Money decides. "We have three developers, but we do not know how to work"
They write to us:
“Hmm, but give pliz advice.
The real case, three developers, one developer works 100% of the time remotely, the second developer is the chief / co-founder, the third one is a bit awesome newcomer.
General meetings - every six months and then the words do not go. Implementing GIT for all developers fails, all overwhelmed with current work.
Are there ways to improve the situation? ”
We have an anniversary - 500 people subscribed to Yandex.Money Habrablog. In honor of this, we launch an experimental rubric - we take the question of one of the readers, related to the working situation, and carefully pass it on to our Yandex.Money colleagues who know life. On today's question, some thought that I was playing with them and specially invented such a strange situation. Surprisingly, but no.
Yulia Maltseva, Yandex.Money Project Manager
I see two problems. The first is an unstructured process and the absence of agreements. The second is psychological and emotional perception. It seems that the author has many personality barriers that he “cherishes” with pleasure and continues to pull them. Therefore, the agreement can not be implemented. Why, if PM still any justification?
For him, the problem is that the developer is remote.
For him, the problem is that the second developer is both a subordinate and an employer.
For him, the problem is that the novice is "stunning." I suspect that behind this the author masks a reluctance to see that the novice does not pull, or that his skills are still lagging behind the product tasks. Or the “stunner” has come to terms with the fact that the PM stops pestering if he sees some kind of emotional barrier and continues to play these games for a salary. That is, in a conversation with PM, it often speaks not about the work, not about the work done, but about “what a mess is going on here.”
And the mess probably happens because see point 1 - an unstructured process that brings everyone upset and does not allow them to work productively.
You can designate a third misfortune - the author must stop justifying himself. This is not a team is not very, this is not found a PM recipe.
What to do if changing the profession is not an option?
Important - it is about the profession, and not about a particular place of work.
1. Build processes
And remember that you are one team. And any team is important unity, the synchronization of effort and the knowledge that team effort is more important than personal.
Arrange synchronization
Set a daily meeting at the same time, which can only be skipped due to illness, on vacation or during time off. Meeting the grandmother at the airport, the delivery of building materials and everything in this spirit is not a good reason. Remote developer participates by phone, the rest - live. Format: a ten-minute meeting in which everyone tells what he has done, what he will do today and what problems he has.
Organize unity
Start planning development. Somehow. Even if there is a chaotic misapplication of tasks and support for old launched features, and the guys are not overwhelmed with the trail with the questions "why the tab does not open."
Understand the amount of such unpredictable development and the remainder of the sprint / week / reporting period take on important business objectives. Big business tasks, divide into stages and, having thrust into your sprint / week / reporting period, formulate a specific goal for each stage.
2. Line up work with your expectations and emotions
We remember that we are either professionals and hired us to run the process, or we are aching seals and we are going to sweep the street.
Collect anonymous and honest feedback, conduct quarterly and semi-annual reviews. Ask each of them what they like about working in a company, what they like about working in a team, what they like about working with you personally. And vice versa, what's not to like about all three points.
Be sure to give feedback in the format “I see that this is happening. This leads to something. I see several options to change this, but I am ready to accept your ideas. ” No need for emotions - we need facts and solutions.
I would also suggest organizing a second periodic process for issuing feedback - a retrospective. Implement, if you can tighten the remote for a day in the office or connect via video. Video communication is a critical point, without it it will be difficult to see that a person is involved, facial expressions, gestures, which often speak more than words.
3. Organize your cockroaches
Example
With a remoteer, the work is structured so that every day he has a specific Definition of Done. He has to say what he will do to the next rally and the next synchronization. And if this does not happen, it should explain why. We need formal goals - “what will be done for this task tomorrow?”.
With the boss, we remember that for a specific task he is a performer, not a chef. He is a developer, and we demand from him as a developer.
As a newcomer, remember that he is also a developer and may make mistakes, but he still needs to have specific things that he does. It should bring results.
The most important
No need to try to play the celestial being, who will decide everything himself. The author is surrounded by smart and talented people. It is quite normal to give them the right to vote and decision making.
For example, the head says: we need daily meetings, explains why, and proposes to start them at 10.00. If everyone agrees, that's fine. If not, then you need to let this moment go. The employees had a task - to choose the time for a 10 minute meeting. Let them agree among themselves about a convenient time.
In general, there is not and can not be any silver bullet. Everything I have written is a very long way ahead, and there is still half missing. Therefore, there is no short advice, and a long one is too long.
That's all. Share your situations in the comments - we will tell about them to those who already have experience in such matters, and then we will answer with a separate post. Participating project managers, developers, testers, editors, analysts and all the rest. And subscribe to not miss new answers.