HH 008 - The Dynamic of Dynamic Reteaming

Teams evolve and change. They’re dynamic.

People will join your teams and they will leave your teams. 

Structurally you can see the changes. One less person in the standup. Or maybe three new people join it.

The absence or addition of people causes changes to your communication and work. You might have more meetings. More zoom calls.  Or maybe now they have less people in them and they get shorter or go away. Maybe your workload doubles. You might miss the jokes and anecdotes from that one coworker who left. Or maybe the new hire brings the positivity and optimism your team has been needing.

Things will feel different, because they are, even though these changes seem obvious and straightforward- sometimes they are not.

This is a layer on top of product development and coding, and design and software delivery. As if doing all of that wasn’t hard enough. It’s the layer of human emotion and complaints and joy and learning that reteaming brings.

Sometimes the reteaming feels like crap. You hate it. It’s not what you want to have happen. The coworkers you loved working with are laid off. I’ve been there and it can rip your heart out.

And other times, maybe the changes are different. They’re your idea. You want nothing more than for them to happen. Maybe it’s a team split. Maybe you hire 10 people.  Who knows, the point is you want the reteaming.

But maybe the person next to you doesn’t and that impacts things in ways that you don’t prefer. We are like individual ants but we are not always marching in the same direction. You need to get out the honey for that to happen or as my teenager does, leave the food out, forgotten in your room.

Dynamic reteaming is complex. It’s what you love and what you hate. It sometimes feels like progress and at other times it feels like an obstacle or a setback.

So what now?

Focus on how you want to be in your team, in your work, in your life, in your dynamic. How can you help others around you? How can you put your attention out, really listen, acknowledge what other people say and, ahem, give a shit?

You can be deliberate about all that.

Talk about the endings. Support people to find new beginnings whether they are out of your company or still in your company. Know that even if it’s great for you, it might not be for the person next to you. See how you can help each other.

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I have a draft manuscript of my new book, called Being a Senior Engineering Leader, the Hourglass of Communication and Relationship Building. I’m looking for people who want to read it and give me feedback so I can improve it. Ideally engineering managers, directors, VPs and CTOs. If that’s you please reach out to me via Email. It’s a short 50 page PDF.

I’m also excited to share that I’ve joined Artium. I’ll be building some new and exciting consulting offerings in the days to come, and now I can also help you with projects that go well beyond my own skill set. I’m super pumped especially because the CEO of Artium, Ross Hale, worked with me as a pivot when I was at AppFolio. He and the other wonderful pivots trained me in xp, balanced teams and other truly agile ways of working so this is like a loop in my career. Super cool. (Pivot refers to what a consultant was called at Pivotal Labs who engaged with us back in the day.). This newsletter has nothing to do with Artium by the way, it’s a Heidi Inc. production.

If you want to listen to the second edition of Dynamic Reteaming it’s now on audible.

In May I will be in Budapest for Craft and Chicago for GoTo Chicago. Come say hi if you’re in either of those places.

If you've gotten this far, thanks for reading. 

This newsletter was written with my brain and not ChatGPT, so if there are typos they are authentic.