From small to "not so big"

Introduction

I got the luck - and apparently the skills - to work in multiple companies in various roles. I was a manager for the past fourteen years, and I must say that I’ve seen quite a lot of approaches towards solving and even finding a problem.

In this article, I will try to present my point of view - on how the companies can grow.

My expertise is limited to the IT sector - Outsourcing, as well as Gambling, are the two main areas I had the most years. However, looking at the problems, I hear from my friends I believe my observation can very quickly translate towards the entire IT industry.

Risks and problems

Companies by default do not know how to grow - only a few out of hundreds is capable of changing its organisation, goals and communication patterns.

Every single one of them wants to grow to cover more markets, deliver a better quality of the product or be able to fulfil clients’ requirements - so how a company can do so?

People

It sounds simple, but the growth of a company depends on the people that are in this business. Let’s list the risks related to that:

Good people in bad positions

You can notice this very easy, just look for people that do nothing or do everything (that is not relevant to the role they are in), and everybody is working around them. These guys usually “did their part” and currently are surviving in the leadership positions. They have teams that solve problems without their help - because involving them means that the team will have to explain everything from scratch and convince the “I know it all” person that the solution they choose is right.

You want a leader, a person that is motivating the team, enabling them to grow, yet you have someone who just doesn’t like people.

Hard solution:

• Move this person back to the team - you must do this with a story. Moreover, it has to be “for the company sake” or “promotion”.

Fast solution:

• Fire this person. You, the team and the company will be better without.

Bad people in any positions

Having a person in the team that is underperforming, demotivating or is not a team player makes completely no sense. I assume that we are discussing a person that was confronted, her behaviour was discussed and you tried to motivate her.

This person is the reason why people are leaving, the reason why everybody is looking at the management and try to check how little he or she can do before something will happen.

On the other hand - if you will get rid of this person - you have a team that feels important, appreciated and motivated. They know that you are appreciating their comments and they are working with people that care. What is even more important - the team knows that you are looking at them and trying to do all you can to help.

Only solution:

• Fire him/her.

Blocking the change due to losing the “startup” atmosphere

This one is a hard one. So what does this “startup” atmosphere mean?

From what I remember it’s when people are wearing what they want, every single one of them has an impact on what the company is making and the chaos is everywhere. Oh did I mention free booze?

People are afraid of losing their impact and position. Suddenly the information flow is different and some of the “important” topics are missing them. More managers are coming and they are introducing a different solution for something that before was not even treated as a problem.

People are afraid of change, that’s normal.

Hard solution:

• Make sure the teams are growing at their own speed - don’t force the growth if there is no need for it according to them
• Make sure the team leads are chosen by the team, not by you
• Introduce meetings on which CEO will present the vision, goals, and strategy - have it once every 2-weeks/month
• Introduce meetings on which team leads will be able to ask for changes - have it once every 2-weeks/month
• Introduce the changes - or explain why this is not possible

Fast solution:

• Introduce meeting on which you are sharing the plans and visions (“all hands”) - have it once every 2-weeks/month
• Make sure that every team has a team leader and that the team lead has a place to introduce a change (“company retrospective”) and listen to them!

The star that wants to shine

There are people that love fire - and want to see the world burning. And there are people that want to save the world in every step. Chaotic environments is a dream place for them - with every decision, action they are showing and proving that they saved your company/product/project. When the company grows and changes - adding more people, creating processes and starting to actually have a plan. This person is having a big problem - it’s either adjust or die - and the majority of them will select leaving the company. It may look like a problem at the start - but after a few weeks, you will notice that with the disappearance of this person the number of problems that he/she was solving will drastically change. Down to 0 in a few months.

Hard solution:

• Locate the ones that you have in your company and have an open discussion with them.

Staying means more stability and growth, but there will be no more chaos and firefighting all day long.

Fast solution:

• Accept that people are leaving the company because they don’t fit, don’t try to keep them for whatever price - it’s not worth it!

Processes and roles

Having a team that is happy with the company and growth is one. Having processes that are addressing the different needs and are providing you with the visibility and tools that you need is something completely different.

Information sharing

Having a small company means that everything you say will be known. There will be no delays, misinterpretations nor distortions in the message you want to say. The moment when your company grows, these tools are not working anymore. The things you are saying while sitting in front of your computer are not hitting the right audience. You must keep the message as clearly communicated as possible, you must involve the audience in discussions. And finally, you must share your vision of the company with your team.

