Engineering Teams That Spark Unexpected Innovation
Stephane Moreau ??
Senior Engineering Manager → I help you grow as an EM | Get 50+ Notion Templates & Join My Blog!
?? Notion Templates: "Serendipity Checklist" and the "Shadow Org Chart Worksheet"
Tanya is the Engineering Manager of a team at a fast-growing startup.
Her team builds cutting-edge features, has hired top-notch developers, and has massive potential. But despite the talent in the team, deadlines are missed, last-minute blockers appear out of nowhere, and communication feels clunky.
Tanya discovered two major blind spots:
In this article, you’ll learn how to solve both problems. It’s not rocket science You’ll also get two Notion templates to help you with that:
Outline
Why silos stall innovation
The Problem Engineers are busy. Everyone’s heads are down, focusing on their immediate tasks and maybe sometimes pairing with another engineer.
But this focus creates silos. Fresh ideas rarely make it across team boundaries. I have seen teams solve the same problems in parallel. Or expect the other team to work on a service that no one owns.
What You Can Do
Why It Matters When silos break there are fewer miscommunications, fewer last-minute blockers, and more creative breakthroughs.
Engineering Serendipity (Yes, You Can Plan It)
The Power of “Lucky Accidents” We’ve all had those magical moments where a random chat solves a big technical problem. Those moments feel lucky, but they don’t have to be random.
How to Make It Happen
Immediate Benefits By engineering these casual conversations, you’ll see issues tackled earlier and brainstorming that leads to unforeseen innovations (minus the extra meetings).
The Hidden Org Chart: Who Really Calls the Shots
Why the Official Chart Lies Your company’s org chart shows who reports to whom. But it rarely shows who can kill a project with one sentence. Sometimes it’s a respected staff engineer. Sometimes it’s a well-connected colleague who’s been there for ages.
How to Find the Real Influencers
Stop Fighting Them. Involve Them. Once you know your true gatekeepers, bring them in early. Share updates, invite feedback, and get their buy-in before you’re in too deep.
Your Templates
→ You can get the templates and read the rest of the article here: https://www.blog4ems.com/p/teams-that-spark-unexpected-innovation
Other useful links
VP of Technology | AI & Engineering Leader | Driving Data & AI Innovation in Digital Health, Building Teams & Future Leaders Through Research & Collaboration
1 周Stephane Moreau ?? , we've been doing this for years and I can say from experience that it works. We came to the conclusion as a startup. We were struggling to find our niche and taking on lots of small projects with overlapping deadlines and overlapping requirements. I quickly realized that we could move faster than our competitors because their various teams were building the same things multiple times for different projects instead of combining forces to build pieces that each other could use. It takes a strong engineering lead to be able to pull this off because that person needs to be able to see where all of the overlap is and bring principals in from the right teams to best coordinate.
Ex-Meta. Land a FAANG role or the promotion that you deserve.
1 周Such an important and often overlooked topic. You need to engineer how the team collaborates internally and externally so that lucky encounters can happen.
AI-Driven Hiring & Tech Leadership | Director of Software Engineering at XE
1 周Amazing article, Stephane Moreau ?? - Keeping innovation in the DNA of an organization gets tougher as thy grow. It takes intentional effort to keep that spark alive!