of time, but we'd have plenty of touchpoints.
• I considered Monthly, or a reduction down the line, but it keeps having extremely strong discussions so right now, Fortnightly seems to be working for us.

The Name

• I hate the name "Leadership Forum", not going to lie, but finding something better wasn't going to happen.
• I like naming things with the Ronseal approach, do what it says on the tin. And this is a Forum for Leaders and Leadership Growth discussions.
• So why don't I like "Leadership" as a name, well, we have the concept, as I'm sure many companies do, of "Lead Consultants", "Senior Leadership Teams", who are generally the more senior and management levels. And I wanted a name which was accessible to the audience I'd set out to cater for, "Leadership", "Lead", they have a lot of other connotations.

Now that I had a name, a purpose and an audience, it was time to create a Teams channel, a public calendar and get those meeting invites out!

Boy was I blown away by the support I received for it, we've had excellent turn outs at every Forum, they've run themselves when I've not been around to facilitate, we've covered various difficult topics and empowered our consultants as a result, and we're uncovering new pain points that need to be raised with our other internal teams!

I've had great feedback from my peers, especially Amaal Ali - who is always supportive and kind, along the lines of "I'm glad you brought this back, you're someone I trust to help keep us on track".

Doing it in your company.

You've heard of the Spotify model I'm sure, and other methods people have done to cross-pollinate ideas between teams. This is just one of many ideas out there, but I highly encourage you to look at peer-support networks in your business, they ensure the company culture stays strong as you grow, they provide safe-spaces where people can talk freely with their peers without worry about how it might impact pay/performance, and they allow those peers doing the mentoring to grow a new aspect of themselves!

Define your Mission Statement.

Figure out your Audience.

And watch it fly!