Hard solution:

• Introduce a meeting - bi-weekly or monthly on which you will show what the company achieved and what you want to achieve
• Create a place for the team to show what they are working on

Fast solution:

• Send mail about goals and achievements in the past month.

Plan (roadmap)

Small companies got a tendency of existing and sliding on the requirements. You are delivering what is currently important, wasting time on things that will never go live. Due to the scale, the costs of mistakes are not that pricey… Now imagine you are starting a project with the team of 10 IT guys for a month. Let’s simplify and assume that you are spending over 40000 euro for a thing that is completely useless, and will never bring you gain.

Small companies can afford lack of clear vision and goal - the moment you have more than 50 employees than a clear roadmap for the next 6-12 months is a must.

Hard solution:

• Introduce a Return of Interest (ROI) for every project you are starting (example: you are creating a new game - how much income will it bring you; you are entering new market - how much your customer pool will grow) and monitor it after you finished the project
• Create a roadmap that answers these questions:
• WHAT - as in what do we want to achieve in 2018.
• WHEN - as in what are the points in time that we want to achieve these goals.
• HOW - as in what are the steps that we must take to make sure that the goals will be fulfilled. 

What does Vision, Milestones, Strategy stands for?

• Vision - high-level goals we want to achieve in the current year - for sake of this article we are simplifying the vision for just a year.
• Milestones - measurable goals so we can track our success.
• Strategy - tasks, projects or additional resources we believe we need for us to achieve the mentioned visions!
• Why - for now, to simplify, we are assuming the answers for all of these points is the same, to earn more!

Fast solution:

• Think ahead - set a goal for the company - make our product better in X, make our product more popular in Y, deliver feature Z.

Place to introduce the change

As a director/manager, you don’t see the struggles that your team is facing. Small things are growing to a size of a mountain and you are not aware of it. I always try to introduce a place for people to get it out of the system to show and discuss. First meetings are hard - but a good communicator will be able to manage them.

Hard solution:

• Introduce a retrospective for the company - give them a place where they can tell you what is good, what they don’t like and want to change and what they hate and you must change. These meetings tend to be very loud and intense at the start but within a few months, it changes into a pleasant conversation about the latest deployment that we can go faster. In every company I introduced it - after 4-6 months we decided to go with less often and less crowded meeting - this was always suggested by the team.

Fast solution:

• Dodge the company meeting and speak directly with the team leads/heads of your department - let them provide you with the struggle their teams are facing and solutions for that.

Use a methodology, create rules.

Every company, project, team, and person is different - and you can’t describe everything with the same words. But you can try to define the frames for it. Project Management methodologies are helping a lot in defining what and how is working. Agile is still a sexy word that everyone wants to use - but in my opinion, the most important aspect is that it created a process of how to manage the project, and it’s a good process. So instead of having a “random encounters status project” introduce the methodology for managing your daily work.

Hard solution:

• Discuss with your team, allow them to change the methodology they want to work and help them adjust to yours and their needs. For start, google “scrum” and “kanban” methodology.

Fast solution:

• Enforce a single methodology - Scrum - and appoint people that will be acting as scrum masters and product owners (please send them for a training).

Communication

In previous point I’ve mentioned about the “random encounters status project”, I wasn’t aware how popular this approach is. The rules of it are very simple:

• Ping the developer every time you see him working on the status of the project
• Disturb his work every time you’re walking past him/her talking about how late the customer had introduced some requirements and how easy it could have been if they had mentioned it right from the beginning
• Create a direct connection between developer and art team to discuss the last minute changes…

Sounds familiar? Please don’t be like that. Think. Developers are constantly focused, they are trying to deliver the best possible solution for the problem you’ve described to them.

Hard solution:

• Introduce a project methodology, standard meetings on which you are getting the status update. Don’t waste time on unneeded discussions. Help your team to do the work and not babble about anything that is not important from their point of view.
• Introduce rules for the meetings:
• No agenda - no participants
• If you have a big meeting and the invitation was sent the same day - no participants
• You can always ask why you were added - if you don’t see the reason for you to be at this meeting - ask organizer.

Fast solution:

• Don’t waste the time of your people.
• Every time you have a meeting - calculate the number of people that are there, multiply by the average salary - and ask yourself - is this discussion worth that cash?

Do you have a different experience, let's chat.